Retail Investors Use AI Agents to Automate Trading Strategies

Retail investors are increasingly employing AI agents from platforms such as Claude and Codex to automate complex stock and options trading strategies. By utilizing new features from brokerages including Robinhood, Webull, and Moomoo, these users can execute trades autonomously based on written prompts, such as analyzing options flow data or monitoring social media for market signals.

Neil McDonald, the U.S. CEO of Moomoo, described the shift toward agentic trading as revolutionary and predicts such activity could account for 20% of the platform's trading volume by the end of 2026. Proponents suggest the technology eliminates emotional bias and allows for superhuman data processing speeds.

However, the National Bureau of Economic Research released a working paper warning that AI-built investment strategies often recommend high-valuation stocks and overly concentrated portfolios. Skeptics further argue that these agents may increase market volatility and amplify herd mentality by crowding into similar positions.