Retail traders, long known as the stock market's most avid dip buyers since the pandemic, were active on Friday after US equities suffered their worst day since 2025. Their usual enthusiasm, however, was largely absent. Jay Rice, a 65-year-old former Wall Street broker who day trades in Cave Creek, Arizona, said he was "hesitant" and noted that "too much damage has been done." He bought battered shares of Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp. at Thursday's close, but has been trimming those positions on worries about global geopolitical conflicts and AI headlines.
According to Vanda Research, buying of Nasdaq 100 single names was modest at the open and weakened later. Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, was the most bought stock at the start of Friday's session after tumbling 9.3% on Thursday to wipe out its annual gains. Viraj Patel, global macro strategist at the firm, called it "a mixed start to the session." Dip buying had been stronger on Thursday, when the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ) sank 6.5% for its worst day since March 2020, and investors poured $2.8 billion into the fund.
Leveraged products also drew attention. The Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF (SOXL) and the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) topped the retail leaderboard Friday morning. Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers LLC, warned that the buy-the-dip mentality may be dangerous, saying "I am concerned that we now have a generation of investors who run into the building when the smoke alarm goes off."
While the market bounced back Friday, some traders remained wary. Sinisa Sorgic, a 20-year trading veteran at Bright Trading, was cautiously going long battered chipmakers into the weekend but hesitated to buy further dips amid fears of more selling early next week.
Source: Bloomberg Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing