BofA’s composite positioning gauge, 0–10: above 8 = “extreme bull” (contrarian sell), below 2 = “extreme bear” (contrarian buy). 08/2026 print ~9, which Barchart headlines as “one of the strongest sell signals this century.”
Read the signal history on the chart itself — it’s asymmetric. The extreme-bear triggers (Jan’19, Mar’20, May’22, Mar’25) sit at sharp, tradeable bottoms; the extreme-bull triggers include Jan’04 and Mar’06, each years before the top, plus Oct’25 — after which the market kept rallying to the current record. Fear extremes time bottoms because panic is an event; greed extremes mislabel tops because euphoria is a process that can run for quarters. Same lesson as Call-volume extremes: positioning extremes size risk, they don’t date the turn.