The Zhitong Finance App learned that retail investors, who once retreated, are returning to their favorite bet: artificial intelligence (AI). According to Scott Rubner of Citadel Securities, retail traders made a net purchase of $9.1 billion in US stocks on the company's platform last week, mainly on AI-related stocks and exchange-traded funds, although overall trading activity is still below average.
The head of stock and derivatives strategy wrote in a report that this was the largest net buying week in the past 15 weeks.
Rubner said that although concerns about the continuation of the AI boom dragged down chip stocks, retail investors made a net purchase of 2.6 billion US dollars of semiconductor stocks last week, the third highest weekly purchase scale in the past year. This makes October expected to be the month with the largest net purchases of chipmakers on the company's platform. Individual traders also bought around $2.4 billion in AI infrastructure stocks during the same period.
Despite endless warnings about the AI bubble, capital continued to pour into the main AI trading line, driving the market index higher. The Nasdaq 100 Index and the S&P 500 Index, which are mainly technology stocks, both hit record highs last week.
In early October, Rubner accurately predicted the trend of retail investors returning to the US stock market this month after experiencing a sharp cooling in September. He pointed out at the time that as the earnings season and corporate buybacks are about to return, October provided investors with a better entry point to “re-increase their positions.”
Rubner wrote that the increase in retail purchases was generally driven by “stronger one-sided bullish confidence rather than increased trading volume.” The volume of retail purchases last week was 2.7% higher than sales. The weekly long/short bias was at the 90th percentile, while total transaction activity was still at the 42nd percentile over the past year.