Market Desk
Illustrative sample data — not live market feeds Last refresh: Aug 7, 2026, 4:15 PM ET

Sentiment

How fearful or greedy the tape is, what consumers say about the economy, and how options traders are positioned.

Volatility & Options

Market Sentiment

CNN Fear & Greed Index, 0–100
62
Greed
Illustrative sample value — not a live feed.

Put/Call Ratio

CBOE, total (all products)

Trend

Dashed lines mark the reference bands

Latest reading
0.61

Readings below ~0.7 have historically leaned bullish (more call buying); above ~1.0 has leaned bearish/hedging-heavy.

Illustrative sample value — not a live feed.

Consumer Sentiment

University of Michigan, preliminary

Index level

Last 12 months

Latest reading
68.4
▲ 1.5 pts vs. prior (66.9)

Pre-2020 long-run average runs roughly 96, for reference.

Illustrative sample value — not a live feed.
Positioning

AAII Investor Sentiment

Weekly survey, dates to 1987

Bulls vs. Bears

Weekly %, history builds up over time from this site's own scrapes

Bull–bear spread
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Bullish -- / Neutral -- / Bearish --

COT Index — Leveraged Funds, S&P 500

CFTC, weekly, trailing 3-yr percentile

Leveraged-fund positioning percentile

0 = most bearishly positioned in the trailing 3 years, 100 = most bullish

Latest COT Index
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Stand-in for NAAIM, which moved behind a paid subscription in Aug 2026. Derived from CFTC E-mini S&P 500 futures positioning (Leveraged Funds long minus short, percentile-ranked against its own trailing 3-year range) rather than a manager survey, but reads the same way: high = crowded long/aggressive positioning, low = crowded short/defensive.

Claude Report

Independent daily market read, researched each morning
Claude Market Read

Sentiment leans greedy, but conviction is soft

The composite gauge sits at 62 — solidly in Greed territory, but well off the 80+ readings that usually mark euphoric, hard-to-sustain tops. Positioning data agrees with the tone rather than the intensity: the put/call ratio has drifted down to 0.61 from 0.68, a five-session average of 0.65, consistent with traders adding call exposure rather than reaching for downside protection.

Consumer sentiment is the more interesting mover — a third straight monthly gain to 68.4 as inflation expectations have eased — but the index is still running well below its pre-2020 norm, so "improving" and "confident" are not the same thing yet. Read together, the setup looks like cautious optimism building from a low base rather than late-cycle exuberance: greedy positioning without the crowding that usually precedes a sentiment air-pocket.

Illustrative sample text — not a live model output.