(Reuters) – Individual U.S. Investors are becoming bearish, and they’re not buying the dip, according to data. This is a stark reversal of panic trading at the height of the pandemic.

According to brokerage JPMorgan, the two largest outflows in the past two days were $1.9 billion.

They were not net buyers until last week. This is according to Vanda research (NASDAQ:).

Peng Cheng, JPM strategist said that the retail buying impulse had shown signs of slowing down before the latest selling surge.

Market volatility has been intensified by rising borrowing costs and high inflation.

As the market’s endowment of liquidity pushes riskier investments out of reach, the benchmark is less than 2% away from confirming a bearish market.

The retail investor population in equity markets has also declined compared with the beginning of last year. This was due to low trading fees and fat stimulus checks. They flocked online to trade markets, but remained locked in their houses.

JPM estimated that the U.S. retail market accounted to about 12%, compared with around 20% in the peak of January 2021.

The average retail investor has also underperformed the S&P 500, making just about 6% since January 2020 compared to the 24% return of the benchmark index, JP Morgan estimated.

According to Marco Iachini (senior vice-president, Vanda), retail buying has slowed down, however, it may be due to “fatigue” rather than “outright capitulation”.