LIVE MARKETS-Individual Investors pitch tents in the neutral camp - AAII

Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com

INDIVIDUAL INVESTORS PITCH TENTS IN THE NEUTRAL CAMP - AAII

Neutral sentiment among individual investors over the short-term outlook for U.S. stocks rose in the latest American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey. With this, both optimism and pessimism fell slightly.

Meanwhile, more than half of investors surveyed thought the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates was the right decision.

AAII reported that neutral sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, rose 3.9 percentage points to 26.7%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 12th consecutive week.

Bullish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, slipped 1.2 percentage points to 49.6%. Bullish sentiment is "unusually high" for the second consecutive week and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 46th time in 47 weeks.

Bearish sentiment, or expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months, dipped 2.7 percentage points to 23.7%. Bearish sentiment is below its historical average of 31.0% for the sixth time in seven weeks.

With these changes, the bull-bear spread ticked up 1.5 percentage points to 25.9% percentage points from 24.4% last week. The spread is above its historical average of 6.5% for the 20th time in 21 weeks.

In this week’s special question, AAII asked its members about their views on the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points:

Here is AAII's graphic showing how they responded:

(Terence Gabriel)

*****

FOR FRIDAY'S EARLIER LIVE MARKETS POSTS:

A PCE OF CAKE: FRIDAY DATA ROUNDUP - CLICK HERE

DOW LEADS WALL STREET GAINS WITH TECH WEIGHING ON NASDAQ - CLICK HERE

$5.8 BILLION BITCOIN OPTIONS EXPIRY AHEAD - CLICK HERE

U.S. STOCK FUTURES PUSH SLIGHTLY HIGHER AFTER PCE - CLICK HERE

COULD CHINA'S STIMULUS HELP FRENCH STOCKS? - CLICK HERE

JAPAN'S ISHIBA VICTORY CLEARS WAY FOR BOJ RATE HIKES - CLICK HERE

CHINA STIMULUS COULD BE 'GAME CHANGER' FOR RISK ASSETS - UBS - CLICK HERE

STOXX 600 HITS RECORD HIGH - CLICK HERE

EUROPEAN FUTURES STEADY - CLICK HERE

BEIJING PULLS OUT THE POLICY STOPS - CLICK HERE