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2020 was the year that individual investors broke records

The online brokerage industry might be hard pressed to outdo the record-breaking year it experienced in 2020, but for now, few are betting against it.

Individual investors opened more than 10 million new brokerage accounts in 2020, JMP Securities estimates, a record. Interest isn’t fading, either: App downloads for brokerage firms, while lower than earlier in the year, remain resilient, with the Robinhood Markets app expected to reach 500,000 downloads in December alone, data provided by the investment bank shows. Website traffic for well-entrenched brokerages, including TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and E*Trade Financial Corp., continues to increase as well.

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