Citadel Securities knows what’s up. It’s the designated market maker on the NYSE and, per the company, represents about 62% of listings on the exchange. And it’s seeing something it hasn’t seen in years.

The trading giant is keeping a “close eye” on the same thing we’re keeping a close eye on: retail traders driving eye-popping moves in the likes of Opendoor Technologies, which traded more than Meta on Monday only to fall 10% on Tuesday after a real heater, a six-session streak.

On Monday, trades of 521 million shares in Opendoor took place on the ask side (the lowest price a seller is willing to accept, indicating a motivated buyer) versus volumes of 480 million on the bid. On Tuesday, volumes on bid side outnumbered those on the ask, per Bloomberg data.

And then there’s Kohl’s, which doubled minutes into the session on Tuesday and set a new record for daily volumes traded less than 25 minutes after the market opened, before paring much of its gains.

“Echoing our colleagues in institutional derivatives this morning, the current level of retail bullishness is something to keep a close eye on,” Citadel Securities’ Thomas Sozzi wrote. “In cash equity space, retail clients on our platform have been net buyers for the past 18 trading sessions in a row! This bullish streak hasn’t been seen on our platform in over 3 years.”

The Takeaway

Things are getting wild out there. Again, take Opendoor for example. The options flows were still overwhelmingly tilted toward calls — calls outnumbered puts by about 1.9:1 Tuesday versus roughly 2:1 on Monday — but the most active option traded on Opendoor was a put with a strike price of $2.50 that expires on Friday. When flows are more of the story than fundamentals, it’s this relatively boring tallying of motivated buying versus motivating selling that can give a clue as to how much momentum a move has and whether it’s at risk of reversing.