Looking for a simple way to get exposure to the huge US market? The team at Stake (hellostake.com) can help with that.

The app-based trading platform provides a vehicle for local investors to buy and sell US stocks and ETF products.

With 28,000 active customers, the business has gained some early traction operating as a “Commsec for US shares, but cheaper”. Stake doesn’t charge any trading fees to use its platform.

Users receive access to the full range of public companies — almost 4,000 in total — across the major US indices.

Stake also offers exposure to simple and leveraged ETFs in the US market, giving investors exposure to stock-adjacent themes such as the market volatility (VIX) index.

The company offers a full trading platform through its Stake app, where investors can buy and sell shares, monitor chart patterns and conduct research on a given company or sector.

To give Stockhead readers an idea of where Australian investors are focusing, we’ve compiled some figures from the Stake database highlighting popular trades.

This is the second instalment — for last week’s summary, click here.

For starters, here are five US companies that recently hit a 52-week high:

Code Name Price Change ($) Change (%)
ARDX Ardelyx Inc 5.010 1.500 42.74%
LCI Lannett Company, Inc. 11.420 2.540 28.6%
AMBA Ambarella, Inc. 60.230 12.860 27.15%
WDC Western Digital Corporation 61.950 6.870 12.47%
MDCO Medicines Company, The 47.920 4.930 11.47%
ROKU Roku, Inc. 166.930 17.050 11.38%
Wordpress Table Plugin

Pharmaceutical stocks featured prominently, with Ardelyx Inc, Lannett Company Inc and The Medicine Company all hitting yearly highs last week.

The other winners came from the IT sector with both hardware and software in the winner’s list, as semiconductor designer Ambarella Inc rose strongly along with streaming service Roku Inc.

The team at Stake also provided an interesting breakdown of the most popular stock by age group:

Age Group Code Price Change ($) Change (%)
<18 AEG 3.950 0.180 4.77%
18-24 UGAZ 17.870 2.970 19.93%
25-34 OKTA 124.250 -2.930 -2.3%
35-44 TSLA 229.580 7.870 3.55%
45-55 QLD 99.780 3.920 4.09%
55-64 FSLY 33.810 5.870 21.01%
65+ AMT 235.750 5.340 2.32%
Wordpress Table Plugin

One of the best performers was an exchange-traded note (ETN) linked to the S&P GSCI Natural Gas Index — UGAZ — that was popular among the younger cohort of 18-24 year old investors.

And lastly, here’s a table of the best-performing US stocks traded by Aussie customers on the Stake platform last week:

Most up stocks Code Price Change $ Change %
Abeona Therapeutics Inc. ABEO 3.010 1.190 65.38%
Ardelyx Inc ARDX 5.010 1.500 42.74%
Quorum Health Corporation QHC 1.350 0.400 42.11%
Owens & Minor Inc OMI 6.910 1.980 40.16%
China Online Education Group COE 5.462 1.541 39.3%
Wordpress Table Plugin

Stake (hellostake.com) is a fully digital broker that gives investors direct access to the US share market. With over 45,000 customers and growing, Stake has cut down the barriers for Australians to trade over 3,800 US stocks and ETFs, making it simpler, cheaper, and faster to access the world’s largest share market. With Stake, you can sign up, get verified and be in the market in under 5 minutes.

This story was developed in collaboration with Stake (hellostake.com), a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.