Household equity exposure is ten percentage points below its November 2021 peak. Even with that decline, it is only now approaching its long-term average. Bond exposure remains below its long-term average and cash exposure in October moved above its long-term average for the first time since COVID.
Why It Matters: Moods are sour, but for all the talk of rampant pessimism & historic levels of bearishness, individual investors have not abandoned stocks. This is as evident in the AAII asset allocation survey as it is in the latest ETF flow data. For the amount of pessimism that is being seen elsewhere, there is relatively little cash on the sidelines. If there is an underowned and unloved asset class it is either bonds or commodities, not stocks.
In this week’s Sentiment Report we take a closer look at how investors are feeling and how that squares with what they are doing.
