Retail Traders Retreat Amid Iran Conflict | Nasdaq

Since late 2024, retail traders have become even more active than they were in the years following the pandemic. At the end of last year, our retail data suggests retail trading reached $70 billion a day as markets rotated out of crypto and software stocks and into value stocks.

But in the past few weeks, as the conflict in Iran started, data shows retail trading has fallen significantly. Interestingly, so did the price of gold.

Gross trading falls as conflict continues

Amid the conflict, exchange-traded fund (ETF) activity has increased as ETFs are a natural way to play a macro event. However, retail saw reduced ETF activity (yellow line), which fell by around $5 billion per day.

Single stock retail trading tumbled even more — below $35 billion a day. After a ceasefire was put in place on April 8, stock flows rebounded above $40 billion a day.

Chart 1: Gross daily retail trading activity in stocks and ETFs over time

Notably, retail remained net-buyers of ETFs throughout the first quarter of 2026. Overall, retail bought more than $19 billion in ETFs in March and bought over $70 billion in ETFs during the first quarter.

However, data shows that retail traders were sellers of single stocks every single day in March. As a result, March saw net selling of over $15 billion — a record for the periods we have data for.

Chart 2: Net monthly retail trading activity in stocks and ETFs over time

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Single stock sector flows show a change in leadership 

Looking at single stock flows by company each month, we see a change in leadership over the years. 

Initially, Tesla was one of the most popular retail stocks, although between 2020 and 2023, Tesla buying and selling tended to follow the direction of the market (buying in up markets, green line, and vice versa).

In the past two years, NVIDIA has taken over as the most popular and most heavily bought stock. 

Interestingly, as the conflict continued, net flows across all sectors turned negative, and buying and selling in NVIDIA fell to roughly balanced.

Chart 3: Single stock sector flows by month over time

First significant dip in U.S. retail trading in years

Although retail trading has grown significantly since 2019, and net trading has fluctuated often with the direction of the market, this represents the first significant reduction in gross retail trading activity since 2021 — retail didn’t even have this strong of an immediate reaction to the war in Ukraine.