Habit met hesitation. Retail investors who have made a name buying sharp declines since Covid were peeking back in after Thursday's rout, treating Friday as a potential reset but not piling in.
Capturing the sentiment was Jay Rice - a former Wall Street broker, age 65, who now day-trades out of Cave Creek, Arizona. "I'm going to try to ride this wave, but I'm hesitant," he said by phone. "Too much damage has been done." He scooped up Nvidia and Intel into Thursday's close after feeling "everyone was throwing in the towel," then cut those stakes on Friday on fears headlines around geopolitics or AI could flip the market fast.
On Thursday, Fidelity's brokerage data showed small investors leaning into familiar tickers: Nvidia, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), the triple-levered Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF (SOXL), and QQQ. Among the most actively traded single stocks on Fidelity's platform were Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Micron Technology, Advanced Micro Devices and SanDisk, with several seeing at least double the buy orders versus sells.
Vanda Research tracked a softer retail pulse at the open on Friday. Buying of individual Nasdaq 100 names started out mild and lost steam as the morning went on. Nvidia - the market's most valuable company - was the top retail buy at the start after a 9.3% plunge on Thursday erased its gains for the year, according to Viraj Patel, the firm's global macro strategist.
"Fair to say, a mixed start to the session," Patel said. "Some modest net buying, not gangbusters. But it's definitely not the aggressive net selling across single names that we saw early on yesterday."
Even as prices sank Thursday, money rushed into the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1. Despite a 6.5% drop that made it the worst session since March 2020, the fund still pulled in $2.8 billion - its biggest single-day haul since Oct. 30.
Smart investors look for new tools that help them stay calm and prepared. We're hosting our first ever investor livestream on 11/17 to show you how to use ChatGPT and Claude to invest like a pro, hosted by Briefs Finance CEO Jaspreet Singh. Save your seat.
Patel added that SOXL and the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) have been the only spots where retail has been pressing hard in recent weeks, and they again topped the charts Friday morning. Leveraged funds increase the size of a bet relative to a target asset or index, a feature day traders have gravitated toward.
Interactive Brokers LLC's chief strategist Steve Sosnick sees the pattern as deeply rooted. "The 'buy-the-dip' mentality has been firmly engrained in active investors' psyches, and since many of them benefitted from leveraged long products on the way up, they're sticking with them," he said, before cautioning, "But I am concerned that we now have a generation of investors who run into the building when the smoke alarm goes off."
Even with a bounce on Friday, seasoned traders stayed wary. Sinisa Sorgic, a 20-year market veteran who manages at Bright Trading, said he is tiptoeing into beaten chip names into the weekend but is wary of another wave of selling early next week.
"It's a dangerous time. I'm nervous. I want to be able to sleep at night," he said from Indiana.
He shorted Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing on Thursday and was hurt when its US listing climbed as much as 7.8% on Friday. "Yesterday was a bloodbath," he said. "It's too wild to jump back in full force and buy the dip right now."
In plain English: dip buying is back, but with seatbelts on. For portfolios, that points to bursts of inflows into tech and leveraged ETFs alongside quick reversals - a setup where entries and risk controls matter more than usual.
Learning how to use better tools can give everyday investors a steadier edge. On 11/17, our CEO Jaspreet Singh goes live for our first ever investor livestream on how to use ChatGPT and Claude to invest like a pro. Register to join him.
How To Use ChatGPT & Claude To Research Stocks Like A Pro
Save my seat →You’re in!
Make sure to check your inbox for the first email.
Before you go
We’re hosting our first ever livestream on how investors can use ChatGPT & Claude to invest like a pro. It’s on 11/17 and is hosted by our CEO Jaspreet Singh.
Click here to join →
