The $3.2T Market Rotation Is Masking Retail’s Growing Power
The S&P 500 has barely budged in two months, but don’t mistake calm for stillness. Beneath the surface, trillions are rotating from beaten-down chipmakers into the Magnificent Seven, even as everyday investors outmaneuver Wall Street’s pros to call the market’s shots. It’s the quietest power struggle in recent memory — and retail traders are winning it.
- Goldman Sachs now pegs retail traders at ~30% of daily US equity volume — with a trading desk executive calling them price setters and flow drivers.
- That comes as May’s retail trading ran 10% above 2021’s meme-stock record — setting an all-time high in June as options volume doubled three-year levels.
Market forces: That buying power is steering real money. As chips approach 18% of the S&P 500, Strategas compares today’s semiconductor trading boom to 2020’s retail-fueled rush in the ARK Innovation ETF. However, that surge isn’t staying contained, as chip stocks outside Nvidia have erased nearly $1.7T in value this month while the Magnificent Seven absorbed ~$1.5T. With that much money in motion, Big Tech earnings are shaping up as the tiebreaker.
