Retail Traders Pour $67B Into Tumbling US Equities, But Wall Street Looks Elsewhere
While Wall Street makes its “biggest ever” cut to US equities, everyday investors are charging into the storm, checkbooks swinging. Despite trade and tariff chaos sinking the S&P 500 by 4.69% this year, retail traders have poured $67B into US stocks, defiantly buying dips as professionals seek greener pastures.
- The selloff marked “one of the fastest US equity market corrections since the early 1970s,” said Goldman Sachs — but retail conviction remained steadfast, with net sales on just seven trading days this year.
- Last week alone, these undeterred traders poured $3.2B into Tesla and $1.9B into Nvidia while maintaining their appetite for twice-leveraged ETFs — “respect the dip, be the dip, BUY THE DIP,” rallied r/wallstreetbets.
Smart money’s new playbook: While retail dives headfirst into US equities, professional investors are shifting their portfolios toward international markets and safer assets. The MSCI World index (excluding the US) has surged nearly 9% this year as JPMorgan highlights a “watershed moment” in European geopolitics. Meanwhile, cash has flooded into short-term bonds rather than long-dated Treasuries — moves which the Financial Times likens to Wall Street’s growing concern that America’s economic empire might have peaked.
