Here are the US shares ASX investors are buying in 2021 so far

Most weeks, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) CommSec brokering platform tells us the international shares (which are almost always American shares) that are the most popular with its customers. We’ve already looked at the most popular ASX shares today.

CommSec is one of the largest online brokers in the country. As such, this data can be a useful ‘finger on the pulse’ of general investing trends in the Aussie market. This week’s data covers 4-8 January.

So here are the top 10 United States shares CommSec customers were buying last week:

Most traded US shares on the ASX

1. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) – representing 7.1% of total trades with a 78%/22% buy-to-sell ratio.
2. Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO) – representing 3.7% of total trades with an 80%/20% buy-to-sell ratio.
3. Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) – representing 2.3% of total trades with a 78%/22% buy-to-sell ratio.
4. BioNano Genomics Inc (NASDAQ: BNGO) – representing 2.3% of total trades with a 71%/29% buy-to-sell ratio.
5. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA) – representing 2.4% of total trades with a 50%/50% buy-to-sell ratio.
6. ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (BATS: ARKG)
7. ARK Innovation ETF (NYSE: ARKK)
8. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT)
9. Quantumscape Corp (NYSE: QS)
10. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN)

What can we learn from these trades?

We have some interesting developments in this data. But first, it’s interesting to note that electric car/battery makers Tesla and Nio retain their long-held positions at the top of this list that they dominated across most of 2020.

Excitement over Tesla and Nio is reaching fever pitch. Tesla alone is up 673% over the past 12 months, including almost 100% since 16 November. It has, just in the past week, printed a new all-time high of US$884.49 a share. As a result, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also recently become the world’s richest person, surpassing Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

The China-based Nio is fairing even better. Its shares are up more than 20% over the past 5 days, and up an extraordinary 1,600% over the past 12 months. No wonder ASX investors can’t leave these companies alone. However, it is worth noting that roughly 1-in-5 investors are on the selling side of these trades too.

Apple remains ever-popular, but interesting inclusions this week are the biopharma company BioNano, and the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

BioNano shares caught investors’ eye when it spiked more than 1,200% between 22 December and 4 January.

Alibaba has been in the news recently as the US government contemplates a forced-delisting of certain Chinese companies from US stock exchanges. Interest has also recently been growing over the whereabouts of Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma, who hasn’t been seen in public since October last year, despite being China’s second-richest person. These narratives are possibly what is behind the 50/50 split between buyers and sellers.

We also have a rare appearance of a couple of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as well. ARKK and ARKG are both run by the popular ARK Invest firm, which is headed by Cathie Wood. Ms Wood has made a name for herself and ARK with an ultra-bullish, tech-driven, growth investing style in recent years, which included some well-timed entries into Tesla stock, incidentally.

Overall, we see a lot of interest in companies that might be described as ‘speculative’. It will be interesting to note how long this trend will carry into 2021.