This year marked another year in which retail investors joined Wall Street in droves, shaping the short- and long-term direction of asset prices and the economy.
According to analysts at JPMorgan, retail investors moved $300 billion to Wall Street in 2025, up from $197 billion in 2024. This figure exceeds the previous peak of about $270 billion during the 2021 retail trading surge.
Meanwhile, retail trading accounted for 20 percent to 25 percent of total trading activity this year, peaking at a record high of about 35 percent in April, according to separate trading data from J.P. Morgan (JPM).
Shifts in Retail Investing
The new cohort of investors rushing to mine the riches of Wall Street is younger and less affluent than previous cohorts, driven by rapid changes in the investor landscape, an August JPMorgan Chase report covering the period of 2015–2025 found….