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Fear & Greed insights, 2026-10-04

Weekly statistics computed from the accumulated index data: series since 2025-10-06, collected here since 2026-10-04. Descriptive, not advice or prediction.

The composite

 index now  31.2 (fear)      year: mean 41  median 41  min 5  max 71
 percentile of its own year   28
 previous close   28   1w   37   1m   46   1y   55
 consecutive closes in fear (<45): 20
 days by rating this year: fear 109, greed 60, extreme fear 41, neutral 40

Indicators, each against its own year

 INDICATOR                        NOW      YEAR PCTILE   SCORE (rating)
 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 S&P 500 level                   7722.72    94           37 (fear)
 Net new 52wk highs-lows           -8.38     0            1 (extreme fear)
 McClellan volume summation       144.91     0            1 (extreme fear)
 5-day put/call ratio               0.76    67           33 (fear)
 VIX                               15.31    14           50 (neutral)
 20d stock minus bond return        3.34    74           52 (neutral)
 Junk vs IG yield spread            1.25    24           44 (fear)
 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 S&P vs 125-day MA +3.4%   1y change +14.6%   off 1y high -1.0%
 VIX vs 50-day MA -3.4%   year median 17.2   year max 31.1
 30d change: index -16  breadth -828  strength -7.8  put/call +0.019

Flags (fixed rules)

 DIVERGENCE: index price in the top of its year while breadth and/or strength sit in the bottom decile: a narrow market.
 CALM FEAR: composite in fear while VIX sits in the bottom quartile of its year: sentiment soured without panic pricing.
 PERSISTENT: 20 consecutive closes below 45.

Commentary (2026-10-04)

The week's defining feature is the gap between the index's face and its insides. The S&P sits one percent off its one-year high and 3.4 percent above its 125-day average, yet both breadth measures printed their worst readings of the entire year, and the McClellan summation fell more than 800 points in a month. A market at highs where the average stock is being sold is a narrow market, and the composite's drop from 46 to 31 in a month is scoring that narrowness, not the headline price.

The second feature is how quiet the fear is. Twenty straight closes in fear territory, yet the VIX is in the bottom sixth of its year and below its own 50-day average, credit spreads are near their tights, and the put/call ratio is drifting rather than spiking. Options and credit markets are not paying for protection against the thing breadth is worried about. Historically these two camps do not stay in disagreement for long; the data here cannot yet say which one tends to blink first, and that is exactly the question this page's accumulating history is meant to answer in future years.

Watch next week: whether strength (net new highs minus lows) can climb back above zero, and whether the index's bounce off 28 holds. A fourth week below 45 with price still at highs would make this one of the more persistent divergences in the dataset's window.