Over the past decade retail investors have become a force to be reckoned with, proving they have the strength in numbers to outplay Wall Street professionals if the mood takes them.
And between 2015 and 2025 a new demographic has emerged to drive the cohort into its next era: Gen Z and, more specifically, men.
According to a study released by JPMorgan Chase this week, the number of 25-year-olds using savings accounts in 2015 was 6%. By 2024 that had surged to 37% with America’s biggest bank expecting the trend to stick around.
“Growth in the share of young people with investments accelerated in the years up to and during the pandemic. After that point, our measure shows a modest retracement,” authors Chris Wheat, president of the JPMorganChase Institute and George Eckerd, wealth and markets research director at the JPMorganChase Institute, wrote. “As context, labor force participation increases sharply for people in the late-teens, early-twenties population. For people without significant incomes during the pandemic, their finances were less likely to be directly affected by the savings boom.
“The rise in investing for younger individuals may therefore capture a temporary cohort effect, strongest for those with meaningful incomes during the unique 2020−21 period. While investing participation for 25-year-olds may continue to decline from this peak, the new norm appears likely to remain substantially higher than during the pre-pandemic era.”
Some might assume that young people, trapped in their homes and with money of their own to spend for the first time, may have spent their pandemic splurging their funds on online shopping. JPMorgan doesn’t believe this is the case—at least not entirely—they believe earners also spent time on social media seeing how other people were investing their cash.
Referencing a 2022 research letter about the retail traders involved in the GameStop frenzy, the authors wrote: “Demographic shifts in investing flows during the pandemic—driven in part by social media investment fads—were much larger than the modest month-to-month differentiation appearing in the ensuing years.”
An increased interest in financial products among younger people offers an opportunity for improvement, added Wheat and Eckerd: “Expansion in investing of younger generations highlights the importance of financial education tailored to these new entrants in financial markets to support long-term outcomes for a larger population. In rising markets, a broader part of the population will face tax implications of capital gains, which may be a source of negative financial surprises around tax time if financial education doesn’t adapt.”
“In market downturns, we’ll see a significant number of new investors facing losses—directly visible to them in real-time. New investors, or even seasoned ones, may not be adequately well equipped to manage their responses, suggesting potential shifting roles for financial advisors.”
The investment gap
Many of the individuals drawn to investing during the pandemic were men. JPMorgan’s research found that while the number of female customers making transfers into investment accounts rose during the pandemic (up from around 15% in 2020 to 20% in 2021), ultimately their participation as a share of retail investors as a whole stayed relatively flat at a little over 35%.
Conversely, the number of men transferring cash into investment accounts spiked from around 20% to approximately 30%—and still sit significantly (approximately 7%) ahead of female counterparts.
“While investing flows of men increased in November 2024 relative to women, they subsequently returned close to their 2024 average. Changes in economic optimism, potentially related to political outcomes, could explain the temporary gender shift,” the JP duo added.
While studies have shown women can prove to be better investors than men, they are also reportedly more risk-adverse and lose out on gains as a result. A 2024 study from insurance and pensions giant Aviva showed nearly four in 10 women don’t invest, with 18% of them saying the risk is too high for them to consider it.
But other imbalances are being addressed, JPMorgan found, with accessible investing platforms like mobile apps making it easier for lower-income earners to engage with markets.
While “sizable” gaps remain between higher earners and lower, the report found the below-median-income share of investors in 2014 sat at around 22%, which spiked to approximately 35% during the pandemic. At present that figure has normalized to around 30%.
“Greater growth among lower-income individuals has narrowed the investing gap across income groups,” the pair noted. “This means that in the first half of the 2010s, below-median-income individuals made up approximately 20% of those investing in a given month, whereas in May 2025 their share was 31%. Outside of months influenced by pandemic cash stimulus payments, this was the highest value in the series dating back to the Great Recession.”
