“What… Me Worry?” Individual Investors Ride the Bull Market Wave with Unshaken Optimism

Retail traders are doubling down on risk—laughing all the way to the (digital) bank.

### Fear? What Fear?

The 'dumb money' crowd isn't just ignoring recession warnings—they're leveraging meme stocks, altcoins, and SPACs like it's 2021 all over again. Margin debt levels? To the moon. Put/call ratios? Gathering dust.

### The Contrarian Playbook

While hedge funds hedge and institutions rebalance, Main Street investors keep buying the dip. Even the SEC's latest 'investor warning' tweets got ratio'd into oblivion.

### The Punchline

History suggests someone's about to get wrecked. But for now? The bulls are printing tendies—and Wall Street's 'smart money' club can't decide whether to sneer or secretly front-run the frenzy.

*Bonus jab: Nothing fuels irrational exuberance quite like 0DTE options and a crypto influencer saying 'NGMI' with a straight face.*

Recession Fears Fade

While nearly one quarter of respondents still think a recession is likely, 38 percent say it is unlikely: a 7 point increase from June. Fears about a potential recession may have waned as investors have realized that the TRUMP administration’s threat of tariffs in early April were far worse than those actually enacted by the administration against the U.S.’s top global trading partners. Still, tariffs remain a top concern, followed by inflation. 

The future accuracy of government data is a new and pressing worry, with forty-seven percent reporting that it was a concern.

This comes shortly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) made steep revisions to the job gain figures from May and June of this year. That 258,000 downward revision to job gains that month not only rattled investors and the foundations of the capital markets, it cost the BLS Commissioner her job.

Staying With a Few of our Favorite Stocks

Individual investors have largely shaken off those concerns, chasing the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 to new record highs. Those new records have been driven by the outperformance of several semiconductor and A.I. related stocks—like Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD)—as well as Palantir (PLTR), and Apple (AAPL), which are also our respondents’ top holdings.

Investopedia

The higher highs have emboldened more than one-quarter (27%) of respondents to buy more of their favorite stocks and the ETFs that hold them—like VOO, SPY, and QQQ. They continue to lean into these stocks and sectors despite the fact that many consider them to be overvalued. 

The surge in the price of Bitcoin, up thirty-percent so far this year, has also brought more investors into the blockchain. Twenty-seven percent of respondents now say they own cryptocurrency, with Bitcoin as their token of choice, even though nearly half of respondents think it is also overvalued.  More favorable regulations recently announced by the Trump administration and wider institutional adoption may be assuaging their concerns about the future of digital currency as it gains wider adoption.

Respondents overwhelmingly selected U.S. stocks (40%) and cryptocurrency (20%) to be the best performing assets over the next decade, too.

Investopedia

What Would You Do With an Extra $10,000?

Most respondents WOULD keep doing what they’ve been doing if they had an extra $10,000 on their hands: they would buy more stocks. Individual stocks topped their shopping lists, followed by ETFs and index funds. Old habits are slow to change, especially when they continue to deliver new all-time highs.