Retail trading inflows have recently hit record highs as investors navigate market volatility fueled by US President Trump's tariff policies. Public co-founder and co-CEO Jannick Malling sits down with Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton on Market Domination Overtime to discuss trends among retail investors.
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Retail investors who were buying the dips, saw massive payoff. At least momentarily, retail portfolios gaining 17% on Wednesday amid the historic rally in markets, according to JPMorgan, but with stocks falling back down to Earth as tariff concerns fester, we're looking at what's ahead for the retail trade and retail traders with Yannick Malling, co-founder and co-CIO investing platform public, Yannick, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming in.
Yeah, good to see you guys.
So, what's going on? What's new? No, what do you know what you've been.
No quiet, quiet week at the office. Nothing crazy.
Have you been seeing a lot of retail investors continue to buy the dip, continue to step in amidst this volatility?
Absolutely. I think you saw at a macro level retail inflows hitting record highs last Thursday, I think maybe on the Friday as well and Tuesday, unsurprisingly, you know, our platform has as well and I think, uh, we focus on generally like longer term investors building portfolio for the long haul, so we've got stocks on the platform, but also bonds, which has been interesting to see how that played out. We launched that last year, uh, which added obviously another dimension to this. Um, and you know, we're serving mostly people Millennials, right, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. I think somebody told me that for Millennials, this is the the fourth once in a lifetime market drop opportunity to buy the dip. Um, and so that also means that it's not the first time that this happened. I think actually folks have been through a few cycles now and I think they have a little bit more confidence at least in putting money to work. And I think that's a big part of why you're seeing those record inflows across the board.
And yeah, the retail investors who are coming to your platform when they're buying, what line of sight do you have there in terms of what they're buying? What what interests them? What excites them? What sectors? What what stocks?
Um, the Meg 7 is very popular, right? The most traded stock every single day, most popular stock has been Nvidia, unsurprisingly, uh, especially on a on a day like, um, like yesterday from the morning though, uh, thank God. And uh, yeah, and so like unsurprisingly it's and and then there are some retail names that are really loved. There are things like Palantir, obviously Tesla is a heavily traded stock. So there's there's a lot of Meg 7 activity. Um, but there's also some people obviously in Bitcoin and like I say, also some folks getting more into the bond market as well. Um, and I think that's maybe been one of the more interesting kind of things where if you look at all those other once in a lifetime opportunities or big kind of moments in retail, it has it's been mostly focused about stocks or crypto and and this time sort of the bond market is really part of that movement as well.
Do you see people getting washed out though, as well? In other words, you know, I don't know if you allow leverage on your platform, forgive me, but you know, are you seeing any anybody get into distress?
We do, we do have leverage in the platform, but but not really to be honest. Um, we also have like a 4.1, .2% APY, like high yield account. And so really the behavior that people much more have is they started to load into that, looking for the dip, so that funds are readily available. They also know funds are sitting there, not just doing nothing. They're still earning like a 4% yield while it's there. Um, and then deploy from that directly into into equities typically, um, when they drop. Um, and so, you know, obviously a little bit of elevated margin trading, but but really not that much. I think people are getting smarter and I think that they know that to lever up in times like these is a really risky move.
Yeah, I'm curious about this because there are other apps and platforms that offer, you know, broadly similar services to you, all probably target broadly a similar demo, like what what makes you, you guys different?
Well, so we actually the only one that has bonds. So in in this cycle, that's been a really interesting thing to watch play out. We've also fractionalized bonds, so you can sort of buy smaller increments. I mean, in the corporate bond market, sometimes the minimums have been as high as like 50 or $100,000, right? So we brought all that way, all that all the way down to $100 ticket. Um, and then I think generally, you know, having all those assets all on one platform makes us makes us a little bit more competitive in terms of being sort of the primary or the sole platform provider in terms of all your investing needs, because I think you've been through a proliferation of app based investing, but it typically has been like, my crypto here and my stocks here and if I do bonds, there hasn't even been a mobile app for that because the last time yields were this high was pre-iPhone, quite frankly. Um, and so we've really been the first to bring all that all together in one platform and and that gives us some competitive edge in terms of having people consolidate stuff with us.
Yeah, and I mean, people could do it through TNX for for through an ETF, for example, but not necessarily directly. Would you then say that this is the market cycle where retail has really discovered bonds in a new way, or that that has now, you know, it's not a new product, obviously.
Right. No, it's I I I would say so. I think historically we're going to look back and kind of realize that, you know, we we launched and it's not just right now, right? We launched, uh, T-Bills, treasury bonds all the way back in 2023. I think the six months T-bill in 2023 was actually the most invested in asset on the platform. Uh, if you remember the yields, obviously we're like 5% plus. We've launched something called the corporate bond account, which targets a seven to eight percent yield and automatically invests in a set of a set of corporate bonds. So I think you've seen sort of the stepping stone leading up to this moment, and I think this is just more fuel to that fire.
Yeah, great to see you and great to have you on set. Thanks for coming in.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks.
