Is the Long Bull Market Tired Out?

One of the things that’s been making professional traders nervous this year: you. Or at least individual investors a bit like you. In March daily trades from just two retail brokers—E*Trade Financial Corp. and TD Ameritrade Inc.—accounted for more than a quarter of the volume on the New York Stock Exchange.

Small investors’ recent interest in stockpicking stands in contrast to the long-term trend in a bull market that’s more than nine years old. For the most part, Main Street hadn’t seemed all that interested in Wall Street—investors were gravitating to index funds and exchange-traded funds that let them ignore stockpicking and just ride the market. “The individual investor returned in a big way over the past year,” says Jason Goepfert, president of Sundial Capital Research Inc. “That is typically a contrary sign, suggesting a mild negative for stocks.”