• Retail investors flipped to net buying in the final 10 minutes of Thursday’s selloff, but still finished with a $151 million net outflow for the day.
  • The late buying softened—but did not reverse—a brutal session that saw the S&P 500 fall 4.4% and the Nasdaq Composite drop 5.5%.
  • Data provider Vanda Research reported the late surge, though other reports showed different totals, highlighting the difficulty of tracking real-time retail flows.

Retail investors staged a dramatic buying reversal in the final minutes of Thursday’s sharp U.S. stock selloff, according to data from Vanda Research, but the late dip-buying did not prevent them from being net sellers for the day. The firm reported more than $100 million in net buying during the last 10 minutes of trading, a sharp turn from an hour earlier when retail selling was on track for its worst day since the early pandemic panic.

The last-minute surge reduced the day’s net selling to $151 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited Vanda data. That compares with a record $502 million in net selling on March 17, 2020, during the pandemic-driven crash. However, another post-close report from Yahoo Finance put Vanda’s net individual-stock selling at $257 million, a discrepancy that could not be immediately reconciled. Intraday readings earlier Thursday had shown $358 million in net selling at 2:58 p.m., according to Yahoo Finance, also citing Vanda.

The broader market suffered steep losses. The S&P 500 fell approximately 4.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.5%. The Nasdaq 100, a separate index, plunged 6.4%. The selloff was driven by growing concerns over the AI investment trade, with investors questioning whether massive spending on chips and data centers will generate sufficient returns. Fears that post-election policy changes could slow AI infrastructure expansion added to the anxiety.

Market mechanics amplified the pressure. The VIX, an options-based measure of expected volatility, closed at 28.18 after its largest intraday jump in more than 18 months. Nomura (NYSE:NMR) estimated during the session that leveraged ETFs could sell about $47 billion of stocks near the close—an estimate that illustrates why a $100 million retail buying burst could coexist with overwhelming market-wide selling. The shock also spread internationally, with Seoul falling around 8% on Friday, triggering a trading halt, and Tokyo dropping more than 6%.

Despite the late buying, retail investors remained net sellers overall, and the episode underscores the difficulty of interpreting real-time flows. “The key distinction is timing: late dip-buying does not mean retail investors were net buyers overall, or that the wider market had stabilized,” said one strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity. Analysts remain divided on whether the late buying signals durable confidence or merely opportunistic trading during a selloff. The central debate is whether the decline is a temporary correction or a more lasting reassessment of AI valuations.

Vanda Research, an independent investment research firm, tracks self-directed retail activity across more than 13,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs through its VandaTrack service. The firm did not respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy in reported figures.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the closing net-selling figure as $257 million. The correct figure, according to The Wall Street Journal, is $151 million. The article has been updated to reflect the conflicting reports.