{"id":3049,"date":"2026-03-03T03:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/retail-investor-buys-during-mondays-market-turmoil-xle-pltr\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T03:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T03:10:12","slug":"retail-investor-buys-during-mondays-market-turmoil-xle-pltr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/retail-investor-buys-during-mondays-market-turmoil-xle-pltr\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail investor buys during Monday&#8217;s market turmoil: XLE, PLTR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>\n<div data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\">\n<p><span hidden=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"ArticleBody-extraData\"><span hidden=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"ArticleBody-extraData\"><span hidden=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"xyz-data\">Mom-and-pop investors rushed into a pair of trades on Monday following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Retail investors sent millions of dollars on a net basis into the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) and Palantir in the first hour of Monday&#8217;s session, according to VandaTrack. But the broader market didn&#8217;t see the same support from small traders, the investing data firm found. &#8220;The message from the tape is straightforward,&#8221; Vanda analyst Ashwin Bhakre told CNBC. &#8220;This wasn&#8217;t broad panic. It was selective repositioning.&#8221; These moves come as trades raced to position for a potential long-term global conflict. The U.S. and Israel&#8217;s military action killed Iran&#8217;s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting retaliatory strikes from the Middle Eastern country. President Donald Trump said the conflict could last for weeks . Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the fighting could result in additional military deaths . Retail investors net bought more than $14 million worth of the XLE fund in the first hour of trading, a jump of more than 425% compared with the same period of Friday&#8217;s session. The ETF rallied to a 52-week high in Monday&#8217;s session as oil prices climbed amid concerns that the conflict would limit supply. &#8220;Retail didn&#8217;t tiptoe into energy; they moved decisively,&#8221; Bhakre said. &#8220;The scale of buying relative to Friday suggests oil quickly became the preferred geopolitical hedge at the open.&#8221; XLE ALL mountain The XLE, all-time chart Retail investors similarly jumped into the energy trade following the U.S. strike against Venezuela earlier this year. These small traders also poured more than $8 million into defense technology stock Palantir in the 60-minute period. That marks a &#8220;dramatic change&#8221; from the net selling of more than $500,000 seen during the first hour of Friday&#8217;s session, Bhakre said. Palantir surged more than 6% in midday trading on Monday, helping lead the broader defense sector higher. By comparison, the iShares U.S. Aerospace &amp; Defense ETF (ITA) added more than 2%. The stock &#8220;was rapidly reframed from a software growth name into [defense] exposure,&#8221; Bhakre said. &#8220;The speed of that shift is notable.&#8221; Palantir was one of the most-bought stocks by small investors last year, according to Vanda. PLTR ITA 1D mountain Palantir and the ITA, 1-day Selective and defensive Other popular plays didn&#8217;t see such a boost. Retail investors still net bought shares of Nvidia in Monday morning trading. But the first hour saw a 76% drop in net flows compared with the most recent trading day. That&#8217;s part of a trend of traders pulling back exposure to higher-risk technology names amid rising uncertainty, Bhakre said. Interest in the artificial intelligence trade was &#8220;clearly scaled back,&#8221; but the group wasn&#8217;t completely abandoned, he said. The State Street SPDR S &amp; P 500 Trust ETF (SPY) had &#8220;heavy&#8221; but &#8220;mixed&#8221; activity, the analyst said. The S &amp; P 500 broke into positive territory in midday trading after dropping more than 1% earlier in the day. &#8220;Retail isn&#8217;t simply &#8216;buying the market&#8217; right now,&#8221; Bhakre said. &#8220;They&#8217;re targeting specific themes instead of broad index exposure.&#8221; Retail traders had a bumper year in 2025 due in part to a buy-the-dip strategy. Monday&#8217;s action shows that while this group isn&#8217;t panic-selling stocks, they are buying strategically, Bhakre said. They&#8217;re also getting defensive, Vanda found. For example, Bhakre said there was high demand for the iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) and ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ (SQQQ) on Monday morning. &#8220;Retail wasn&#8217;t just rotating,&#8221; Bhakre said &#8220;They were actively hedging.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/span><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mom-and-pop investors rushed into a pair of trades on Monday following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Retail investors sent millions of dollars on a net basis into the State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) and Palantir in the first hour of Monday&#8217;s session, according to VandaTrack. But the broader market didn&#8217;t see the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2646,1883,326,2924,821,1564,376,2925],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loan","tag-buys","tag-investor","tag-market","tag-mondays","tag-pltr","tag-retail","tag-turmoil","tag-xle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}