MW Why retail investors are piling up gold and silver but cooling on megacap tech

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Commodity-linked exposures are breaking out, says Citadel's Scott Rubner

Citadel says investors have been rotating into real-economy assets like copper early in 2026.

Retail investors are diving into the stock rotation as the year kicks off, shifting away from crowded growth trades and into assets with direct links to the real economy.

That's according to analysis from Scott Rubner, Citadel's head of equity and equity derivatives strategy, who flagged a "meaningful shift in leadership" in an equity rotation that was broadening out in the new year.

"Equal-weight exposure continues to gain ground versus cap-weighted benchmarks, reflecting improving breadth and a more balanced contribution to returns. This trend suggests that market gains are being driven by a wider set of constituents rather than a small group of megacap names," Ruber wrote in a note to clients published on Tuesday.

The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight exchange-traded fund RSP is up 2.4% so far in 2026, versus a 0.6% gain for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY. Big Tech stocks, meanwhile, continue to face concerns about high valuations and overspending on artificial intelligence.

Rubner noted continued divergences in the performance of real-economy assets and of growth-heavy benchmarks based on Citadel's data. "Industrials and materials equities are outperforming, while commodity-linked exposures are breaking out, pointing to renewed demand for assets tied to physical supply, industrial activity and global reacceleration," he said.

Related: Stocks are signaling that another commodities 'supercycle' is afoot in 2026

Gold (GC00) and silver (SI00) logged their best annual gains since at least 1979 last year, with related stocks climbing as the dollar DXY struggled amid ongoing concerns over how the U.S. will keep funding its deficit. Retail investors also poured money into builder stocks from late last year, betting that lower mortgage rates will boost the housing market.

Rubner said that rotation is occurring even with overall strong index performances, which to him indicates an improving market composition over a defensive move by investors. "Markets are increasingly rewarding breadth, cyclicality and real-asset exposure, signaling an early, but meaningful rotation away from the most crowded growth trades," he said, providing this chart:

Rubner also commented on retail flows early in 2026, noting that activity on the Citadel Securities platform remains "elevated," with average daily shares and daily options contracts "tracking more than 40% above the 2020-2025 January average." Retail cash volumes - how much is being bought in actual stocks and ETFs over options - were at the highest since 2021, he noted.

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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January 21, 2026 10:51 ET (15:51 GMT)

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