Dan Ives says retail investors are now 'at the adult table' in the stock market

Retail investors present wield sizeable powerfulness successful the banal market.

And aft years of exerting much power implicit banal moves, 1 expert argues their lasting successful the fiscal satellite has moved up a level.

"Retail investors utilized to beryllium astatine the small kids' array astatine Thanksgiving, and you'd springiness them a small cookie," Wedbush Securities managing manager Dan Ives said during Yahoo Finance's Invest lawsuit connected Thursday.

"Now, they're astatine the big array — they're beforehand and center."

On large companies specified arsenic Robinhood (HOOD), Palantir (PLTR), and Tesla (TSLA), retail investors are often highly informed, the noted Tesla bull said, and he's seen retail investors connected galore stocks get good up of the organization investing sector.

"If you spell backmost to aboriginal days [on Palantir], determination were the aboriginal believers successful retail," Ives said. "Institutional [investors], they laughed erstwhile the banal was a teenager, and past they're crying erstwhile it turns 100 and screaming from the mountaintops astatine 200."

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Retail investors showed their spot for the archetypal clip since the 2000 tech bubble during the post-pandemic rally, which crescendoed successful the 2021 abbreviated compression of GameStop (GME). That determination drove up the banal terms by much than 2,500%, crushing organization investors with abbreviated positions, oregon bets connected the shares dropping, and spawned a large Hollywood movie connected the incident.

The hedge money Melvin Capital mislaid billions of dollars connected a GameStop abbreviated position, which contributed to the firm's closure and superior instrumentality successful 2022.

The effect is simply a marketplace that's go progressively deferential to retail, hedge money manager Eric Jackson told Yahoo Finance. Jackson has been the driving unit down overmuch of the vigor successful 2025's rally connected retail-tech institution Opendoor Technologies (OPEN), which is up by much than 470% connected the year.

"The cognition is they're stupid, 'dumb money," Jackson said. "When [institutional investors] spot definite stocks emergence and spell up 100%, 200%, they instantly don't spot that ... Retail doesn't miss it, though."

Jackson pointed to Palantir CEO Alex Karp's willingness to prosecute with retail investors done net calls connected video, taking retail capitalist questions during the calls, "treating them arsenic importantly arsenic the sell-side analysts."

Many of the champion conversations Ives has are with retail investors, the Tesla bull told Yahoo Finance. Ives said those investors person developed afloat fleshed retired theories and asked questions that "only the astir blase organization investors would person asked."