Stockmarkets appear to have recovered their poise. By May 2nd America’s S&P 500 index had climbed back to its level of a month earlier, just before President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff salvo. Even as markets plunged by 5% on the day after Mr Trump’s announcement, retail investors refused to pull out their money. Instead, they poured in a net $5bn. Over the next week, as prices slid still further, they deployed additional billions, snapping up everything from tech giants such as Amazon and Nvidia to exchange-traded funds tracking the whole market.

These forces cannot explain recent rallies, however. The disposition effect concerns selling, not scooping up bargains, and rebalancing is usually a quarterly or annual ritual. Neither much reflects sentiment, let alone the Reddit chorus. Instead, retail investors appear to have developed a self-fulfilling belief that there will almost always be a snap-back.

Paradoxically, therefore, the ultimate consequence of concentrated wealth, internet mania and contrarian, app-based trading may be a calmer day-to-day market. Bullish retail sentiment may inflate valuations over the long haul, but without billions of dollars of inflows to stabilise the market in April, stocks would have surely fallen further amid even greater volatility. Dip‑buyers were stabilisers.