5 years in the past this week, retail buyers launched a meme inventory craze that might go on to turn into a key occasion in fashionable market historical past. The military of on-line merchants started by short-squeezing shares like GameStop , a transfer that was later memorialized within the 2023 film “Dumb Cash.” This group additionally centered deal with AMC and years later moved onto a brand new class of meme shares together with Opendoor and Kohl’s . Whereas the episode grew to become a defining second for mom-and-pop merchants, it overshadowed the names they’ve purchased within the greatest sums since. For years, the State Road SPDR S & P 500 Belief ETF (SPY) — a fund monitoring the namesake benchmark for the U.S. market — was probably the most purchased safety on internet by on a regular basis buyers yearly, based on knowledge from market analysis agency VandaTrack. However that modified in 2023, when Tesla eclipsed the S & P 500 fund. Tesla’s soar on the chief board mirrored its rise to fame amongst small-scale buyers: 4 years earlier, it did not even crack the record of the 20 prime shares and ETFs. This rush additionally mirrored Tesla’s rebound from the 2022 sell-off, with shares greater than doubling in 2023. By comparability, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added simply 43% that yr. The electrical car maker’s rally has since misplaced steam, with shares up greater than 6% over the past 12-months in contrast with the Nasdaq’s practically 20% soar. Nvidia led the best way in each 2024 and 2025, Vanda knowledge exhibits — persevering with the development of single shares sitting atop the charts. The substitute intelligence darling posted massive features in each years: Shares surged greater than 171% and 38% in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Given its broad market relevance, the S & P 500 fund has remained among the many prime securities purchased on internet every year. Different names like Apple and Superior Micro Units have fallen off the record of prime 5 over time, changed by shares together with Palantir . Within the half decade for the reason that meme inventory craze, particular person buyers have turn into a power that their institutional counterparts cannot ignore. Blackrock estimates that retail buyers now account for nearly 20% of common each day flows, up from low-single digit percentages earlier than the pandemic. Here is the highest 5 most purchased shares every year on internet for the reason that meme inventory craze rocked Wall Road, based on Vanda. The flows are in billions of U.S. {dollars}: