Retail investors still do put money in the companies they believe in, the problem is that 1) institutional investors have no such ties and 2) retail investors are fickle, they trade at the drop of a hat, Exxon is reporting record profits yet the stock is largely flat to 6 months ago, why? Because retail are too scared that next quarter will be a bad earnings report even though every fundamental one existence rates the risk of that occurring extremely low. They don’t have any sense of how financials work and want to make a quick buck rather than invest in long term strategies. My money was all made in Apple and Microsoft, I bought their products, I used them at work, I bought their stock. My father made 10x as much because he didn’t sell everything until it was necessary.