Taking a short position in junk bonds is a challenge for the retail investor.
It probably also helps explain why US retail investor confidence today stands at a record low.
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He often spoke out against CEO fat cats in favor of the little retail investor.
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This is a very big deal and mostly overlooked by retail investor and barely mentioned by the Investment Banks.
The retail investor is tip-toeing into the market this week as expected.
Will the end of summer herald the return of the retail investor?
Usually the big institutional shareholders and brokerage firms vote huge blocks of shares and what the retail investor--that's you--has to say doesn't matter.
The regulator put out a proposal for comment recently that makes some dark pools look more like exchanges and helps the retail investor.
"The retail investor is quite a bit more sophisticated than they were, say, 10 years ago when the tech bubble burst, " she said.
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Ironically, many professionals would see the return of the retail investor as a sign that the market was in fact headed for a top.
Their successes, such as the IRA and 401(k) legislation, fueled the boom in mutual fund and other collective investment vehicles aimed at the retail investor.
"I assumed a correction was coming, but the movement was extremely violent, " said Ryo Takebe, a 28-year-old retail investor who works at a chip-related manufacturing firm.
Yet, as we see, the retail investor (you and I) are buying, buying, buying bonds and bond funds and selling, selling, selling equities and common stock funds.
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Well, while there might not seem like much of a difference to the average retail investor, for the trading venue, there are cost benefits to becoming an exchange.
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Having remained on the sidelines for so long, money coming into the market from the average retail investor would definitely provide a boost to stock prices in the near-term.
"If the retail investor stays dormant, they have a bigger business than other people do, " says Napoli, noting that institutional investors have been very active during the market's volatility.
We like to see the market from a contrarian point of view, and the mass exodus of the retail investor does seem like herd-mentality thinking (even if it is justified).
But if you are a retail investor check out Calvert Foundation who has been offering impact investing products for years, or RSF Social Finance who are pioneering radical impact investing practices.
Thinking that a downturn may be near, retail investor Hiromichi Kobayashi placed set-price orders below the market on Thursday morning on some issues, surprised to see them executed so quickly as prices fell.
Barry Ritholtz of FusionIQ takes up the topic in his latest column for the Washington Post, highlighting 10 reasons why the retail investor who has gone away, is likely to stay away.
Most of the gains people hear about when it comes to IPOs are not enjoyed by the retail investor buying the shares in the secondary market but rather the company founders and angel investors.
But I guarantee you that there are a hundred hedge fund minions sniffing all over New York and Washington for clues, and that the retail investor will be the last to hear.
Chinese firms, for example, derive 60% of their income from equities trading, putting them "at the mercy of equity markets and turnover, as well as their mainly retail investor base, " said Bonn Liu, a partner at KPMG China.
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Three areas where Goepfert finds useful readings of dumb money (or small retail investor) sentiment are in purchases of odd lots (less than 100 shares) of stock, flows into bearish and bullish Rydex funds and in what he calls the R.
During the recent credit expansion, homeowners seeking mortgages to flip homes, as well as Fannie and Freddie with their affordable housing mandate and ensuing interest in securitized sub-prime mortgages, seem to have been the equivalent of the less-sophisticated, day-trading retail investor feeding the dot-com bubble.
At first glance, the Dreyfus Greater China fund might look disappointing, until you look at it for the long haul and compare it to one of the main ways the retail investor hops on the China bandwagon, through the iShares FTSE Xinhua China 25 (FXI) exchange traded fund.
The same will happen to FB stock. (Note: Silverline is down 98% from 2007 launch.) Remember the hype surrounding Reliance Power (BOM: 532939)? (Note: Reliance Power down more than 60% since IPO.) Brokers brayed and pushed the retail investor to invest and what happened was the retail people lost.
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One or two big firms have tried to encourage a pan-European retail-investor base.
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