Are the retail investors coming back to small caps? And what sectors are hot?

Looking at our site stats gives a fairly accurate picture of the retail investor activity, since we cover most actively traded sectors from oil and gas to mining to renewable energy.
We have seen activity that reflects the following trends recently-

· Site traffic reached a peak in March and April 2006, dropped, tried to regain those numbers in June and then suffered a dramatic downturn through the summer with the upward trend building on a slow, gradual curve starting mid September and increasing the last three weeks. This past week has seen the best traffic since the spring.
· As the large cap market and the Dow are reaching new highs – it is giving small investors some confidence to at least explore the market again and start some due diligence. Lets face it- the average retail investor does not own stock in the Dow
· Based on ,limited feedback we see - Most investors in the small cap space are currently long positions and are waiting to see to the share prices come back before they trade another stock
· What are investors searching for? Here are the top search phrases for inbound search on our site 1. Natural gas stocks- reflecting the recent volatility of lows and rebounds in the sector 2. Water stocks – a trend we have seen consistently building for months as investors realize that long term – investing in water may be bigger than investing in oil 3. saic IPO- something the defense sector has been tracking and anticipating for quite some time ( written about by Our columnist Jim Smith in Defense Market Report) 4. Online gaming stocks- reflecting the interest in the outcome of recent regulations and legislation impacting legal online gaming 5. Solar energy stocks – reflecting that renewable energy investors are still very much alive and active looking at the long term money flow and necessity of the technologies in the sector as oil is volatile 6. energy stocks – always on the mind of investors as it impacts the economy, the market and their portfolios if invested


So we do find that our site gives us a microcosm of the mind and trends of the small cap market based on what is being searched and site traffic in general.
If we chart our site traffic- we are on an upward gradual trend looking at reaching previous highs in the spring – that bodes well for the retail small cap market