You better keep buying. Buying stocks, I mean.

Because while the corporate bid’s still huge in absolute terms, ramped up issuance (i.e., IPOs and secondaries) raises the risk that net C-suite demand will be negative. If someone doesn’t mop up the attendant surplus (net negative demand = net positive supply)… well, what happens to prices when supply outstrips demand?

“While equity issuance has slowed during the last few months, the balance of corporate supply and demand for equity has shifted increasingly toward supply,” Goldman’s Ben Snider wrote, in his latest, noting that during the first half of 2026, corporations, public and private, were net issuers of equity to the tune of $175 billion.

That speaks to the sea change afoot: For the better part of two decades, the US stock market shrank as buybacks outstripped new supply. Now, thanks in no small part to AI-related IPOs and the necessity of resorting to equity financing with credit markets beginning to push back on data center-related debt sales, investors can no longer depend on structural “de-equitization.”

The figure above gives you sense of how this is playing out. So far, the household sector’s more than compensating.

From here, though, a lot hinges on the economy. Already, the persistence of elevated inflation and the never-ending “vibecession” evidenced in a succession of record lows on America’s marquee consumer sentiment releases, have torpedoed speculative retail trading.

The figure on the left, below, from the same Goldman note, shows you the dramatic decline in retail’s share of the tape in lockstep with plunging sentiment.

The figure on the right shows you the silver lining: The accounts where retail trading activity takes place account for less than a fifth of total household stock ownership.

“While retail trading activity has slowed this year, total household demand for US equities has remained strong,” Snider said, walking through the numbers.

Households bought nearly $850 billion in stocks during the first half, according to the Fed, and we all know what EPFR’s high-frequency data show, right? If not, feast your eyes:

It’s a record year for equity inflows, both in aggregate and in tech shares specifically.

Given the shift in corporate net demand, the fate of the market depends pretty heavily on whether households are willing (and able) to keep buying stocks.

“Including expiring lockups, we expect the net supply of US public equity will increase next year by the largest amount since 2000,” Snider went on, in the same note. “Household demand will be crucial to balance this supply.”

Cue Smokey: “Only you can prevent a bear market.”