Most weeks, Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (ASX: CBA) brokerage platform CommSec releases the most popular international shares (which are almost always US shares) that its Aussie users were trading over the previous week.
CommSec is one of the most popular brokers in the country. As such, this information gives us a useful insight into the US shares ASX investors are currently finding interesting.
So here are the top 10 US shares from CommSec last week. This week's data covers 30 August to September 3.
Tesla back on top
- Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) – representing 3.2% of total trades with a 57%/43% buy-to-sell ratio.
- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA) – representing 2.8% of total trades with an 84%/16% buy-to-sell ratio.
- Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) – representing 2.5% of total trades with a 71%/29 buy-to-sell ratio.
- GameStop Corp (NYSE: GME) – representing 2.2% of total trades with an 82%/18% buy-to-sell ratio.
- Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) – representing 1.4% of total trades with an 85%/15% buy-to-sell ratio.
- NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA)
- Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ: ZM)
- Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ: GOOG)
- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)
- Lucid Group Inc (NASDAQ: LCID)
What can we learn from these trades?
Last week, we discussed the emergence of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba into the top spot on this list. Well, this week, Alibaba is still popular, but it's the Elon Musk-headed electric battery and vehicle manufacturer Tesla that takes out the top spot. Although saying that, investors appear pretty divided on what to do with their Tesla shares, seeing as the buy/sell ratio was at 57%/43%.
Tesla has been climbing in recent weeks, going from around US$665 on 17 August to US$753.87 as of last night (up 13.2%). Perhaps some investors are taking some profits off the table here.
But Alibaba is still in the number 2 spot this week and has a far more enthusiastic buy/sell ratio at 84%/16%. The Alibaba share price has continued to fall in recent weeks after a disappointing year in 2021 so far. The company hit a new 52-week low around a fortnight ago, so this might have tempted some bargain hunters to come out of the woodwork.
In other news, we still see sustained demand for the big US tech blue chips like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.
Zoom is an interesting addition though. This company has also taken a hit in recent weeks and is down more than 15% since last Monday (30 August). Clearly, we also see some bargain hunting going on here, judging by Zoom's 72%/28% buy/sell ratio.
And finally, we still see an appetite for the 'meme stocks' like GameStop and Lucid Group. Some 82% of trades were buys with GameStop, so there must still be some appetite for the kind of 'pops' this company has now become known for.