Individual stocks have their own sentiment, but they all float on the tide of the broader market's mood. When that mood swings between fear and greed, it drags almost everything with it — which is why reading market-wide sentiment is the context that makes per-ticker sentiment useful.
What "market sentiment" means
Market sentiment is the aggregate attitude of investors toward the market as a whole — risk-on or risk-off, greedy or fearful. It is not a fundamental value; it is a mood, and moods overshoot in both directions. That overshoot is exactly what contrarian and mean-reversion strategies try to exploit.
How the Fear & Greed Index works
The best-known gauge, CNN's Fear & Greed Index, blends several indicators — momentum, market breadth, demand for safe havens, volatility, put/call ratios, and junk-bond demand — into a single 0–100 score. Low readings signal fear (investors are defensive); high readings signal greed (investors are reaching for risk).
- Extreme fear: often where capitulation and bottoms form — historically a better time to buy than to panic.
- Extreme greed: complacency and stretched positioning — a time to tighten risk, not add it.
- The middle: less actionable on its own; lean on per-ticker sentiment for an edge.
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful — sentiment indices put a number on "others."
Combining market and per-ticker sentiment
Market-wide sentiment sets the backdrop; per-ticker sentiment finds the opportunity. A bullish composite on a single name means more when the broad market is fearful and washed out than when greed is already maxed out and everything is extended. Read the index for context, then use ticker-level sentiment for selection and timing.
Sintinel folds market-wide indicators like fear and greed into its scoring context, so the composite for any ticker is read against the mood of the whole market — not in a vacuum.