Bulls Retreat – Thursday, March 1

With continued volatility in the market, individual investors are increasingly becoming leery of equities without turning outright bearish. In the latest weekly survey of investor sentiment from AAII, bullish sentiment dropped from 44.65% down to 37.28%. That’s the second lowest weekly reading of the year behind only the 37.03% level we saw right at the lows in early February.

While bullish sentiment saw a pretty sizable decline in just the last week and is off its highs in early January, bearish sentiment hasn’t seen much of an uptick.In this week’s survey, bearish sentiment came in at just 23.41%.

Neutral sentiment, on the other hand, has surged in recent weeks. This week’s level of 39.3% is the highest since last July, indicating that while investors have become more skittish of the market, they haven’t been completely shaken out.