Equity market review: Most bought and sold stocks & ETFs in September
Neil Wilson
Investor Content Strategist
It was a mixed month for global stocks as bonds had their worst time in years. Stock market breadth was weak, but heavily concentrated tech weightings flattered the overall performance for the US vs the rest. The rout in the bond market pressured financial stocks, industrials and some materials, while utilities and real estate, so-called bond proxies, suffered amid the selloff in fixed income. US Treasuries had their worst month in four years and their worst quarter since 1994.
Starting with the UK market, the FTSE 100 declined nearly 2% in September, posting its worst month since March, although Q3 closed out with its seventh consecutive quarterly gain. Miners had a good month with flows supported by copper but the heavyweight Energy and Financials sectors underperformed along with Consumer Staples.
A late slide into the month-end saw the S&P 500 give up its gains for the day and end down 0.25% for the session, finishing the month of September down 0.5%. The bifurcation was clear with the comparison between the Dow Jones, which fell 4.3% over the month and the Nasdaq Composite, which rallied 1.9% during September.
The narrative was really about a rally in large cap tech over the month with Mag7 +4.4% and the SOXX semis ETF +11%, while three-quarters of S&P 500 stocks fell over the month. Most sectors were in the red; Financials –7.3%, Materials –6.9%, Real Estate –6.7%, Utilities –6.1% and Consumer Discretionary –5.9%. Only Communication Services +4.3% and Information Technology +4.4% gained.
For Q3 the S&P 500 advanced 2% and the Nasdaq gained 2.5%, but the Dow shed 2.7% on the quarter. YTD the S&P 500 remains +11.8% higher.
Most bought and sold
Nvidia retained its crown as the most actively trade stock among clients but there was a slight bias towards selling with 48% buys.
Micron was a standout at number two as the memory chip giant rallied about 14% over the month into a blowout earnings update after the closing bell on the last trading day of September.
Meta was the third most traded stock, but clients were net sellers with just 30% buys. That's despite the stock notching its best month since 2022, climbing 27% over September off the back of a strong reaction to its Muse AI agent.
Going down the list it's all US tech – SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Broadcom, Microsoft and Tesla rounding out the top ten most traded stocks last month.
Among the ETF space, gold funds attracted buyers as clients turned bullish on the yellow metal as prices came under pressure from rising real yields. The S&P 500 was the most popular index tracker (note the 4 funds shown on the right show distributing and accumulating versions for both USD and GBP denominated securities).