Nov 3, 2025 6 min read

Heatmap Update

Heatmap Update
Photo by Florian Wehde / Unsplash

3 November 2025

Top 3 This Week

  1. Sentiment has returned to the bullish levels of early October. We keep the Sentiment Score at -1.
  2. Japanese equities the most bullish in DM, but with room for upside if new government hopes are backed up with action.
  3. Gold less bullish. Bull-Bear balance fell from an all-time high of net 70% bullish to net 20% bullish, the lowest in 15 months.

Sentiment Overview

  • Overall sentiment is back to early-October levels.
  • For now, we’re keeping the Sentiment Score at –1 (on a –3 to +3 scale). A few more good days for equities could push our Risk-On/Risk-Off indicator to a new high and tip the score to –2.
  • The Heatmap has risen to 62, its highest since the correction and closing in on the year-to-date high of 64 from early October. For context: the 2024 peak was 66, and the historical sell threshold is 73. Historically, this zone corresponds to below-average 12-month equity returns.
  • 12 indicators now sit at bullish extremes (above the 90th percentile), up from eight last week. These span a wide range — equity ETF flows, macro hedge-fund beta, net call volumes, Nasdaq 100 put/call ratio, consumer data, institutional surveys, and AAII cash allocations.
  • Five indicators (up from four) are near bearish extremes (below the 10th percentile), all tied to political or geopolitical risk. While geopolitical risk can provide useful contrarian buy signals, political-uncertainty indicators have not historically done so.
  • AAII cash allocations have fallen to the 4th percentile, the lowest in four years and nearing the historical sell threshold.
  • NAAIM Exposure, which tracks active U.S. managers’ equity exposure, rose to the highest level since June 2024. It has a strong record of buy signals when exposure is low, but less reliability for sell signals when exposure is high.
  • The AAII Sentiment Survey ticked up and returned to net bullish territory at +7%. Still below the +10% seen a few weeks ago and well under historical sell thresholds.

Equity Sectors

  • Most bullish: Information Technology
  • Most bearish: Health Care
  • Information Technology now tops our sentiment ranking, narrowly ahead of Communication Services. The broader trend remains clear: Tech sentiment keeps grinding higher.

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