Retail traders are bailing on Nvidia, selling the most in a decade

Retail traders who bought the dip by plowing money into their favorite stocks are now taking profits in some of those flagship holdings.

Amid Nvidia’s double-digit rally over the past two weeks, retail traders have been stepping away from the $3 trillion chip designer, per JPMorgan, as well as cutting Tesla exposure. Those were stocks they eagerly doubled and tripled down on during the tumble in momentum stocks that fueled the first leg of the S&P 500’s decline from all-time highs, and stocks they were also buying heavily at the end of April, too.

“Looking at large-cap single-stock flows, after three months of weekly buying flows, retail took profit (-$4.9 billion vs. +$1.2 billion prev week),” wrote analysts led by Kamal Tamboli. “Outflows from NVDA and TSLA continued, totaling -$8 billion. We have observed net selling in NVDA for the past two weeks making it the longest selling streak since March 2022 and the largest selling flow since 2015.”

“Relative retail positioning suggests a preference for Health Care and Materials over Tech,” they added, which helps quantify the recent interest we’ve seen in UnitedHealth from the online crowd. That was the hottest stock in the options market (or “the most bought delta,” if you prefer) over the past week, according to JPMorgan.