Retail investors are no longer chasing after the "Big Seven" U.S. stocks! Citigroup: Trading enthusiasm hits a four-year low, funds are now shifting towards ETFs.

The Citigroup group's strategist stated that retail investors' enthusiasm for trading the "Fab 7" stocks has recently dropped to the lowest level in four years, indicating that this popular combination of tech stocks in the market is losing some support from retail investors. Stuart Kaiser, the stock strategist at Citigroup, and his team reported on Sunday that in the past five trading days leading up to last Friday, retail trading volume accounted for only 6% of the total trading volume of the "Fab 7". This combination includes Alphabet (GOOGL.US), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US), Apple Inc. (AAPL.US), Meta Platforms (META.US), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US), and Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US). In contrast, during 2023 and 2024, retail trading volume often exceeded 20% in a five-day period; in 2025, it mostly remained above 15%. Citigroup believes that this trend indicates that retail investors' confidence in these star tech stocks may be weakening. Kaiser stated that retail trading volume has been declining since the end of last year and continued into 2026. The reasons for the decline are still difficult to determine. He believes that retail funds may be shifting towards leveraged ETFs rather than individual stocks; they may also be shifting their attention to prediction markets, or reducing the proportion of tax refund funds invested in the stock market due to rising living costs such as gasoline prices. The report shows that as of last Friday, overall retail trading volume in June decreased by 15%, while market total trading volume during the same period increased by 12%, indicating a significant decrease in retail participation. Of these, the biggest decline in retail trading volume was seen in NVIDIA Corporation. Last week, retail trading volume accounted for 8.1% of the total trading volume of NVIDIA Corporation, lower than the previous week's 9.6%. Previously, retail investors had long favored NVIDIA Corporation stock, but market sentiment changed after the outbreak of the Iran war. In March of this year, retail investors sold NVIDIA Corporation stock net for the first time since July 2025. Citigroup data shows that in the past week, retail interest in the "Fab 7" was lower than about 85% of the trading days since 2022. Tesla, Inc. remains the stock with the highest retail interest, with a trade volume ratio of 10%, but it is also close to its low since 2022. The decline in risk appetite for individual stocks among retail investors is also reflected in the broader market. Vanda Research data shows that retail net buying of individual stocks is lower than 95% of the observations since 2020, indicating that investors prefer to rotate positions and lock in profits in the market rebound, rather than invest new funds. At the same time, retail net buying of US-listed ETFs is slightly higher than the historical average, indicating that investors prefer to gain broad market exposure through ETFs rather than continue to bet on individual stocks. Vanda points out that prediction markets, cryptocurrencies, sports betting, and high liquidity trading platforms like Hyperliquid are competing for speculative retail funds that traditionally flowed more towards meme stocks or individual popular tech stocks. As the "Fab 7" underperforms, some market participants have even begun to refer to this combination as the "Lag Seven", implying that they are no longer leading the market. Data shows that as of the close on Monday, the Bloomberg index tracking the "Fab 7" has fallen by 3.1% since the beginning of the year, while the S&P 500 index has risen by 8.7% during the same period. In the past nine months, the "Fab 7" as a whole has seen almost no significant increase, which is not common in the recent tech stock market. Furthermore, the team led by Citigroup's David Chew also pointed out that even though the Nasdaq 100 index, which is dominated by tech stocks, has fallen in June, investors' overall holdings in the tech sector remain high, indicating that US tech stocks still face further downside risks.