individual investors have been scooping up shares of energy stocks as the sector soars on high oil prices on monday retail investors purchased a net 340 million of uslisted energy stocks and exchangetraded funds the most in one day in vandatrack data going back to 2014 over the five trading days through tuesday they bought a net 12205 million of chevron corp shares and a net 8879 million of occidental petroleum corp shares according to vandatrack energy is the only sp 500 sector in positive territory for 2022 the group is up 36 for the year compared to a decline of 11 for the broad us stock index the sector pulled back wednesday morning falling 23 as oil declined in daily trading companies in the energy sector stand to benefit from the surge in oil prices that has accompanied russia’s invasion of ukraine and moves by refiners shippers and financiers to shun russian oil president biden on tuesday banned imported oil and other energy sources from russia which could add momentum to the climb in prices brent crude the global oil benchmark settled tuesday at 12798 per barrel up 65 this year