The long shift from human-mediated trading to electronic execution has reshaped how individuals buy and sell financial assets—and how efficiently costs are passed to retail investors. A new study examines how technology-driven market design is altering retail participation in the United States, focusing on both clear gains and stubborn frictions.
Retail investors, the paper notes, are not a single group. They range from households placing small orders to professional retail brokers serving high-net-worth clients, and to institutional products such as mutual funds executing retail-oriented strategies. This breadth matters because “retail” experiences differ sharply across venues and trading mechanisms.
The authors highlight that equity and options markets have changed dramatically, with execution now heavily influenced by order-routing technology, automation, and competition among market centers. Lower fees and faster access have widened participation, especially during periods when online trading surged.
Yet the same technological infrastructure that reduced headline costs can introduce new structural hurdles. Fragmented liquidity, differences in fee schedules, and venue-specific execution quality can still create uneven outcomes for retail traders, even when commissions approach zero.
One driver of renewed attention is the boom in retail trading, accelerated by zero-commission models and the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted rules aimed at improving disclosure of retail equity trading costs, increasing transparency about where costs arise in execution.
The paper also places regulatory design in a broader institutional context. Historically, investor protections have been built through SEC rulemaking as well as oversight by self-regulatory organizations such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
As retail participation grows in commodity-linked products overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the study asks whether investor protections should be expanded across jurisdictions or whether regulators should coordinate securities protections for selected commodity markets.
Finally, the article concludes that technology has lowered trading barriers and broadened access across both traditional and emerging asset classes, including cryptocurrencies and prediction markets. But persistent jurisdictional complexity and execution-related frictions remain central challenges for investor protection.
Subject of Research: Retail investors and trading execution shaped by technology; regulatory oversight and investor protection.
Article Title: Retail Investors and Trading Execution
News Publication Date: 5-Jun-2026
Web References: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-financial-111424-124712
References: Annual Review of Financial Economics (article by Chester S. Spatt and Thomas H. Ernst)
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Keywords: retail investing, trading execution, electronic markets, SEC regulation, cost disclosure, market structure, investor protection, cryptocurrencies, prediction markets
