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What Saxo clients are trading: August’s biggest shifts
Summary: AI broadened beyond chips, while investor attention shifted from Europe and Hong Kong towards commodity-heavy markets.
Every month, we look at how trading behaviour among Saxo clients is changing — both the number of clients trading and the number of trades placed — to see where investor attention is accelerating, fading or moving next.
Here’s what stood out in August compared with July.
The stocks getting more attention
A handful of stocks saw trading activity more than double in August:
Stock | Change in trades | What caught our eye |
Moderna | +506% | A sharp return of event-driven biotech interest |
AppLovin | +168% | Investors returned to high-growth AI and ad-tech |
Coherent | +157% | AI interest broadened into optical connectivity |
Palantir | +107% | Renewed participation in a major AI software name |
Salesforce | +101% | Interest returned to profitable enterprise software |
TeraWulf | +63% | Growing attention on power and computing infrastructure |
Biggest mover: Moderna jumps more than 500%
Moderna was the standout stock of the month, with trade counts rising over 500% from July.
The scale of the move suggests investors returned quickly to a stock where clinical, regulatory and commercial developments can create sharp changes in sentiment and volatility.
Importantly, this looks more like a company-specific biotech story than a wider healthcare rotation, with activity across the broader biopharma sector remaining relatively stable.
The question now is whether interest persists into September or whether August proves to be a short-lived, catalyst-driven spike.
Two broader trends also emerged from the data.
Trend 1: AI interest is broadening — but investors are getting more selective
Overall software activity remained softer, but several individual AI-linked names moved sharply higher.
Trading in AppLovin rose 168%, Palantir 107% and Salesforce 101%, while Coherent rose 157% and TeraWulf 63%.
The message is not simply that investors are returning to tech. Instead, attention appears to be moving beyond the chipmakers and towards different parts of the AI value chain — software monetisation, optical networking, data-centre connectivity and computing infrastructure.
At the same time, weakness in the broader software category suggests investors are becoming more selective rather than buying the sector indiscriminately.
What we’re watching: Whether September brings a wider pickup in application software, networking and other AI infrastructure names.
Trend 2: Attention shifted from Europe and Hong Kong towards commodity-heavy markets
One of the clearest regional shifts came outside the US.
Trading activity weakened across markets including the UK, Germany and Hong Kong, while activity on Canadian exchanges jumped 27% month-on-month and Australia rose around 6%.
That contrast matters.
Canada’s increase was led partly by precious-metals companies including First Majestic Silver, Discovery Mining, B2Gold and Aya Gold & Silver. Australia saw broader interest across miners, property-related companies and the domestic equity market.
This suggests Saxo clients were increasingly looking towards markets offering greater exposure to gold, silver, mining and real assets, rather than some of the European and Asian markets where activity was fading.
Why? Commodity-heavy markets can offer a different set of return drivers at a time when investors are looking beyond concentrated US technology exposure. Rising interest in precious metals and resource stocks may also be drawing attention towards exchanges where these companies make up a much larger part of the opportunity set.
The shift is still early — Canada and Australia came from smaller July bases — but the relative change in attention is worth watching.
What we’re watching: Whether activity continues moving towards miners and resource-rich markets, or whether August proves to be mainly a precious-metals-driven spike.
What August tells us
AI is broadening: attention is extending from chips into software, optics and computing infrastructure.
Investors are becoming more selective: a few high-conviction software names are gaining strongly even while the wider sector remains soft.
Regional interest is rotating: activity weakened in the UK, Germany and Hong Kong while Canada and Australia gained, with commodities and precious metals an important part of the shift.
September will tell us whether these are one-month spikes — or the start of a more meaningful change in where investors are looking for their next opportunity.
Trading activity reflects Saxo client behaviour and does not necessarily indicate net buying, conviction or future performance. Month-on-month changes can also be amplified by a low starting base.