What Is the Market Mood Index?
The Market Mood Index is a single number from 0 to 100 that sums up how investors are behaving right now. Low numbers mean fear: investors are selling risky assets and buying safe ones. High numbers mean greed: they are buying stocks, small companies and junk bonds, and volatility is low. It is updated through the trading day from public market prices, with about a 15-minute delay.
- 0–24 Extreme Fear
- 25–44 Fear
- 45–55 Neutral
- 56–75 Greed
- 76–100 Extreme Greed
How It Is Calculated
The index averages four equal parts. Each part averages its own signals.
Trend
Is the market rising, and are most stocks taking part? Momentum (the S&P 500 against its 125-day average), trend breadth (how many of the 11 sector funds are above their 50-day average) and participation (whether the average stock keeps up with the biggest ones).
Risk appetite
Are investors choosing riskier assets over safer ones? Consumer discretionary against consumer staples, high-beta against low-volatility stocks, small caps against the S&P 500, and junk bonds against investment-grade bonds.
Stress
Is money hiding? How much stocks have actually been swinging, stocks against long Treasury bonds, stocks against gold, the US dollar, and corporate bonds against Treasuries.
Volatility outlook
What do traders expect next? The VIX (the market's own forecast of S&P 500 swings over the next 30 days), the volatility premium (the VIX against the swings that actually happened; when real swings outrun the forecast, fear is taking hold) and short-term against mid-term VIX futures.
Scoring
Each signal is scored by comparing today's value with the past one year and the past three years. A score of 80 means today's value is greedier than about 80% of past days. Using both periods keeps the scale honest after a long calm or stormy stretch. Signals where a high value means fear, such as volatility, are flipped so that 0 is always fear and 100 is always greed.
What History Shows
The table covers every trading day the index has been calculated for, using the same method throughout: 3,048 days from Sep 17, 2014 to Oct 29, 2026. It shows what the S&P 500 did after each kind of reading, and it updates as new days are added. The most recent three months are not counted yet, because what came after them isn't known.
| Mood | Share of days | Next 1 month | Next 3 months | Up after 3 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extreme Fear | 9% | +2.19% | +7.03% | 83% |
| Fear | 28% | +0.71% | +2.75% | 70% |
| Neutral | 24% | +1.12% | +2.62% | 77% |
| Greed | 36% | +1.06% | +2.69% | 75% |
| Extreme Greed | 3% | +0.46% | +3.97% | 80% |
| All days | 100% | +1.06% | +3.12% | 75% |
After Extreme Fear, the S&P 500 averaged +7.03% over the next three months, against +3.12% across all days. After Extreme Greed, the next month averaged +0.46% (all days: +1.06%), and three months later the S&P 500 was higher on 80% of those days.
Keep the limits in mind. Extreme readings come in a handful of episodes (such as 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2025), so a few sharp rebounds weigh heavily on the averages. Past results don't guarantee future returns.
Important
The Market Mood Index is general information, not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Market data comes from public sources with a delay and can be missing or wrong. See our disclaimer.