Year in Review: Retail-Driven Volume Surge

Year in Review: Retail-Driven Volume Surge

Equities Exchange Highlights

Surging retail engagement was a key theme in 2025, fueling a 44% year-over-year increase in equity share volume. Household stock ownership and trading activity has increased in recent years, driven in part by the 2019 transition to commission-free trading.

Off-exchange venues accounted for 51% of 2025 volume, with growth driven primarily by retail wholesalers. This segment’s market share climbed to 32%, up from 28% in 2024.

Growth at MEMX followed a similar retail-driven trajectory. While total ADV increased 34% year-over-year, retail ADV from limit orders jumped 130% year-over-year and hit a new record of 154 million shares. This triple-digit growth highlights MEMX’s increasing importance as a destination for retail limit orders.

What were retail traders buying on MEMX this year? As shown below, AI infrastructure dominated the leaderboard, accounting for more than 60% of the top 30 names. Mag 7 stocks were ever-present and retail also used leveraged ETFs. Crypto favorites included MSTR as a primary Bitcoin play and CRCL as a play on stablecoins. Retail was also active in trading sub-$1 stocks, which accounted for 15% of industry volume in 2025.

Retail ETF activity on MEMX in 2025 highlights the preference for high-volatility vehicles. Half of the 30 most active ETFs were 2x/3x leveraged—where a single day’s movement can often exceed 10%. The list included a number of crypto and tech ETFs and inverse funds (bearish). This “risk-on” appetite was partly balanced by some lower-volatility securities like SGOV and BIL.

Looking ahead to 2026, exchanges are moving toward 23/5 trading to capture growing global demand. The Operating Committees of the SIP recently announced a plan to extend their operating hours to 23 hours a day, five days a week from 9:00 pm Sundays to 8:00 pm (ET) Fridays. Participants are preparing for a December 2026 launch, pending SEC review and approval.

Options Exchange Highlights

In 2025, industry options contract volume grew 29% year-over-year and regular electronic volume (continuous trading in single-leg options) accounted for 55% of total volume.

MEMX Options market share in 2025 grew to 3.8% of total volume and 6.9% of regular electronic volume. The growth of our options business was our biggest highlight. We achieved several market share records, including 8.4% regular electronic market share in October 2025, ranking second among 18 exchanges.  

Option customer activity—comprising both retail and institutional flow—was a vital growth engine in 2025, accounting for 43% of MEMX add volume. While customer trading was predominantly stock-specific, with single-stock options representing 70% of the most active underlyings, the index ETF space was characterized by ultra-short-dated contracts. The dominance of 0DTE (zero days to expiration) contracts, which represented around 60% of daily ETF index volume, has transformed the options market into a primary vehicle for capitalizing on intraday volatility. This short-term focus extends beyond same-day trading, as over 20% of the volume in SPY and QQQ was concentrated in series with one-to-seven days to expiration.

In 2026, MEMX is rolling out options routing in January and our new options exchange is expected to launch in the third quarter. MX2 Options will use a customer priority, pro-rata allocation model and include a unique active risk control feature that has been available on MEMX Options.