To better understand the fear and greed index, it is important to know how investors think. When they see a price of a particular coin rising, they get greedy, wanting to get in on some of that action. On the other hand, when they see a price of a certain coin falling, they get fearful so they pull out their investments. The Greed and Fear Index is a measurement of this market sentiment.
Talking in extremes, 1 means that the market is peak fearful of putting in their investments and 100 means that the market is extremely greedy when venturing to invest. At the time of writing, the index is at 18. This is a 7-point increase over the previous week. This probably indicates that bears have made their moves in starting to buy the coins.