Question: Number of Active Traders in the U.S.

Folks,

I looking to get some quick info on two questions:

1) What is the total number of active retail stock traders in the U.S. ? (Info on trends is also helpful).

2) What is the total number of active retail investors in the U.S. ? (an active retail investor is defined as someone who does 15 more more transactions per quarter, but is not a regular trader).


This will help me out with a discussion I am having with some people. Any links to sources.... I tried a google search but came up with no immediate answers.

TIA,

- Greg

 

Bump.... Still hoping to get some feedback on these questions. Anyone have some stats.

Thanks,

- Greg

 

obviously nobody keep track of of 'active' traders since they tend to drop like Mayfly using this pdf file as starting point you may want to search on berkerley and journal of finance, good luck http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...ge=6&highlight=trading statistic&pagenumber=3

ps. it just occurs to me you can count ET population, count numbers of names in p/l thread, calculate the ratio and extrapolate it to US population

 

(1) 9,624? (2) 47,158? Trends? The number of active investors ebbs and flows with the general market. It peaks at market-tops and bottoms-out at market-lows. Sources? Contact: the IRS for information off of people's schedule-D's, Schwab, Merrill, Ameritrade/Waterhouse, IB et al.

 

Last time I checked TheStreet.com had 70K paid subscriptions — I think, you may be able to extrapolate some info from this:
http://www.vcall.com/IC/GenRelease.asp?ID=103812

 

a real growing money making business, who are those paying people?

 

Entire US population trades, some for money some for joy but most for pleasure, without even noticing it

 

I believe that the number of registered professional traders is on the order of 5000 in the US. The number of retail "traders" is far greater than that, probably on the order of 100,000 to 250,000, and in accounts that are considered "active" it is probably well in the millions.

nitro

 

I'm still looking for this figure, can't seem to find an accurate number or estimate anywhere, estimates ranges very wide.

Anyone know? for the US