When it comes to global shares, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) is hard to beat.
The electric vehicle and battery maker, with a market cap of some US$784 billion (AU$1.07 trillion) once again took top spot for most held shares by Aussie (and global) investors on eToro's investment platform.
We take a closer look at Tesla and the other 4 top held shares below.
But first…
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What did eToro's top held shares list reveal?
One thing that jumps out from the top 5 held shares is that they can all be labelled as growth stocks. In fact, 9 of the 10 top held shares on the eToro platform in the past quarter ending 30 September were growth stocks.
On the surface that may be surprising, as more economists are beginning to suspect that the boost in inflation hitting much of the world might not be quite as transitory as they'd been hoping. Meaning the odds of earlier and potentially larger interest rate hikes from the world's central banks is increasing.
Higher rates could impact shares like tech companies, which are often priced with future earnings growth in mind. However, investors appear to be shrugging off those fears.
According to eToro's global markets strategist, Ben Laidler:
The fact that growth – and in particular big tech – stocks increasingly dominate portfolios suggests two things: firstly, that investors believe interest rate rises will be slow and steady; and, secondly, that they believe there is still plenty of mileage in growth stock earnings.
With that said, here are the top 5 shares held by Aussie investors in the quarter just gone by.
Tesla takes the cake
As mentioned up top, Elon Musk's brainchild Tesla, held onto its top spot for most held shares.
Commenting on Tesla's resilience among investors, eToro's Australian market analyst Josh Gilbert, said:
Australian investors are clearly passionate about investing in EVs, with Tesla once again dominating the local rankings. Despite Tesla's performance being quite lacklustre at the beginning of 2021, Australian investors have renewed their optimism after the company announced its latest Q2 earnings in Q3 2021.
The report demonstrated vehicle deliveries were up 122 per cent year-over-year, gross margins were continuing to swell and most importantly, guidance was strong for the rest of the year.
Staying with the tech theme but moving away from Tesla and EVs, the number 2 most held share by Aussie investors last quarter was Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), with a mind-boggling market cap of some US$2.4 billion.
Apple moved up from fourth spot in Q2.
According to Gilbert:
We can also see that Australian investors have increasingly favoured the defence end of tech with names such as Apple and Microsoft [the number 8 holding]. The balance sheets that these names possess can help Australian investors weather most market storms, whilst also finding growth in the tech space.
Coming in at number 3 for Q3 was fellow electric vehicle maker, Chinese company Nio Inc (NYSE: NIO), which held the number 2 spot in the previous quarter.
Indeed, investors appear well attuned to the continuing growth potential of the EV market. And for good reason. EV sales in the first half of 2021 were almost 3 times the number in the first half of 2020, and made up some 7% of all car sales.
Rounding out the list we have GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) as the fourth most popular share among Aussie investors. That's down one spot from the number 3 most popular share it held in the second quarter of 2021.
And Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) came in at number 5, up 1 place from the number 6 spot it held in Q2.
Will Tesla remain king of the hill in the current quarter or will it be unseated?
Stay tuned.
