Retail investors will lead a $500 billion buying spree that could send stocks soaring through year-end, JPMorgan says

• Retail investors will lead astock-buying spree in the second half of the year, JPMorgan strategists say.
• That will be led by retail investors, who aggressively bought stocks at the start of 2025, the bank said.
• Retail bought stocks more aggressively this year than during the pandemic, according to Vanda Research.

A rush of investor cash is headed for the stock market in the second half, most of it coming from retail investors.

That's according to JPMorgan, which predicted this week that investors are poised to inject $500 billion into stocks through the rest of 2025, and most of that will come from retail traders.

"Led by retail investors, we envisage an equity buying flow of close to
$500bn for the remainder of the year which would be enough to propagate equities by another 5%-10% into year end," analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday.

JPMorgan estimates that retail traders have purchased a net $270 billion worth of stocks so far this year, with investors buying assets at a particularly aggressive pace in the first four months of 2025.

The bank said it expects another $360 billion worth of retail stock purchases in the second half, based on its December forecast for retail stock purchases to hit $630 billion this year.

It said foreign investors could add a net $50-$100 billion to that amount despite concerns that overseas buyers are reducing exposure to US markets amid the turmoil around tariffs and the widening US budget deficit.

"We believe that this 'boycotting' of US equities by foreign investors is not sustainable as investors cannot avoid the biggest and most important growth segment of global equity markets," they added, pointing to the rally in the S&P 500 and the strength of the Magnificent Seven tech stocks.

Foreign investors may want to see the US dollar stabilize before picking up their interest in US stocks, strategists added. But that stabilization could already be in motion, the bank said, pointing to the US Dollar Index, which has held steady at around 98 in recent weeks.

Retail investors have already shown unprecedented enthusiasm for stock buying in the first half of the year, according to Vanda Research, which tracks retail investor flows into stocks and ETFs.

In the first six months of the year, cumulative retail net purchases of stocks and exchange-traded funds have been the highest in at least the last 10 years, including during the pandemic stock boom, according to Vanda vice president Marco Iachini.

Tech stocks have captured most of the attention.Nvidia was the "most-favored" stock among retail traders in the first half, Ianchini said in a note, with the chipmaker seeing $19.3 billion in inflows over the first six months of the year.

That was followed by Tesla, which saw $11.9 billion in inflows, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which took in $6.3 billion.