Yearning for earnings? Check out Public.com, the investing platform for serious traders. You can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and more. Access industry-leading yields like the 4.1% APY* so you can earn on your cash with no fees or minimums.
OpenDoor, Palantir, CoreWeave—the best-performing stocks of the year are at the top of the leaderboard because they’ve all been retail favorites.
The meme stock craze has galvanized eager traders to pour even greater sums of cash into the market lately. The numbers say it all: Retail investors have been net buyers of stocks for 16 of the past 18 weeks, and net buyers of options for 17, according to data from Citadel Securities.
In fact, the retail crowd has been trading in such a frenzy that it’s been causing unprecedented price swings as companies report their quarterly earnings, Sherwood recently noted.
For most of this year, retail enthusiasm diverged dramatically from many institutions and funds, which were wary of the economic impact of President Trump’s tariffs, signs of a labor market slowdown, and geopolitical instability.
But now, institutional investors like hedge funds and other big investment firms are embracing bullish earnings results and getting in on the fun, too. This so-called “smart money” crowd is increasingly exposing themselves to the equities market, according to a recent note from Barclays. Analysts cited institutions pouring money into US stocks recently, just as retail investors are backing off slightly from their own spending spree.
Corporate America is also more bullish than it once was: Share buybacks for 2025 broke the $1 trillion mark last week, the fastest pace corporations have ever reached that number. The three biggest companies buying back their own stocks are Apple, which splashed out $100 billion, Alphabet, which spent $70 billion, and JPMorgan Chase, which bought back $50 billion of its own shares.
What does this mean for the market?
Despite the smart money taking a cue from r/WallStreetBets, there’s still a lot of “dry powder” left, according to Barclays, which means there’s still cash that could be deployed, especially if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates in September—which it is widely expected to.
To be clear, not every corner of Wall Street is so enthused about this latest rally. Many analysts and even fund managers have been ringing the alarm bells on the key stocks leading the market being seriously overvalued.
Only time will tell who is right.—LB