How to Make UK Stocks Cool

July 3, 2025

I had a great morning yesterday co-hosting an event at the Broker Club on Reshaping UK Retail Trading. The event was sponsored by Quod Financial and was well attended by the major brokers on the RSP network and some firms with different business models such as Trading 212. 

We all know the problem. If you look across the pond, stock markets in the US are supported (and sometimes driven) by massive and very active retail participation. So, why is retail participation so poor among the Brits? Well it's a bit more nuanced than that - take one of my sons for example - like many his age, Sam Grob, is an active retail trader as are many of his mates.But his portfolio consists solely of US and Asian stocks but no UK ones. The reason behind this was summed up well by one participant - something I am going to call “USification”. He said that when he wakes up, he checks his iPhone, drives his Tesla to the station, gets a Starbucks on the way to work and uses Microsoft co-pilot when he gets there. Put simply, UK listed firms must work much harder to get into the psyche of retail investors. Lack of available research is another big problem (thanks MiFID II). Stamp duty doesn't help either nor does the lack of a consolidated tape (but let's not go down that road again).

So, what’s to be done? Several very practical ideas were put forward:

The FCA could be less repressive about the gamification of trading. I know CFDs are highly risky but stock trading is a form of investing not gambling.

AI could be used to generate research and allow it to be blatted out over social media (again with FCA support). 

LSEG could reach out more effectively to advertise the cool names it has as listings. But with trading making up only 4% of its revenues, how much do their care? They should because, without thriving liquidity, it's hard to attract new IPO's.

My favourite was the suggestion to replace Child Trust Funds with a Junior UK only stock ISA.

Looking at the future I wonder if, not too far from now, folks will be trading stocks on Amazon with the same ease as they buy anything else. Maybe even the the current routes to market/brokers could be part of some Amazon Trading Ecosystem? One for Jeff to think about when he gets back from Venice.

Anyway it was a very enjoyable and thought provoking morning - so thanks to Gavin Williamson and Quod Financial for making it happen.