There has been a significant change in the investor landscape as the power and influence of the retail investor has grown and shows no signs of retreat. Public companies need to prepare for this change by determining answers to the following questions:

• Should we proactively engage with retail investors (and how)?
• What is the cost vs. benefit of having a retail investor base is?

These are valid questions that are important for our corporate partners to discuss and be prepared to answer.

The growth of the retail investor over the last several years is undeniable, and some interesting aspects to consider are as follows:

• Record-breaking new account growth at the leading retail brokerage firms
• Increases in retail ownership across all market caps and sectors
• Birth of new trading platforms focused on the Gen Z investor
• Increasing influence of social media on investments
• Move to no fee/zero commission trading reduced barrier to entry

Public companies can no longer operate under the former conventional wisdom that retail investors have no impact. The value to companies of greater retail investor engagement goes beyond just the investor relations effort and crosses over to Corporate Governance, Sales & Marketing, and one of the most popular topics in the last 5 years, ESG.

IHS Markit, now part of S&P Global in conjunction with our alliance with Stockperks, has a new report that discusses key ways you can connect with retail audiences. Learn more about why all public companies need a retail investor strategy and how communications to retail investors can be simple, effective and cost efficient.

Do you have a retail investor strategy? Retail Investors are here to stay, they are vocal and have already proven they can move markets.

Download a copy of our report here.

S&P Global provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. We help our customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.