Do lay investors know more than market experts?

Retail investors are loading up on the riskiest assets even as experts flag the many hazards of doing so. Going by history, this will end badly.

Lately, whenever I log in to my trading account, I get this pop-up that I must acknowledge before proceeding. 

The caution, while warranted, as we shall see, is not because my broker is concerned about my financial well-being. It is mandated by SEBI which, as a regulator, is clearly spooked by the fancy for derivatives among investors who are usually not fully aware of what they are getting into, especially when markets are at all-time highs and looking very frothy. 

Consider the facts—the total number of individual derivative traders was just over 700,000 in 2018-19, per SEBI data. In …