eToro CEO Says Retail Traders Are Becoming More Sophisticated

Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro, said retail investors have grown more sophisticated in recent years and are using AI tools to build trading algorithms and access institutional data. Assia told Business Insider last week that individual traders are no longer "dumb money" and may become the smartest participants in markets.

He pointed to retail investors' performance during the 2025 tariff crash, when a strategy of buying dips allowed them to avoid some losses that hit the broader market.

This year, retail investors moved from buying dips to selling rallies during market swings tied to the Iran war, Assia said. He added that retail traders have built tools such as algorithms and apps that provide access to data once limited to institutions.

Assia said prominent investors including Michael Burry and Ray Dalio have posted market research on Substack, giving retail traders information previously available only through paid terminals.

Assia said the rise of retail investing since the pandemic has forced institutions to adjust their strategies. He noted that hedge funds that shorted GameStop faced losses and that institutions later created cryptocurrency ETFs after initially dismissing the asset class.

Assia said shared intelligence among retail investors will continue to grow and may draw assets away from institutional managers.