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Retail traders tell BI they’re capitalizing on market volatility driven by Trump.
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Increased retail trading activity has led to record inflows and high sentiment scores.
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Investors are divided, with some cautious due to uncertainty and others seeking opportunities.
John Richardson, a 68-year-old retiree from Michigan, feels like there’s a lot of money to be made in the stock market right now.
Richardson, an active swing trader who’s been managing his own retirement accounts since 2019, told Business Insider this week that he expects the Trump administration to drive a lot of volatility across sectors this year, creating big opportunities for gains.
He’s eyeing stocks exposed to nuclear energy, AI data centers, and rare earth minerals.
“The reason people are getting in is because they kind of remember the wild rides of 2018 and 2019, and I think they think with all the White House rhetoric and tariffs, there’s just gonna be a lot of opportunities,” Richardson said.
“Whatever Trump says seems to spark something,” he added.
Richardson is among a throng of retail investors who are hitting the market in 2025 as stocks look to extend their bull rally to a third year.
Data from JPMorgan published last week found that retail traders have broken records since Donald Trump’s inauguration, investing billions of dollars in the market on various trading days earlier this month.
“Their daily inflow exceeded $2B twice last week – a level reached only 9 times in the past 3 years with 5 times occurring this year after the Inauguration,” JPMorgan analyst Emma Wu said.
JPMorgan’s proprietary retail sentiment score zoomed to about 4.0 earlier this month, the highest level on record and about one point higher than the meme-mania peak in 2021.
George B., a 32-year-old tech worker from Indiana, is riding the Trump wave in the stock market.
He told BI that he’s been actively trading his investment portfolio “a lot more than usual” since Trump won the election in November and expects Trump-induced volatility to create plenty of opportunities this year.
One of those opportunities has been Robinhood stock, which George owns. The stock soared earlier this week on a strong earnings report, which was driven by a surge in retail trading activity in both stocks and cryptocurrencies.
But while the data shows activity is high and sentiment is bullish, there are still cautious traders to be found among the retail cohort.
Ben Hunt, a recently retired digital marketer from Pikeville, Kentucky, said he’s been slowly taking money out of the stock market since Trump’s election win.