What Is the Fear and Greed Index?

By Anders Bylund – Updated Apr 9, 2025 at 12:28 PM EST

Key Points

Fear and greed index measures market sentiments, guiding investment decisions.
Extreme scores on the index signal potential buying or corrective times.
Historical data from the index can identify market trends and sentiment shifts.

Investing markets often run on human emotions. Master investors like Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham recommend keeping your emotions in check while researching stock ideas. And if your nerves have to come into play, you should be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when the market as a whole is fearful.

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Two people sharing a couch and displaying opposite emotions. One is excited, and the other is not. — Image source: Getty Images.

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As the initial shock wore off and investors began to digest the long-term implications of the pandemic, coupled with the arrival of effective vaccines with unprecedented government and central bank interventions, the index gradually climbed back. Investors regained their appetite for promising risk/reward situations and cautious optimism about the market's long-term resilience.

This swift oscillation between fear and greed not only highlighted the index's sensitivity to market dynamics but also underscored its potential as a tool for investors to gauge sentiment shifts and adjust their strategies accordingly. As expected, the index never offered a perfect map of future stock market moves, but its broader trends over time provided helpful markers of Wall Street's short-term momentum.

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About the Author

Anders Bylund is a contributing Motley Fool media and technology analyst covering semiconductors, cloud computing, internet infrastructure, quantum computing, and streaming media. Previously, Anders was a systems administrator for Nielsen Technology and CSX, gaining hands-on experience with enterprise-class systems. He was also a freelance writer for Ars Technica, TIME, USA Today, CNN, WIRED, and AOL's Daily Finance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in library and information sciences from Florida State University. He believes in coyotes and time as an abstract.

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