Jul 30, 2025

Evan Lorenz on the retail investor-dominated stock market

Opendoor Technology, Inc. accounted for almost 10% of all U.S. stock market activity last week with 1.8 million shares traded in a single session.  On Monday, Opendoor postponed a special meeting to vote on a reverse split following a share price spurt to $2.05 from a low of $0.51 on June 25.  This marked a sharp turnaround for the unprofitable home-flipper, which had been warned by Nasdaq, Inc. about a possible delisting in May for failing to maintain a stock price above the $1 mark.

Here is just one of the many sightings from a market dominated by small investors.  Retail traders now account for 20.5% of equity trading, more than the combined participation of fundamental traders (14.6%) and banks (5.6%), according to Bianco Research, LLC.

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At the same time, we are in the 98th percentile of all periods since 1990 for penny-stock trading, the 96th percentile for stocks valued at 10 times sales or more and the 85th percentile for unprofitable stocks, according to Goldman Sachs. 

~ Evan Lorenz, "Notes from the Joe and Jane market," Grant's Interest Rate Observer, August 1, 2024

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