So far this year, up to 20 per cent of the volumes on the Ftse All Share came from retail investors with 60-80 per cent of this volume being BUY orders.
Platforms are also reporting three-four times increases in new account openings, the majority coming from a younger sub-40-year-old demographic.
This is a global phenomenon.
Growth
In France, the French regulator AMF released numbers on retail participation.
Volumes were four times higher than pre-Covid levels with 27 per cent of this participation coming from a new, younger investor base.
In the US the major brokerages reported a staggering 72 per cent-144 per cent increase in their daily average revenue trades for the first quarter of 2020.
With activity in the primary and retail capital markets booming, it is surprising that these two vital ecosystems remain decoupled.
PrimaryBid, in partnership with London Stock Exchange and Euronext, is building the technology gateways to connect these infrastructures across the UK and Continental Europe.
It is heartening to see that in these extreme conditions the public markets have remained open. It has been a bedrock of stability and resilience, mobilising rapidly and delivering capital at a remarkable scale.
A powerful demonstration that access to ongoing capital is made easier when a company is visible, understandable and known to a wide base of investors – which all come with a public listing.
Re-equitising public markets could be the answer to the recapitalisation dilemma faced by private companies.
With over 400 years of experience, public markets have seen many difficult times – world wars, nuclear fallouts, global pandemics – and come out shining.
This one is surely no different.
Anand Sambasivan is chief executive of PrimaryBid
