The participation of retail investors in the financial markets contributes to the well-functioning of those markets, improving liquidity and depth of the order book. Yet, it may increase volatility and must be complemented with strong investor protection policies. While some markets have seen a constant growth in retail participation in the last five or even ten years, the sharp increase that many markets observed during the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a radical change in the forms of access to the market and in the profile and behaviour of the retail investors. In the light of these changes, in early 2021 the WFE conducted a survey among its members with the aim of capturing the trends in retail participation across jurisdictions. We gathered 34 responses from exchanges, covering developed, emerging, and frontier markets; and distributed across all regions. The survey also collected data, covering the period from January 2010 to September 2020, with the purpose of conducting an empirical study of the factors that correlate with the levels of retail participation across markets. This report presents both the qualitative outcomes of the survey and the results of the econometric analysis.
