Two crowds on one 0 to 100 scale. Dumb money is retail sentiment from Reddit and X, ranked against its own history. Smart money is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, published unchanged. This page tracks the gap.
As of , dumb money (retail sentiment from Reddit and X) reads 27 (Fear) while smart money, the CNN Fear & Greed Index, reads 34 (Fear). The gap of +7 points stays inside the ±23-point band, so the index reads balanced.
The retail crowd ranked against its own history, smart money as CNN publishes it. The shading flags the days when the gap is stretched: green when smart money leads, red when the crowd leads, faint when balanced. Hover any day.
How far the two sides have pulled apart over the 45 days shown above, plus what fed each score today.
| Day | Retail | Smart money | Divergence | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 28 | 27 Fear | 34 Fear | +7 | Balanced |
| Sep 25 | 41 Fear | 37 Fear | -4 | Balanced |
| Sep 24 | 27 Fear | 36 Fear | +9 | Balanced |
| Sep 23 | 43 Fear | 33 Fear | -10 | Balanced |
| Sep 22 | 74 Greed | 35 Fear | -39 | Crowd |
| Sep 21 | 63 Greed | 34 Fear | -29 | Crowd |
| Sep 18 | 26 Fear | 30 Fear | +4 | Balanced |
| Sep 17 | 59 Greed | 28 Fear | -31 | Crowd |
The retail leg of this index is one /market-sentiment call per source. Pull the same daily aggregates for Reddit, X, news and Polymarket, then score them however your strategy needs.
Already have a key? Read the API documentation or query it from your terminal with the finance sentiment CLI.
Dumb money and smart money are market shorthand. Dumb money is the retail crowd, which the popular view says chases moves late. Smart money is the side assumed to be better informed, such as institutions and hedgers. The idea behind every version of the index is that the two sides disagree most around turning points. Neither side is right every day.
The Smart Money Index popularized by Don Hays compares how the Dow trades in the first half hour of the session, when retail orders tend to arrive, with the last hour, when professionals are more active. SentimenTrader's Smart Money / Dumb Money Confidence combines mostly real-money gauges: hedgers such as commercial traders in index futures on the smart side, trend followers such as small speculators on the dumb side. This page takes a different route to the same question. For the two older retail gauges, the AAII survey and the CNN index on its own, see AAII vs CNN Fear & Greed vs Adanos: investor sentiment indicators compared.
| Index | Dumb money measured by | Smart money measured by |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Money Index (Don Hays) | Dow move in the first 30 minutes | Dow move in the last hour |
| Smart Money / Dumb Money Confidence (SentimenTrader) | Trend-following gauges, such as small speculators in index futures | Hedging gauges, such as commercial hedgers in index futures |
| Adanos Fear & Greed Index (this page) | What retail investors post on Reddit and X | The CNN Fear & Greed Index |
Most versions infer retail mood from price action or positioning. This index reads it from what retail investors write on Reddit and X, scored for bullish and bearish tone. The smart money side is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, which is built from how the market trades rather than from opinion: momentum, new highs against new lows, breadth, put and call volume, junk bond demand, volatility and safe-haven demand. One line is what the crowd says. The other is what the market does.
The smart money vs dumb money chart above plots both sides on the same 0 to 100 scale. When the two lines move together the gap stays small and the index reads balanced. A wide gap is the case to watch. Retail near extreme greed while the CNN index sits in fear means the crowd is more optimistic than the market's internals support. The reverse, a fearful crowd while the market holds up, is the setup contrarians look for. Either one is context for your own analysis, not a trade signal.
The history covers only a few months so far, too short to test whether wide gaps come before turns. Posts measure mood, not money committed, so what retail says can differ from what it trades. The CNN index stands in for smart money. It is not a record of institutional trades. The index describes the current gap and does not forecast where it goes next.
One score for the retail crowd, one for smart money. Retail is ranked as a percentile against its own history (near 0 = calmer than it has been, near 100 = greedier). The headline is the gap between them: a wide gap flags which side leads. Every rule, from the daily bullish share to the band that calls a side, is written out in how the index is built.
The retail score is built only from Reddit and X social sentiment across the most-discussed tickers, the two venues where the retail crowd talks. It leaves out news and prediction markets, which move on different drivers. It tracks what the crowd feels in real time.
The market score is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, a composite of seven market-structure indicators including momentum, volatility, breadth and safe-haven demand, each weighted equally on a 0 to 100 scale. We publish the value unchanged.
Smart money sits more greedy than the crowd. The accumulation side: quiet money leaning in while the crowd hangs back.
The crowd sits more greedy than smart money. The distribution side: the crowd leaning in while quiet money steps back.
Everything you need to know about the retail-versus-smart-money Fear & Greed Index.
It is a market sentiment indicator that splits the crowd in two and scores each side from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed). One score tracks the retail crowd from our own social data, the other tracks smart money using the CNN Fear & Greed Index. The signal worth watching is the divergence between them, not either number on its own.
Both. It is a stock market sentiment index shown in the familiar fear-to-greed format. The difference from the classic Fear & Greed Index is that it does not roll everything into one number: it shows the classic market gauge next to what retail is actually saying, so you can watch the two sides diverge.
Retail (sometimes called dumb money) is the loud, surface-level crowd: what people are saying on Reddit and X, scored by us. Smart money is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, built from market structure: momentum, volatility, breadth and safe-haven demand. The two often disagree. That gap is what the index tracks.
It starts from Reddit and X bullish share across the most-discussed tickers. Each source is ranked as a percentile against its own history, then the two are averaged, so a low reading means calmer than the crowd has usually been and a high reading means greedier. It does not use news or prediction markets.
We do not calculate it. It is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, built from seven market-structure indicators weighted equally on a 0 to 100 scale. We show the value CNN publishes.
The index calls a side only when the gap is wider than the band shown beside it. A positive gap means smart money sits more greedy than the crowd (the accumulation side); a negative gap means the crowd sits more greedy than smart money (the distribution side). It describes the current gap, not a forecast.
Because the gap is only highlighted once it passes the band shown on the page, most days sit in the normal range. That is intended: it surfaces the wider gaps in this short sample rather than every daily wiggle.
Not yet in a way we would publish. The index only began in March 2026, so the history is still short, too short for a credible divergence backtest. We treat the index as descriptive for now and let the track record build as history accrues, rather than claim a predictive edge we cannot support.
On this index they are best read as contrarian cues at the extremes. Extreme retail greed while smart money sits low is the cautionary case; extreme retail fear while smart money sits high is the opportune one. The middle of the range carries little signal.
Both sides move during the session. The retail side refreshes as new social posts arrive. CNN publishes a live reading for its index, so the page carries the current day rather than waiting for a close.
This page shows the market-wide composite, aggregated across the most-discussed tickers. The same retail-versus-smart-money method can be applied to a single stock using the per-stock sentiment data behind the retail score.
It is for informational purposes only and is one signal among many. It reflects social discussion and how the market trades, not fundamentals or guaranteed outcomes. Past divergence is not indicative of future performance. Always do your own research.
The retail side, yes: it comes from the Adanos Reddit and X sentiment APIs. Those feeds are the data we sell. The smart-money side is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, published by CNN, so it is not ours to license.
The retail side of this index runs on our Reddit and X sentiment APIs. That market data is what we offer: bullish and bearish share, mentions and trend history, market-wide or per ticker. The smart-money side is the CNN Fear & Greed Index, shown for contrast.