Retail Investing Statistics 2026: Where the Smart Money Goes Now

62% of Americans report owning stock in 2025, matching the prior year and sitting above the 10-year average that ran below that mark from 2010 through 2022.

Retail money has stayed elevated, but its shape has changed: account openings keep climbing, options activity now concentrates in zero-day-to-expiry contracts, and new-investor flow has thinned out versus the meme-stock surge of 2020-2021.

Key Takeaways

• 62% of Americans own stock in 2025, matching 2024 and sitting above the 10-year average per Gallup polling.
• Only 34% of US adults hold investments outside retirement accounts, according to the FINRA Foundation 2024 National Financial Capability Study.
• The share of investors who began investing within the prior two years dropped to 8% in 2024, down from 21% in the 2021 wave.
• Retail investors still account for close to 20% of US equity trading and close to 50% of zero-day-to-expiry option volume heading into 2026, per JPMorgan strategist analysis.
• Schwab opened 4.7 million new brokerage accounts in 2025 and ended the year with 38.0 million active brokerage accounts.
• Retail households held 88% of the $28.5 trillion in US mutual fund net assets at year-end 2024 per the Investment Company Institute.
• Less than 1% of day traders in the Barber-Lee-Liu-Odean Taiwan study were consistently profitable, a finding echoed in later Brazilian futures research.

Editor’s Choice

• Stock ownership reaches 87% among US adults with household income of $100,000 or higher, but only 28% among those earning under $50,000.
• Robinhood ended 2025 with 27.0 million funded customers, up 1.8 million year over year.
• Interactive Brokers added more than 1 million net new accounts in 2025 and ended the year with $780 billion in client equity.
• 0DTE options averaged 2.3 million SPX contracts daily in 2025, equal to 59% of full-year SPX option volume.
• 56% of US households (74 million households, more than 125 million individuals) owned investment-company shares in 2024.
• 17% of active investors with $10,000 or more invested own Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency in 2025, per Gallup.
• Global equity market capitalisation reached $151.94 trillion in 2025, up 18.5% from year-end 2024.

US Stock Ownership

Country-level crypto adoption rates by country data offers a useful comparison surface for how US adult stock-ownership rates stack up against crypto adoption across major economies.

• 62% of US adults report owning stock in 2025, a level the country has now held for three consecutive years per Gallup.
• 58% of US families owned stocks directly or indirectly in the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the most recent published wave.
• The FINRA Foundation 2024 NFCS found 34% of US adults hold investments outside of retirement accounts, a narrower definition that excludes 401(k) and IRA exposure.
• At household income of $100,000 or more, stock ownership hits 87%, the widest income-defined participation gap on record.
• Stock ownership for households earning under $50,000 stays at 28%, roughly one-third the rate of the top income tier.
• The Federal Reserve began the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances in March 2025, with summary results expected in late 2026.
• Gallup counts every American with any equity exposure, including 401(k) and IRA holdings, while FINRA counts only investors who actively hold non-retirement securities. The active-investor pool is roughly half the size.

Source: Gallup 2025 stock ownership poll, Federal Reserve 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, FINRA Foundation 2024 NFCS Investor Survey Report

Retail Share of US Equity Trading

Investors looking at the broader market structure can compare these retail equity-volume readings against equity market liquidity data, which captures the institutional side of the same trading picture.

• Retail investors accounted for close to 20% of US equity trading volume during late 2025 and into early 2026, according to JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou.
• Retail churning in individual stock trading slowed after Q2 2025, with the exception of October 2025, per JPMorgan strategists.
• Retail traders participated heavily in individual stock trading during Q2 2025, helping equity indexes move higher that quarter.
• Retail churning in individual stocks slowed through the second half of 2025 with the exception of October 2025.
• Global trading value rose 36.8% in 2025 versus 2024 according to the World Federation of Exchanges, with double-digit increases in every region.
• Average trading size hit a five-year low in 2025, a signal the WFE interprets as more retail flow entering global markets.

Source: JPMorgan Chase strategist analysis reported by Bloomberg, May 2026

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Recent Developments

• The 2026 FINRA Industry Snapshot (published May 2026) reported 639,723 registered representatives in 2025, a 5% increase since 2021.
• Schwab reported $23.9 billion in net revenues for 2025, up 22% over 2024, with trading volume up 31% over 2024.
• Interactive Brokers ended 2025 with $780 billion in client equity, a 37% annual increase that marked the first time the firm closed a year with over $0.75 trillion in client assets.
• Robinhood’s Q3 2025 cryptocurrency trading revenue rose more than 300% year over year to $268 million.
• JPMorgan strategists noted that retail investors participated strongly in individual stock trading during Q2 2025, helping equities move higher that quarter in their May 2026 client note.
• The Federal Reserve began collecting the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances in March 2025 with results due in late 2026.

Brokerage Accounts and Funded Customers

• Charles Schwab opened 4.7 million new brokerage accounts in 2025 and crossed 1 million new openings for the fourth consecutive quarter.
• Schwab ended 2025 with 38.0 million active brokerage accounts and 45.7 million total client accounts.
• Robinhood added 1.8 million funded customers in 2025, ending the year at 27.0 million.
• Robinhood’s funded customer count reached 26.8 million by Q3 2025 before climbing through year-end.
• Interactive Brokers added more than 1 million net new accounts in 2025, an annual record for the firm.
• Interactive Brokers serves about 4.4 million institutional and individual accounts across more than 200 countries.
• Interactive Brokers commission revenues hit a record $582 million in Q4 2025 alongside $966 million in net interest income for the quarter.

By the numbers: Schwab opened 4.7 million new accounts in 2025, Robinhood added 1.8 million funded customers, and Interactive Brokers added more than 1 million net new accounts in 2025.

Self-directed brokerage accounts capture only one slice of retail flow. Automated managed-account platforms such as robo-advisors intermediate a meaningful share of passive retail money that never shows up in active brokerage statistics.

Day Trading and Profitability Outcomes

• Barber, Lee, Liu, and Odean analyzed complete trading records of the Taiwan stock market from 1992 to 2006 and found that less than 1% of all day traders were consistently profitable.
• Only 3% of Taiwan day traders generated positive returns net of all fees in the same study.
• A Brazilian study of equity-futures day traders who began trading between 2013 and 2015 found that 97% of those who lasted more than 300 trading days lost money.
• Less than 1% of the Brazilian futures cohort earned more than the Brazilian minimum wage over the same period.
• Across markets, short-term retail activity is dominated by a small group of persistent winners, a long tail of one-and-done traders, and a middle band that churns. The academic floors for sustained profitability sit in low single digits, and current brokerage growth has not pushed them upward.
• Retail accounted for close to 50% of zero-day-to-expiry option trading during the latter part of 2025 and into early 2026, alongside close to 20% of US equity trading, per JPMorgan strategist analysis.

Source: Barber, Lee, Liu, Odean (Taiwan) Yale economics working paper; Brazilian futures day-trading study cited in derived academic research

Options Trading and 0DTE Concentration

• Listed options trading reached 8.4 million average daily contracts in 2025, up roughly 50% from 5.6 million in 2023.
• SPX 0DTE options averaged 2.3 million contracts daily in 2025, equal to 59% of full-year SPX option volume.
• Q3 2025 SPX index options volume hit a record 3.8 million daily contracts, of which 2.15 million (or 57%) were 0DTE.
• Cboe estimates retail investors generate roughly 50% to 60% of 0DTE volume.
• Over 95% of all 0DTE trades occur in a limited-risk format (long options outright or short via spreads).
• The 0DTE share concentration above echoes the JPMorgan retail-volume reading covered in the equity-trading section: retail flow has reshaped itself around short-dated options rather than expanded its share of cash equity volume.

Why it matters: 0DTE options compress retail’s risk window to a single trading day while concentrating activity in SPX and a narrow strike band around spot. The pivot magnifies brokerage commission economics on each contract but does not lengthen retail’s holding horizon.

Source: Cboe Global Markets State of the Options Industry Q3 2025 and full-year 2025 reports

Mutual Fund and ETF Ownership

• 56% of US households owned shares of mutual funds, ETFs, closed-end funds, or unit investment trusts at year-end 2024 per the Investment Company Institute.
• The 56% household share represents 74 million US households and more than 125 million individual investors.
• Retail households held 88% of the $28.5 trillion in US mutual fund net assets at year-end 2024.
• Retail share of long-term mutual fund net assets is even higher at 94%, reflecting the household dominance in equity and bond funds.
• Mutual funds and ETFs dwarf direct equity activity for most US households. Households add brokerage accounts on top of a core 401(k) or IRA position, not as their first equity exposure.

Source: Investment Company Institute 2025 Investment Company Fact Book

Crypto Ownership Among Retail Investors

• About 22% of Americans own cryptocurrency or hold it through an ETF in 2026, per the Motley Fool Money 2026 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends Survey.
• A 2025 National Cryptocurrency Association and Harris Poll survey found 21% of US adults age 18 and older own cryptocurrencies, up from roughly 16% to 17% during 2022-2023.
• 17% of active US investors with $10,000 or more invested own bitcoin or another cryptocurrency in 2025, according to Gallup.
• More than six in ten Americans (63%) say they have little to no confidence that investing in, trading, or using cryptocurrencies is reliable and safe, per Pew Research Center.
• Robinhood’s Q3 2025 cryptocurrency trading revenue jumped over 300% year over year to $268 million, evidence that crypto exposure for retail flows back through traditional broker rails.

Readers tracking the wider exchange market can compare these participation rates against crypto trading regulation data for context on how those flows are policed. Demographic context on who holds these positions sits in the crypto user demographics statistics page.

Global Retail Participation

• Global equity market capitalisation reached $151.94 trillion at year-end 2025, up 18.5% from year-end 2024 per the World Federation of Exchanges.
• Trading value across WFE member exchanges rose 36.8% in 2025 versus 2024, with double-digit gains in every region.
• Average trade size across WFE exchanges hit a five-year low in 2025, a signal that more retail flow entered global markets.
• 43% of WFE member exchanges are based in EMEA, 37% in Asia-Pacific, and 20% in the Americas.
• US retail accounted for close to 20% of equity trading and close to 50% of zero-day-to-expiry option trading during late 2025 and into early 2026, per JPMorgan strategist analysis.

Worth noting: Retail participation is rising globally, not just in the US. Average trade size at WFE member exchanges hit a five-year low in 2025 even as total trading value rose 36.8%. Smaller trades, more of them, in more regions.

Primary issuance complements the secondary-market activity above. Tracking the most expensive IPOs on record adds context on which listings drew the largest retail allocations historically.

Demographics of New Investors

• The 2024 FINRA Foundation NFCS found just 8% of investors began investing within the prior two years, down from 21% in the 2021 wave.
• 21% of young adults reported owning non-retirement investments in 2024, down from 26% in 2021.
• Male non-retirement-investor ownership fell to 40% in 2024 from 43% in 2021.
• Non-retirement-investor ownership among persons of color dropped to 29% in 2024 from 36% in 2021.
• Respondents to the FINRA Foundation’s 2024 Investor Survey are more likely to be male, older, white, college-educated, and higher-income than the broader US adult population.
• The 8% new-investor reading is the most important demographic data point in this dataset. It reverses the meme-stock-era story about a generational onboarding wave.

How Many Americans Actively Trade Stocks?

Active trading is a narrower category than ownership. Gallup’s 62% stock-ownership figure for 2025 counts all forms of exposure, while FINRA Foundation data shows only 34% of US adults hold investments outside retirement accounts. Among that smaller group of active investors, JPMorgan strategists put retail at close to 20% of US equity trading volume and close to 50% of zero-day-to-expiry option volume during late 2025 and early 2026, indicating the active subset trades disproportionately in short-dated derivatives.

Are Retail Day Traders Profitable Over the Long Run?

Across the most cited academic studies, sustained day-trading profitability stays in low single digits. Barber, Lee, Liu, and Odean’s Taiwan study covering 1992-2006 found less than 1% of day traders were consistently profitable and 3% positive after fees. The Brazilian futures study of traders who began in 2013-2015 found 97% of those who lasted more than 300 days lost money. Both studies predate commission-free brokerage, so the cost structure improved while the win rate did not.

What Share of US Trading Volume Is Retail?

Retail accounted for close to 20% of US equity trading volume during late 2025 and into early 2026 per JPMorgan strategist analysis.

Within options, the retail share concentrates around the 0DTE category. Cboe estimates retail accounts for roughly 50% to 60% of 0DTE volume, and SPX 0DTE represented 59% of full-year 2025 SPX volume.

Compared to historical retail-share readings of 10-15% before 2020, current levels mark a structural step up rather than a meme-stock spike.

Conclusion

Retail investing in 2025 sits at 62% US stock ownership, close to 20% of US equity trading volume, and close to 50% of zero-day-to-expiry option volume. Gallup’s reading shows 62% ownership in 2025 matching the 2024 figure and similar to 61% in 2023, while the FINRA Foundation’s 8% new-investor share in the 2024 NFCS shows fresh entrants have thinned out compared with the 21% that began investing in the two years before the 2021 NFCS.

Account inflation at Schwab, Robinhood, and Interactive Brokers outpaces investor inflation. The next read on participation arrives in late 2026 with the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances.