Robinhood Financial and other online brokerage firms are overrun with rubes and gamblers naively bidding up U.S. stock prices and destabilizing the entire market. That has been the dominant narrative around U.S. stocks since the market began its surge in late March. It’s not true, or at least there’s scant evidence for it. It’s also not new. The narrative borrows from a Wall Street saw that ordinary investors are fools not fit to handle their own money, a caricature that has long been used to exclude them from markets. If ordinary investors are less sophisticated than the well-to-do, it’s not entirely their fault. ... (full story)