A focus on lithium and an eye on AI: Superhero reveals its most-traded stocks of 2023

Superhero, a leading share trading and superannuation platform, has today released its annual Year in Trades review, digging into the most-traded assets on its platform in 2023.

Superhero finished the year with over 280,000 customers investing across sectors and markets. From being swept up in the Barbiemania hype in July – with Mattel entering our most traded list for the first time ever – to crowning a new top traded Australian company, this year we saw even more investors entering the market, leveraging Superhero to reach their financial goals.

LITHIUM ON THE MIND 

While lithium has been popular with Superhero investors for the last three years, there’s been a shake up between 2022 and 2023 with Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) dethroning Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) as the most traded Australian company in 2023.

The top five most traded Australian companies between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 (inclusive) were:

1. Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS)
2. Core Lithium (ASX:CXO)
3. Qantas (ASX:QAN)
4. BHP Limited (ASX:BHP)
5. Fortescue Metals Group (FMG)

Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) seemingly swept the nation and was the most traded Australian company in six states and territories. Tasmania and the Northern Territory deviated slightly from the rest of the country with Gold Hydrogen Ltd (ASX: GHY) and Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) taking pole position respectively.  All states and territories were aligned though when it came to ETFs with the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX:VAS) the most traded Australian ETF in 2023.

Over on Wall Street, for the third year in a row, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) held onto its title as the most traded U.S. company in 2023 with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) filling out the rest of the top five.

Chip maker NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) soared in 2023, lifting from seventh position in 2022 to third this year. On the US ETF front, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:VOO) retook its position as the most traded U.S. ETF on Superhero in 2023, leapfrogging the ProShares UltraPro QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:TQQQ) and ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:SQQQ).

Market Analyst at Superhero, Stella Ong said, “2023 was a fascinating year in terms of investor behaviour. We saw a sustained interest in lithium as well as focus on diversifying their portfolios with a noticeable increase in blue chip stocks and ETFs suggesting that our Superhero investors are long term believers seeking to find value in the mineral at the heart of the EV revolution. They’re weathering a drop in the lithium prices in 2023 and are bolstering their portfolios through diversified options such as ETFs.

“This trend has continued into 2024 and over the last three weeks, we’ve seen resource stocks dominate our top traded list for Aussie companies –  with an additional new focus on uranium stocks.

“It was particularly interesting to see a renewed focus on banking stocks with both CBA and ANZ making our top 10 most traded list for the year – in seventh and eighth position respectively. Unsurprisingly Tesla maintained its stranglehold as the most traded U.S. stock on Superhero in 2023. The stock is consistently popular with our investors and the rest of the Magnificent Seven made up the next six places on our list. NVIDIA boomed on Superhero in 2023 and AI was clearly a sector of interest with both Palantir and C3.ai entering our rankings for the first time.”

TALKING ABOUT YOUR GENERATION

While there were a number of similarities between how Superheroes of different age brackets invested, there were also some key differences between the generations.

Generationally, there were clear trends in how Superhero customers invested. When it came to U.S. stocks, Tesla reigned supreme for all demographics but second place was more varied. Specifically, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NSYE:VOO) in second for Gen Z, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) for Millennials, Apple  (NASDAQ:APPL) for Gen X and Boomers had Carvana (NYSE:CVNA) in second place.

Closer to home, younger investors (Gen Z and Millennials) had the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX:VAS) as their top traded AU stock while older investors (Gen X and Baby Boomers) focused first on Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS). Resources were front of mind for older investors with resource stocks making up four of the top five most traded Australian stocks for the two generations [(Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS)  followed by Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), Fortescue (ASX:FMG) and BHP (ASX:BHP)].

“ETFs are always popular on Superhero and 2023 was no different. We often see younger or newer investors look to ETFs as a way to build their portfolios and overall, a huge 53 per cent of Superhero customers between 18 and 40 currently hold at least one ETF in their portfolios,” commented Ms Ong.

STICKING WITH THE CLASSICS

Unlike previous years, 2023 didn’t see as much meme stock activity. Rather for the most part Superhero investors focused on the long term rather than short term trends.

While there was some interest in stocks like Mattel (NASDAQ:MAT), Carvana (NYSE:CVNA) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) in 2023, trusted companies, particularly for those trading Australian stocks, were front of mind. Locally, the BetaShares Australia 200 ETF (ASX:A200) was the fifth most traded Australian ETF last year and ASX20 stocks were popular throughout the year too.

When it came to ASX20 stocks, 2023 was split between three companies. ANZ (the eighth most traded Australian stock on Superhero in 2023) was the most traded ASX20 stock for the first two months of the year. BHP then took the mantle for a big chunk of the year, between March and October before FMG rounded off the last two months of the year.

Ms Ong concluded, “When it came to investing in the Australian markets, it was all about blue chips and lithium. We saw consistent interest in established listed companies throughout the year with our investors backing them as a long term strategy. Interestingly, while lithium stocks were the most traded Australian stocks on our platform, after Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) and Core Lithium (ASX:CXO), our male investors then looked to BHP (ASX:BHP) while our female investors had their eye on Qantas (ASX:QAN) instead. We also saw ongoing investment in ETFs like VAS and A200 throughout the year.”