From here on out, I will be tracking and reporting on the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Sentiment Survey, instead of the Investors Intelligence report.

Much like the Investors Intelligence report, the AAII survey has a bullish percentage and a bearish percentage reported each week and represents what direction members feel the stock market will be in the next six months. The difference is AAII is individual investors instead of investment newsletter editors.

For the week ended Jan. 8, the report shows a bullish percentage of 43.6 percent and a bearish percentage of 25 percent for a ratio of 1.74.

This isn't too much of a bullish skew, but the ratio was at 2.97 on Dec. 26, and that was the highest reading since January 2011 and the second highest reading of the past eight years.

This particular indicator tends to change more rapidly than does the Investors Intelligence ratio, which is to be expected when you are dealing with individual investors rather than institutions.

The one thing to be sure of is that it is a contrarian indicator just like most that I track. When the numbers get skewed decidedly to one side or the other, your best move is to take the opposite stance.