Market temperature (12/31)

The fear and greed index was developed by CNNMoney to measure two of the primary emotions that influence how much investors are willing to pay for stocks.

The fear and greed index is measured on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. In theory, the index can be used to gauge whether the stock market is fairly priced. This is based on the logic that excessive fear tends to drive down share prices, and too much greed tends to have the opposite effect.

Fear & Greed Index
What emotion is driving the market?

Safe Haven Demand: Extreme Greed

Stocks have outperformed bonds by 6.59 percentage points during the last 20 trading days. This is close to the strongest performance for stocks relative to bonds in the past two years and indicates investors are rotating into stocks from the relative safety of bonds.

Last changed Dec 28 from a Greed rating.

Investors in low quality junk bonds are accepting 1.72 percentage points in additional yield over safer investment grade corporate bonds. While this spread is historically high, it is sharply lower than recent prices and suggests that investors are pursuing higher risk strategies.

Last changed Dec 3 from a Greed rating.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is at 17.33. This is a neutral reading and indicates that market risks appear low.

Last changed Dec 6 from an Extreme Fear rating.