Welcome to the July 2024 edition of Sharesight’s monthly trading snapshot for New Zealand investors, where we look at the top 20 trades made by New Zealand Sharesight users.

You may notice our trading snapshot looks different this month, as we have updated the design and are no longer highlighting the top 20 NZX trades. Instead, we are presenting the top trades by New Zealand investors, regardless of market, because this is a better reflection of how Kiwis are actually investing. You will also notice that we highlight the top 20 trades (across all asset classes), as well as the top 20 stocks, which allows us to observe the broader investment trends by New Zealand Sharesight users, while also giving us an opportunity to zoom into the most popular stocks and the market-moving news behind them.

Top trades July 2024

This month, the top trades were led by the Smartshares US 500 ETF (NZX: USF), followed by NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and the Smartshares NZ Top 50 ETF (NZX: FNZ). It was a strong month for ETF trading overall, with 10 of the top 12 trades consisting of ETFs. It’s also worth noting that the majority of these trades are buy trades, which is to be expected in an ETF-heavy snapshot. Overall, this snapshot suggests that many New Zealand Sharesight users are employing a long-term buy-and-hold strategy.

Most-traded stocks July 2024

This month’s top-traded stocks were strongly led by NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), which has seen its share price decline throughout July, with many opportunistic Sharesight users buying the dip. The top trades were followed by Infratil (NZX: IFT), which spent the month raising equity to further fund its investment in data centre CDC.

Let’s look at some of the market-moving news behind some of this month’s top stocks:

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA)

• NVIDIA among tech companies using controversial methods to train their AI models
• NVIDIA and Apple lead tech slump as Nasdaq records worst day since 2022

Infratil (NZX: IFT)

• Valuation of Infratil’s stake in CDC has risen by over NZ$500 million
• Infratil raises NZ$275 million in oversubscribed offer to retail investors

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA)

• Tesla partners with Zurich to deliver insurance to its Australian customers
• Analysts impressed by Tesla’s latest update to its Full Self-Driving tech
• Tesla share price rises on newfound analyst optimism

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)

• Microsoft share price on watch ahead of upcoming earnings report, with investors eyeing AI spend
• Microsoft to reduce kernel-level access for software applications following CrowdStrike incident

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)

• Share price hits new high ahead of Apple Intelligence release for iPhones; analysts predict US$5 trillion valuation
• Apple delays introduction of Apple Intelligence features in its phones by another month

Mainfreight (NZX: MFT)

• Mainfreight looks to Australia as biggest future earnings source, as local profit dwindles
• Mainfreight criticises KiwiRail’s decision to cancel Cook Strait ferry project; questions why it was not consulted