Investors Sell as Retail Traders Buy the Dip in Lenders Amid Banking Crisis

Despite concerns about a banking crisis, individual investors have been buying the dip in bank stocks, with net purchases of Bank of America stock this year reaching $769 million, according to data from Vanda Research. Retail traders also bought more than $200 million of First Republic Bank stock in the same period. Users of eToro snapped up shares of Credit Suisse Group AG, BNP Paribas SA and Bank of America despite big drops, the company’s quarterly data show. The activity comes as the closely watched bull-bear spread from the weekly American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) survey shows individual investors are still mostly bearish on the stock market.