Retail Investors Chase AI's Bottlenecks: Memory, Nuclear Power and Space Dominate Q2

Retail investors spent the second quarter of 2026 positioning themselves along the plumbing of the artificial intelligence economy rather than its headline names, buying into memory chipmakers, nuclear power operators and commercial space companies. New quarterly data from trading platform eToro, which tracks proportional changes in the number of holders across its global user base, shows flash storage maker SanDisk recorded the sharpest rise in holders of any stock, up 151% quarter-on-quarter, as an acute memory shortage tied to AI data centre construction reshaped where individual investors placed their money.

The pattern points to a maturing trade. Where earlier phases of the AI rally concentrated on the obvious beneficiaries, this quarter's movements suggest investors are hunting for the supply constraints, pricing power and capital spending likely to define the next tier of winners.

Why are retail investors piling into memory chips?

The memory buildout has become one of AI's hardest physical limits, and the market has noticed. SanDisk's 151% jump in holders led the global risers list, with fellow storage maker Western Digital up 49% in tenth place and networking and semiconductor firm Marvell Technology up 84% in third.

The buying rests on a genuine supply crunch rather than sentiment alone. NAND flash prices have more than doubled within months as manufacturers redirect capacity toward high-margin AI products, and the International Data Corporation projects 2026 NAND supply growth of just 17% year-on-year, well below the 20% to 30% range considered historically normal. SanDisk's own results reflect the squeeze: the company reported record margins during its most recent quarter as it passed NAND price increases through to customers locking in multi-year storage contracts. Several industry forecasters expect the shortage to persist toward the end of the decade, with market research firm TrendForce anticipating memory revenue rising 134% to $552 billion in 2026.

Is the AI software trade still holding up?

Software names defied concerns about AI displacing traditional enterprise applications. ServiceNow made the risers list for a second consecutive quarter, this time in second place with holders up 102%, while tax and accounting software group Intuit placed sixth, up 69%. The continued interest suggests investors remain confident in companies embedding AI into enterprise workflows rather than being threatened by it.

What is driving the nuclear and clean energy theme?

Electricity has emerged as AI's second binding constraint, and retail investors have followed the power. Constellation Energy, the largest operator of nuclear plants in the United States, ranked fourth globally with holders up 83%, while Bloom Energy, which builds solid oxide fuel cells for on-site combustion-free power, placed eleventh, up 38%.

Constellation sits at the centre of the AI power story. The company has signed long-term power purchase agreements with hyperscalers including Microsoft and Meta, the latter a 20-year deal for output from its Clinton nuclear plant, and has committed around $3.9 billion in capital spending alongside roughly 1 gigawatt of planned nuclear uprates to serve rising demand. According to Lale Akoner, Global Market Strategist at eToro, the shift reflects a changed perspective on energy: where the first quarter's energy buying was dominated by oil companies responding to Strait of Hormuz supply disruptions, the second quarter saw investors rotate toward nuclear and low-carbon infrastructure, a move Akoner attributes both to AI's growing electricity needs and to a stronger focus on energy security. These characterisations are attributed to eToro's own strategist rather than independently verified.

Why are space stocks gaining traction?

The commercial space sector drew renewed attention during a quarter defined by SpaceX completing the largest initial public offering in history. SpaceX raised roughly $75 billion in its June 12 debut on the Nasdaq, opening at a valuation near $1.8 trillion and reaching a market capitalisation of about $2.1 trillion on its first trading day, eclipsing Saudi Aramco's prior record.

That backdrop lifted the wider sector. Earth-imaging company Planet Labs ranked fifth globally with holders up 75%, lunar lander developer Intuitive Machines placed eighth, up 60%, and satellite communications firm AST SpaceMobile sat fourteenth, up 37%. Akoner noted that strong ETF flows increasingly position space as a standalone investment theme rather than a niche, though she cautioned that many investment cases still depend on future adoption and long-term growth.

Which stocks did investors abandon?

The fallers list reads largely as the unwinding of the previous quarter's energy trade. Retail investors reduced oil and gas holdings, with Equinor down 25% in fifth place, ConocoPhillips down 22% in seventh, Occidental Petroleum down 21% in eighth, and Petróleo Brasileiro down 20% in tenth. Health insurers also featured, with Oscar Health down 32% and UnitedHealth down 25%.

The steepest fall belonged to buy-now-pay-later firm Sezzle, where holders dropped 74%. Sezzle shares have been notably volatile through 2026 after an extraordinary prior-year run, retreating sharply from earlier highs even as the company continued posting double-digit revenue growth, a divergence that helps explain retreating retail interest.

Notably, eToro's most-held stocks were unchanged, still led by Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple, indicating that diversification into AI's supply chain has come alongside continued commitment to Big Tech rather than a retreat from it.

Why This Matters to FinanceX Readers

The rotation captured in this data marks a shift in how retail capital reads the AI trade: away from headline chipmakers and toward the physical constraints, memory supply and power generation, that determine whether the buildout can continue.

For investors and allocators, the signal is that supply-chain positioning and infrastructure economics are becoming the differentiators, while the parallel exit from oil and BNPL names shows how quickly thematic money now rotates as macro catalysts fade. The emergence of commercial space as a discrete allocation theme, accelerated by the SpaceX listing, is worth watching as a genuinely new addition to the thematic investing landscape.