Retail Investors Keep Buying as Insiders Keep Selling

Thanks to inflation, a penny stock today is considered any stock trading under $5 per share. That’s also the price where institutional investors are cut off from owning a stock – it’s just too low a price and it’s too easy for big money to buy shares.

But that isn’t stopping retail investors from buying sub-$5 stocks – and now, true penny stocks trading under $1.00.

Today, a whopping 47% of all market volume is in sub-$1 stocks:

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As mentioned in this morning’s Swan Dive, Regencell Bioscience started the year as a penny stock, trading as low as $0.09, split-adjusted.

It’s now been the best market performer year-to-date – even without any positive corporate developments to point out – just pure retail buying. (We also strongly urged you not to buy the stock.)

In the meantime, company insiders are now picking up the pace of their sales:

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Of course, insiders have many reasons to sell, from putting a kid through college, paying for a messy divorce – or just the good old-fashioned opinion that their shares are overvalued.

These two trends suggest that retail investors are getting ebullient, while the insiders who know their company’s value inside and out are hitting the cash register.

~ Addison

Good News for Stocks

50-year Wall Street veteran, Marc Chaikin is stepping forward to share why history gives him 90% historical confidence that stocks will end 2025 up. However, he also has bad news: the same data also tells him the REAL market crash will likely arrive in 2026. Click here to see the month and day he estimates it will begin.

P.S.: Looking for small-cap companies that are driven by fundamentals and not just retail sentiment?

Consider joining our Portfolio Director Andrew Packer at the Rule Investment Symposium in Boca Raton on July 7-11, 2025. Click here to attend and meet your future cutting-edge resource investments face-to-face.

And for paid-up members: Be sure to join us for Grey Swan Live! tomorrow, June 19, 2025. It’ll be Juneteenth, and we’ll be discussing international investing, value investing, and how to find massive stock winners over time with Chris Mayer. Chris is always a good conversation.

As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

But that isn’t stopping retail investors from buying sub-$5 stocks – and now, true penny stocks trading under $1.00.

Today, a whopping 47% of all market volume is in sub-$1 stocks:

Turn Your Images On

As mentioned in this morning’s Swan Dive, Regencell Bioscience started the year as a penny stock, trading as low as $0.09, split-adjusted.

In the meantime, company insiders are now picking up the pace of their sales:

Turn Your Images On

Of course, insiders have many reasons to sell, from putting a kid through college, paying for a messy divorce – or just the good old-fashioned opinion that their shares are overvalued.

These two trends suggest that retail investors are getting ebullient, while the insiders who know their company’s value inside and out are hitting the cash register.

~ Addison

Good News for Stocks

P.S.: Looking for small-cap companies that are driven by fundamentals and not just retail sentiment?

As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)

Regardless of anyone’s personal opinion on Trump, it’s clear that the international community is translating his “Putting America First” agenda as something more like “Every Man for Himself.” That could have a profound impact down the line, not just for our future trade prospects, but for the health of the economy and the U.S. dollar at large (which is still the world’s dominant reserve currency, for now).

At the same time, this is all very bullish for gold, as central banks are likely to continue buying for years to come. In this kind of situation, gold hitting $4,300 and continuing to rise higher was a foregone conclusion, and it’s clear that Trump’s agenda is locked in and unlikely to change.

Shares of regional banks and even investment bank Jefferies were hammered Thursday after fresh revelations from Zions Bancorporation and Western Alliance Bancorp.

Zions dropped more than 13%, Western Alliance fell 10%, and the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) plunged over 6%, with all but one member ending the session in the red. It’s not the size of the losses — it’s the pattern that’s unsettling, in what are ongoing ripple effects from the banking crisis that rocked regional banks in early 2023.

Yesterday, Zions Bancorporation and Western Alliance Bank dropped 13% and 10% respectively, dragging the S&P 500 down with them.

In pre-market trade this morning, the broader banking sector also got whacked. JP Morgan was down 1.5%, while Citi fell 1.9% and Bank of America was down 2.9%. In Europe, meanwhile, the regional Stoxx Banking Index fell almost 3%.

The Federal Reserve stopped tracking “unrealized losses” at regional banks in 2022. But occasionally, a snippet of data will come to light, like this piece from the FDIC earlier this year.

History’s “golden” rule will soon apply again.

Shares of regional banks and even investment bank Jefferies were hammered Thursday after fresh revelations from Zions Bancorporation and Western Alliance Bancorp.

Yesterday, Zions Bancorporation and Western Alliance Bank dropped 13% and 10% respectively, dragging the S&P 500 down with them.

The Federal Reserve stopped tracking “unrealized losses” at regional banks in 2022. But occasionally, a snippet of data will come to light, like this piece from the FDIC earlier this year.

History’s “golden” rule will soon apply again.