Since the arrival of APP-based trading, US retail trading has increased significantly, which reaches the stock markets. We saw another jumping around the onset of Kovid, such as most trading commission-free and excitement investigation was distributed.
Interestingly, despite the “negative money effects” due to the market’s sell-off after recent tariff announcements, we can see an increase in activity, again retails are actually increasing their net purchases.
Buying retail love eTF
A characteristic that we constantly highlight is that retail has changed the Net-by exchange-traded funds (ETF) in most days. It is also reflected in this long time chain. Going back on 2019, our data suggests retail:
- Buys every month (yellow) ETF.
- Wavers between the company’s shares (blue) buying and selling.
- In 2025 – for both shares and ETFs – their net purchases are increasing.
Chart 1: Net retail trading continuously, and fast, buying ETF for at least the last six years
Retail gross trade is also increasing
It seems comfortable that many “new” retail investors may be afraid of recent tariff-inspired sales, and their portfolio declines.
Data suggests that, rather than moving away from the stock market, retail has actually increased the value of its trading activity for both ETF and company shares.
In the most recent figures, the price of stock trading of the company trades from ETF trading by about three times.
Chart 2: GDP in ETF and Stock
Retail is still a small part of all market liquidity
Of course, as prices have increased over the years, and as -as recent instability has increased, the entire market has been traded by higher prices.
By adjusting this, we see that the increase in retail trade is mostly coordinated with others in the market.
We also see that the value of retail trade seems surprisingly low (traded at less than 4% of the value). However, we will highlight that the possibility of retail is a large part of Adv (or shares). Thanks to his high participation in low -priced shares, it takes 100 times more share to invest $ 1 million in $ 2 stock compared to $ 200 stocks.
Chart 3: Retail Price Trading as Percentage of All Trading
Even if the retail love ETF, their share of that trading is also less
Given that the retail prefers to buy ETF, it is worth seeing the ETF retail trade separately.
However, however reflects data growth (up to 5.2% to 6.4%), even the new percentage remains relatively low.
Chart 4: ETF retail trade is growing as a percentage of all ETF trading (but less than you can expect)
Retail liquidity is getting bigger (but still not as big as it seems)
Retail liquidity is increasing and becoming a more important contributor to American markets.
OECD data suggests that the direct folding of shares by American investors is one of the highest levels in the world, causing retail investors to become an important source of capital for companies (even if it is through ETF).
Chart 5: The world shares have some highest domestic ownership in the US
But the American market is very liquid-every day does business of more than $ 1.5 trillion (two-way). And as we have shown earlier, there is a lot of arbitration and market within the stock and within the asset classes – which keeps the American market efficient.
At the end of the day, retail liquidity is important, but therefore all other participants in the ecosystem are also there.
