This article presents the first study of Russian individual investors’ aggregate equity trading behavior using novel data from Moscow Exchange, with a focus on the COVID-19 episode. Aggregate Russian individual bought the dip during the COVID crash in March–April 2020. While this can be accounted for by their regular contrarian trading traits, they remained as net buyers until the market fully recovered, a sign of sophistication in striking contrast to views that characterized individual investors as noise traders. Our analysis suggests that this outcome was driven by a combination of regular contrarian traits and a unique positive shock to individual investor demand for equities, with weaker evidence of exploiting a negative bubble.

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