Retail investors are rushing back into the stock market after a relatively snoozy summer, according to JPMorgan. Retail investors poured around $7 billion into purchases on balance over the last week, said Arun Jain, an analyst at the bank. That's a noticeable jump from the $5.3 billion average seen weekly over the last two months. Jain pointed to recent stock records as boosting optimism for everyday traders. The gold and bitcoin rallies also helped drive exuberance among this group, he said. Single stock purchases had their strongest net flows in over three months on Monday, according to the investment bank. Meanwhile, weekly exchange-traded fund flows hit their highest volume in almost five months as investors looked to precious metal-focused ETFs like the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) . Dell saw its highest net retail inflows in almost five months on Tuesday at $16 million after raising its long-term revenue growth expectations. Shares of the stock have surged nearly 17% week to date. DELL 5D mountain Dell, 5-day chart They also snapped up more than $80 million in Quantum Computing shares on Monday. Shares fell 10% in that trading day, giving up some of their surge of more than 23% in the prior session after making agreements for institutional investor stock purchases. Everyday traders bought the dip on Verizon , sending in close to $100 million on Monday. Shares slid around 5% in the session after the telecom company announced former PayPal boss Dan Schulman would replace CEO Hans Vestberg. The move was effective immediately. Similarly, this group picked up more than $50 million in Occidental Petroleum shares on Oct. 2. Shares tumbled more than 7% in the session after Berkshire Hathaway announced a deal to buy the company's petrochemical unit called OxyChem for $9.7 billion. On the other hand, retail investors sold off more than $330 million of AMD shares on Monday after the company's deal with OpenAI was unveiled. AMD shares have surged about 43% so far this week, putting the chip stock on track to notch its best week since 2016. With retail traders' influence growing once again in 2025 after their GameStop heyday of 2021 died down in subsequent years, Roundhill Investments resurrected its Meme Stock ETF (MEME) on Wednesday. The fund was originally shuttered in late 2023 after a nearly two-year run.
