Bank of America client data: Retail investors bought the most U.S. stocks last week in more than a year
According to Bank of America client data, last week, retail investors’ single-week buying intensity hit the highest level since May 2025, pushing up the overall buying scale of U.S. stocks. Strategist Jill Carey Hall wrote in a report that the bank's clients were net buyers for the third consecutive week, but the scale of capital inflows was "moderate," with inflows into ETFs only slightly offsetting outflows from individual stocks. Small-cap stocks received significant inflows last week, while 7 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were sold by clients, led by the technology and communications services sectors. On the other hand, the consumer discretionary sector recorded the largest inflows; clients also bought financial stocks as large banks performed better than expected. Corporate stock buybacks have also picked up, but are still below average levels in the first week of the earnings season when normalized by market capitalization. The previous week, Bank of America data showed that financial stocks recorded their largest inflows in more than a decade ahead of a series of earnings reports.