This reading is higher than 90% of all those taken during the past year, indicating that investors have been more pessimistic of the shares only 10% of the time during the past year.

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At the same time, the American people are in a profoundly pessimistic and angry mood.

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When a market correction is underway, investors naturally become increasingly pessimistic and bearish as their losses mount, so that by the time corrections end investor sentiment is usually at an extreme of bearishness.

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Views of the potential economic impact at the time of the disaster "ranged from extremely optimistic to extremely pessimistic, " Kiuchi wrote, but both now seem wide of the mark.

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