Retail investors playing key role in driving market volume

Betty Liu, Executive Vice Chairman for NYSE Group, provides her perspective:

What's been the role of the retail investor over the past few months?

So, US equity market volumes have been pretty high, remarkably high since the end of February 2020, and much of that is being attributed to the rise in retail investment activity. In fact, on peak market days, retail investors can account for up to a quarter of all market activity.

Is this the case for the options market as well?

So, absolutely. In fact, the options market has seen a spike in individual investment activity. That has driven volumes to record highs. So, eight of the top ten multi list options volume days have occurred in the first six months of 2020. So, pretty remarkable indeed.