US retail investors are confident and new data shows they plunged into the market when volatility was rising during December

US retail investors are confident and new data shows they plunged into the market when volatility was rising during December. At the end of last year, oil and the Russian ruble crashed, the VIX volatility index doubled, and U.S. stocks dropped 5 percent from their high - all circumstances that normally shake an investor's confidence. Not this time, though: New data from Fidelity shows that while the world panicked, many individual investors in the U.S. were buying stocks. An analysis of Fidelity's 15 million retail brokerage customers shows that, in the tumultuous first two weeks of December, customers put in 34 percent more buy orders than sell orders for stocks and exchange-traded funds. Individual investors were especially bold in the kinds of stocks they bought. From Nov. 21 to Dec. 15, the S&P 500 Energy Sector plunged 16 percent to a two-year low. But Fidelity customers put 38 percent of their net new money into energy stocks in December. Should we be concerned? (VIEW LINK)