Behavior of US retail investors and its impacts on US markets during the pandemic in 2020

2020 is a tough year for the whole world with the explosion of the new virus, as known as COVID- 19 which has killed thousand people. US is one of the countries which was impacted by the pandemic the most. In US, more than 6,5 million people have confirmed positive to this virus, thousands of people became unemployed, GDP felt nearly 40% in second quarter of 2020. With the shrinking of the economy, the stock market in US have suffered a big hit 2020 when stock drop significantly in just single-day. So how retail investors react with all events in 2020? That is a big question throughout this thesis, and we will find out the answer in 6 main parts of the thesis. In the first part, through analyzing the quarterly reports of some popular online brokers, we illustrate the trend of individual investor's trading. Whether the pandemic prevented investors from trading? Whether the number of trading in 2020 increased or decreased? The second part will give out some assumption explain the trend in part one. Third and fourth part will be about the change of investor in the way they manage their portfolio. How has the pandemic affect their strategies in investment? Is retail moving markets in a way it hasn't in the past? In part six, we will discuss about how the moving in retail market can impact the whole market in general in 2020? And finally, growing retail participation in US equity and options markets in 2020, what kind of issues can appear in market?