• Meet the busiest lithium stocks on share trading platforms in 2022
  • Energy stocks and ETFs also in demand while gold makes comeback
  • Tesla and leading tech stocks remain popular in the US market 

Wondered what has been the most popular ASX stocks on the share trading platforms for 2022?

The Superhero annual Year in Trades shows last year’s most traded Australian company Zip (ASX:Z1P) fell off the most traded list for 2022 replaced with a lithium miner.

The top five most traded Australian companies between January 1, 2022 and 30 November 2022 on the Superhero platform were:

  1. Core Lithium (ASX:CXO)
  2. Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS)
  3. Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG)
  4. Brainchip Holdings (ASX:BRN)
  5. BHP (ASX:BHP)

The lithium carbonate price has increased ~23% in 2020, ~445% in 2021 and in the year to November 2022 ~104%.

CXO has seen its price rise by ~70% year to date, while PLS, FMG and BHP are also up.

However AI-chip developer BRN hasn’t been so fortunate with its share price slumping ~12% year to date.

The CXO, PLS, FMG, BRN & BHP share price

 

Superhero’s top five most traded US companies – between January 1, 2022 and 30 November 2022 – were:

  1. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA)
  2. Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL)
  3. Alphabet (Nasdaq:GOOGL)
  4. Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN)
  5. Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT)

Buying more than selling

Net buys on Superhero outnumbered net sell trades in 2022 with seven out of 10 trades on a buy trade.

ETFs were more popular with younger investors with ~50% of Superhero customers between 18 and 32 trading either Australian or US ETFs in 2022.

When it came to ETFs  83% of trades were buys, which Superhero said indicated investors were continuing to build their portfolios through the diversification provided by ETFs.

Energy and gold popular on Moomoo

At Moomoo the top five most traded ASX companies between January 1, 2022 and 30 November 2022 weren’t lithium.

  1. AGL Energy Limited (ASX:AGL) 
  2. QBE Insurance Group (ASX:QBE)
  3. Santos (ASX:STO) 
  4. Bank of Queensland (ASX:BOQ)
  5. Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) 

AGL has seen its share price rise ~28% year to date. The company in November announced plans to close its Torrens Island B gas power station in South Australia on June 30, 2026 aiming to transform the site into a low-carbon industrial energy hub.

Gold producing giant NST has seen its share price rise more than 16% year to date. Inflation and gold prices trending higher can only be good news for even the gold juniors according to Stockhead’s Barry Fitzgerald.

Moomoo Vice president and chief market strategist Matt Wilson said BOQ was a surprise, but QBE makes a bit more sense to be sitting in this top 5.

“Insurance is an interesting one – when inflation was going up, insurance stocks had the pricing power and somewhat benefit from an inflationary market,” he said.

“QBE is the kind of stock that would benefit from inflation, and in this market people were looking for investments that would prosper.

“It is also likely that QBE sits within a lot of self-managed super funds, that tend to buy portfolio stocks.”

The AGL, QBE, STO, BOQ & NST share price:

BBOZ most popular by trading value

Wilson said most popular by total trading value were:

  1. BetaShares Australian Equities Strong Bear Hedge Fund (ASX:BBOZ)
  2. Yancoal (ASX:YAL)
  3. Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (ASX:VAS)
  4. Novonix (ASX:NVX)
  5. BHP (ASX:BHP)

By trading value on Moomoo is where popular 2022 lithium appears with NVX specialising in lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles, mobile phones and energy storage units.

“In 2022 one of the key events for Novonix was the announcement of a US$150 million grant from the US Government to assist in developing electric vehicle technology,” Wilson said.

“The fact that the BBOZ was the number one share traded by market value suggests the Moomoo client base has been very bearish on markets in 2022.”

The top five most traded US companies between January 1, 2022 and 30 November 2022 on Moomoo were:.

  1. Tesla
  2. Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER)
  3. Amazon
  4. NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA)

Top ETFs of 2022

Over at Stockspot,  an online investment advisor which builds custom portfolios using ETFs, founder and CEO Chris Brycki told  Stockhead the most popular ETFs for 2022 can be broken down into three categories.

In Stockspot’s regular portfolios VAS was also the most popular. It was followed by  iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (ASX:IEM), which invests in a range of emerging market countries such as China, India and Taiwan.

For clients investing in Stockspot’s Green/Sustainable portfolios was  Betashares Australian Sustainability Leaders ETF (ASX:FAIR) and VanEck MSCI International Sustainable Equity ETF (ASX:ESGI) 

FAIR invests in sustainability-driven Australian companies engaged in positive environmental business activities, while ESGI invests in global companies targeting environmental, social and governance leaders.

Other popular ETFs chosen by Stockspot clients include BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF (ASX:NDQ) and  iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX:IVV)

NDQ invests in the largest 100 non-financial companies listed on the tech-focused U.S. NASDAQ index invests in the largest 500 companies listed on the U.S. S&P 500 index.

Crystal ball gazing into 2023

Wilson said the broad themes of 2022 including inflation, the war in Ukraine and energy price rises are likely to continue into 2023.

“The big questions for 2023 revolves around whether inflation has peaked, when central banks will stop raising interest rates and whether the Australian economy goes into recession for the first time since 1991-92,” he said.

“And we can never rule out geopolitical tensions regarding oil, gas and iron ore exports.”

Brycki said there are a lot of factors influencing markets at the moment  and nobody knows how these will pan out for markets in combination.

Brycki said uncertainty is all the more reason to own a diversified portfolio that can perform in different environments and stick with an automated strategy for rebalancing.

“The best way to embrace uncertainty and sleep at night is to be diversified,” he said.

So, what is Wilson’s advice to investors heading into 2023?

“Take this opportunity to recalibrate your investment portfolio with shares that you are comfortable to hold such as those with longer-term revenue generation, profitability, market position and adaptability,” he said.

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