dec 1  welcome to the home for realtime coverage of markets brought to you by reuters reporters you can share your thoughts with us at marketsresearchthomsonreuterscom the french regulator of financial markets amf has just published quite a lot of data on the retail boom the country experienced since the pandemic rocked financial markets in early 2020 main finding is that the trading appetite remains intact and comparable to what it was in march 2020 other findings include the fact that so called neobrokers have a younger client base inclined to trade complex instruments and more volatile stocks a particularly interesting table is this one showing which stocks for which frances amf is the competent authority are the most traded as you can see the usual blue chips suspects like luxury giant lvmh or plane maker airbus are well represented but clients of neobrokers are more inclined to trade smaller and more volatile stocks like french vaccine company valneva traditional banks are the likes of bnp paribas or socgen online banks comprise saxo bank and ig markets while neobrokers count firms such as activtrades and etoro in their ranks the amf said its survey covers 218 million transactions executed between q3 2018 and q3 2021 by french and foreign retail investors on financial instruments for which it is the competent authority us equity index futures are pointing to a higher open after a sharp selloff for the second time in four sessions as a drop of nearly 2 in the sp 500 spx on tuesday left the benchmark index at its lowest closing level since oct 27 investors who were already jittery from concerns about the new covid19 variant omicron that fueled fridays sharp pullback were further unnerved by comments from us federal reserve chair jerome powell that indicated the central bank may tighten monetary policy faster than anticipated read more mondays bounceback was seen as somewhat tepid by analysts who will look for a stronger followthrough for todays bounce futures slightly added to gains following the release of the adp national employment report which showed private payrolls increased by 534000 jobs last month above the 525000 expectation the data comes ahead of fridays key payrolls report data expected shortly after the opening bell includes the ism manufacturing pmi for november as well as october construction spending the feds beige book of economic conditions is expected later in the day below is your premarket snapshot for wednesdays live markets posts prior to 0830 est1330 gmt  click here read more