What they’re buying in 2026 after strong year
Various Halliburton equipment is stored in the equipment yard in Alvarado, Texas.
Cooper Neil | Reuters
Fresh off the buffer in 2025, retail investors are returning to the market with a focus on energy stocks.
Day traders bought at the second highest level in almost eight months at the start of the 2026 trading year, JPMorgan reported Wednesday. Oil-related stocks have been a particularly hot pick for mom-and-pop investors following the U.S. attack on Venezuela over the weekend, data show.
“Retail investors have favored some companies that could immediately profit from the potential of Venezuelan heavy crude oil returning to the world. [U.S.] or what is needed to rebuild the country’s decaying oil infrastructure,” JPMorgan quant analyst Arun Jain told clients.
Net daily retail entry halliburton It rose to the highest level since the beginning of 2022, according to market research firm VandaTrack. flows into Strip The firm found that the stock, which Wall Street quickly crowned as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the military intervention, has reached high levels since the summer.
Beyond these stocks, JPMorgan found that retail flows into the oil industry’s leading companies are increasing. Baker Hughes And SLB as investors wonder what’s next for the global industry.
Venezuela has the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, but production has fallen significantly from its peak in the late 1990s. President Donald Trump said the South American country would send up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States following the attack. American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on drug trafficking charges and brought them to the United States.
According to Breakout Point, Chevron’s popularity increased over the weekend following the strike, especially on retail investor discussion platforms such as Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum. But Breakout Point’s managing director, Ivan Ćosović, said that by Tuesday the crowd had largely gravitated towards other names, which was not surprising given that this group had not previously been a notable stock.
Said another way: according to Ćosović, the “Chevr-on” trade became “Chevr-off”.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether these big bets by average Joe traders will pay off in the long run in the wake of the Venezuela action. Shares of Halliburton, SLB and Baker Hughes rose this week, while Chevron rose sharply after Monday’s big rally.
Oil stocks have increased in the last five days
However, according to Viraj Patel, vice president of research at Vanda, the pullbacks do not mean that retail traders will give up on this theme. If oil performs as well for these investors as the popular AI trade, they will likely stick around for a while longer.
“Once retail sinks its teeth into a theme, they don’t let it go like a dog with a bone,” Patel said. “AI has shown us that if retailers believe in something, they will continue to buy, even on bad days.”
According to Patel, this interest in energy could also signal a shift from fast-growing names to names that generate more cash flow. Retail trading has also been bullish for oil-focused exchange-traded funds. State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE)he said.
Retail’s next test
Energy could be the final test for a group whose strong performance last year created a narrative shift among major investors.
Jain added that retail traders are turning to stocks to start the new year after the seasonal slowdown in the last week of 2025.
Small investors successfully bought the dip early in the year, allowing them to ride the market’s dramatic mid-year recovery to all-time highs, according to Vanda and JPMorgan. Their reputation has therefore shifted from the “dumb money” caricature defined by meme stock swings and short squeezes to a more mature market participant.
“Institutional investors are no longer asking how to dismantle retail,” Patel said. “‘What do they see that we don’t?’ “they ask.”
