{"id":231024,"date":"2025-09-16T09:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/231024\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T09:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:32:10","slug":"a-retail-investor-meetup-in-nyc-showed-why-everyday-traders-are-so-bullish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/231024\/","title":{"rendered":"A Retail Investor Meetup in NYC Showed Why Everyday Traders Are so Bullish"},"content":{"rendered":"

The animal spirits were running high at a meet-up for retail investors in New York City last Friday. <\/p>\n

As I walked into the Independent Investor Summit in midtown Manhattan on September 12, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The crowd included people donning everything from signature hedge fund vests to bitcoin T-shirts that looked homemade. <\/p>\n

Hosted by tech entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano, the summit included interviews with some of the highest-profile figures in the retail investing community, including hedge fund manager Eric Jackson and Discord host Chris Camillo.<\/p>\n

Watching speakers discuss the markets with Pompliano, the message was clear: this was a meetup for the bulls, hosted by the bulls, and the energy coursing through the halls suggested that everyone should be flocking to the market’s latest rally<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The optimists club was out in force<\/p>\n

At roughly 10am, guests filed into the auditorium and the discussions began. Sitting behind a desk onstage, Pompliano kicked off the event by informing the audience, “The future of finance is being driven by a retail audience.”<\/p>\n

Pompliano then began with a chat with macro investor and media personality Jordi Visser.<\/p>\n

“Jordi’s videos are the reason I’m here. I watch him every week” a young retail trader told me as we watched the discussion. <\/p>\n

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Known for his tech expertise, Visser discussed the industry at length, making the case for why he thinks AI isn’t a bubble. Fairly quickly, though, the conversation shifted to his and Pompliano’s shared bullishness on the broader market. <\/p>\n

When Visser described himself as an optimist, Pompliano quipped that he’s “a member of a club that is not very popular right now\u2014the optimists club.” <\/p>\n

The theme of optimism and continued bullishness for a market clouded by uncertainty was put on display over and over at the event, which drew about 500 attendees. <\/p>\n

The host went on to describe his skepticism about a coming recession, with Visser jumping on board with a take that recessions might be a thing of the past entirely. <\/p>\n

“A bunch of them are just posting on X, I’m not even sure they have jobs anymore,” he stated, referring to the pessimists who argue that darker days are ahead<\/a> for the market and the economy.<\/p>\n

Perhaps no one captured the zeitgeist of the moment better than Eric Jackson, the hedge funder who is the face of retail traders’ most beloved stock in recent months. <\/p>\n

In the months since he posted his bullish thesis on Opendoor Technologies<\/a>, shares have surged more than 1,800%, but Jackson told Pompliano that he thinks it can go much higher. <\/p>\n

“It has an opportunity to be the Carvana<\/a> of residential real estate,” he stated. Before Opendoor, Jackson gained notoriety for his correctly bullish call on Carvana, which soared in the years after he first cheered the stock. <\/p>\n

Now an army of Opendoor investors, many of whom attended the conference wearing T-shirts honoring the stock, are flocking to his next target. <\/p>\n

As he passed out Opendoor T-shirts in the back of the auditorium, small business owner Scott Findlay chatted with me about his love for the company, praising Jackson’s campaign<\/a> to get pop music superstar Drake to buy shares.<\/p>\n

\"Scott<\/p>\n

Retail investor Scott Findlay wearing an Opendoor T-shirt at the Independent Investor Summit.<\/p>\n

Samuel O’Brient, Business Insider<\/p>\n

“Using Drake is a great way to bring attention to the masses,” he said, his excitement uncontainable. “It’s a boots-on-the-ground, gorilla marketing campaign.”<\/p>\n

Jackson didn’t hide his enthusiasm, telling me after his interview that he believes Drake buying Opendoor would be a significant positive catalyst for the stock.<\/p>\n

Later on, Jon Najarian, co-founder of Market Rebellion, displayed even more optimism for the market, making it clear he isn’t worried about shifting political conditions.<\/p>\n

“I could make money trading if there’s a Republican, a Democrat, or a communist in the office,” he said, causing the audience to erupt in laughter and cheers.<\/p>\n

As the attendees shuffled out of the event later as the day wound down, it was clear that the speakers’ optimism was infectious. Several retail investors who traded in both stocks and crypto told me afterwards that their confidence was boosted by the event. <\/p>\n

Ryan O’Connell, head of strategic alliances at alternative investment platform Uncorrelated Alts, told me he found it extremely helpful to hear a few different cases for why we should be optimistic. <\/p>\n

“I think it brought important color to a conversation we needed to have,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The animal spirits were running high at a meet-up for retail investors in New York City last Friday.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":231025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-231024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115213287055395574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}