The stock market is at all-time highs, but trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange is at 15 year lows.

Quite simply, the mom-and-pop investor has had enough and is leaving the market.

One likely culprit for the decline in trading volume is the shrinking number of market participants, especially on the retail side…

Retail investors have been ‘beaten up,” said Pado, pointing to the painful losses inflicted by the bursting of the dotcom bubble and 2008 Wall Street crisis. ‘You had a one-two punch on a whole generation that was completely crushed.”

The financial media generally views this trend with a shrug and “So what? Stocks are up.” Which is true. However, what suckers are they going to sell to when stocks start going down?

It took a couple stock market crashes, but the average American has realized that the stock market is rigged in favor of the big players, and they no longer want any part of it.

Only 18 percent say they are more inclined to invest in the stock market with interest rates as low as they are. But a whopping 76 percent are saying “no” to equities, according to Bankrate’s latest Financial Security Index.

Part of the reason for this trend […]