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Cyber, Chips and Space: Saxo UK Client Trends Report May
Neil Wilson
Investor Content Strategist
Saxo UK market and client trends report May
Market highlights
Global equity markets rallied strongly again in May, extending April’s rally after the steep selloff in March as the AI-driven earnings momentum dragged stocks higher. Whilst investors continued to register concerns about the Middle East conflict, slowing growth, rising inflation and policy tightening, AI investment continued to underpin a bullish optimism.
Wall Street closed out the month at record highs after a dizzying rally for tech, particularly chipmakers and memory stocks. The Nasdaq rose more than 8% in May, while the S&P 500 rallied around 5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed almost 3%. Earnings season has been one of the strongest in years with 85% of S&P 500 companies beating expectations. Per FactSet, companies are on aggregate surpassing profit forecasts by +16.7% against +7.3% average of the last 5 years.
Global stock markets were also buoyant with the MSCI AC World index rising 6% in sterling terms. Emerging markets posted strong gains with South Korea and Taiwan leading the way higher thanks to a handful of dominant tech names linked to the AI trade - SK Hynix, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
In terms of sectors tech was the biggest gainer with the MSCI AC World Information Technology index gaining over 18%. Commodities registered their first monthly decline in a year as gold declined for a third month in a row.
Client Trends
Main highlights: Saxo UK clients were net buyers of US tech too – Nvidia came as the most actively traded stock last month, with a 59% buy ratio. Micron was a close second and had 58% net buys.
Diversification remains a key theme and driver of trading activity as we saw significant positive buy ratios for a range of equity ETFs, particularly in the tech space. We registered strong buying in thematic ETFs offering exposure to semiconductors, and broader equity exposure via the likes of the MSCI World and S&P 500 tracker funds.
ETFs are more commonly featured in long-term, buy-and-hold type investor portfolios and therefore tend to have a stronger % buy rating than many single stocks, which may traded in and out more easily. Nevertheless, the strong buy ratings (bottom table) for a range of ETFs indicates solid appetite among clients to build holdings over the long term as opposed to selling down holdings.
Our list of the top ten performing ISA-eligible ETFs last month showed semiconductors, cyber security, space tech and quantum computing were big market themes.
UK stocks were in the doldrums a bit – the FTSE 100 lagged Wall Street significantly and this was reflected with just Rolls-Royce and BP entering our list of most traded stocks last month.
But Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust topped the list of stocks with the most positive buy ratio thanks to excitement around the coming IPO for SpaceX, which represents about 20% of the SMT net asset value.
Top 40 most traded stocks and ETFs in April with % of trades that were buys
Top Stocks & ETFs (Most Traded) | Buy% |
NVIDIA Corp. | 59% |
Micron Technology Inc. | 58% |
Microsoft Corp. | 52% |
Intel Corp. | 47% |
Palantir Technologies Inc. | 62% |
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. | 51% |
Alphabet Inc. Class A | 55% |
Meta Platforms Inc. | 58% |
Tesla Inc. | 48% |
Amazon.com Inc. | 50% |
VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF | 80% |
IonQ Inc. | 62% |
Apple Inc. | 46% |
ServiceNow Inc. | 58% |
IREN Ltd. | 62% |
Broadcom Inc. | 64% |
SanDisk Corp | 65% |
Vanguard S&P 500 Dist UCITS ETF | 69% |
Vanguard S&P 500 Acc UCITS ETF | 83% |
AST SpaceMobile Inc. | 58% |
Rigetti Computing, Inc. | 60% |
iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF | 83% |
Rocket Lab Corporation | 59% |
Oracle Corp. | 46% |
Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC | 55% |
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS Acc ETF | 91% |
D-Wave Quantum Inc. | 61% |
BP Plc | 49% |
Redwire Corp. | 77% |
CoreWeave Inc. | 62% |
iShares Physical Gold ETC | 69% |
Netflix Inc. | 57% |
Strategy Inc. | 59% |
Vanguard FTSE 100 UCITS ETF | 78% |
Coinbase Global Inc | 53% |
Marvell Technology Inc. | 57% |
Nebius Group NV | 47% |
TSMC - ADR | 65% |
Uber Technologies Inc. | 54% |
SoFi Technologies Inc | 57% |
Most Popular – stocks and ETFs with the strongest % buy ratio in January (minimum # of trades required)
Top Stocks & ETFs (Most Popular) | Buy% |
Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 UCITS ETF | 97% |
VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF | 93% |
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS Acc ETF | 91% |
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS Dist ETF | 91% |
iShares MSCI Global Semiconductors UCITS ETF | 86% |
iShares S&P 500 Info Technology Sector UCITS ETF | 84% |
iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF | 83% |
Vanguard S&P 500 Acc UCITS ETF | 83% |
Scottish Mortgage & Trust Plc. | 81% |
VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF | 80% |
SK hynix Inc | 80% |
Shopify Inc. | 80% |
Most Popular – stocks only
Most Popular - just stocks | Buy% |
Scottish Mortgage & Trust Plc. | 81% |
SK hynix Inc | 80% |
Shopify Inc. | 80% |
MercadoLibre Inc. | 77% |
Redwire Corp. | 77% |
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd - ADR | 75% |
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. B | 72% |
Cerebras Systems Inc | 70% |
Salesforce Inc. | 69% |
Arista Networks Inc. | 69% |
Note: This is marketing material. This article is not investment advice, capital is at risk.
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