Selfwealth investors flock to earnings season

Earnings season brought a flurry of activity to the stock market, as investors on Selfwealth acted on dips and rallies.

Company reports drove the Selfwealth cohort (now just over 128,000 active members) to trade in the highest volumes in six months.

Several stocks saw a triple-digit increase in post-earnings trading volume, with the greatest increase coming from AMP, which saw a 600% increase in trades versus its CY22 average. This was despite the share price falling by 13% on announcement day.

Similarly, the Commonwealth Bank saw trade volumes increase by almost 450% with Qantas up 320% despite both stocks falling 6-8% following their results announcements.

Trades for both companies mirrored behaviour usually seen for long-term ETFs: 89.8% of trades were buys for CBA, and 82.5% for Qantas.

Selfwealth CEO Cath Whitaker said the high buy-to-sell ratio is unusual but showed the cohort was not shy about buying in the dip.

“Some of the worst performing stocks on reporting day also recorded the largest increase in trading volume. And it was not confined to just one or two sectors but across many,” she said.

“AI data company Appen saw its buy-to-sell ratio increase nearly 24 percentage points to 75% with trading volume up 170%, which saw it jump 81 places to finish February as our 18^th most-traded stock.”

The Selfwealth cohort also used reporting season to load up on energy stocks. Santos trading was up 150% than the average daily trade with Woodside trading up 134% and Whitehaven Coal up 227%.

“These figures suggest Selfwealth members are upbeat about the outlook for oil, gas, and coal. The fact that each of these companies hiked their divided will also have played a part in driving community sentiment,” Ms Whitaker said.

When it came to the behaviour of the different generations, Baby Boomers loaded up on CBA, accounting for over half of all CBA trades.

Gen X took a liking to US stocks such as Apple, Alphabet, and Tesla which pushed these stocks into their top 20.

Gen Zs focussed on topping up with travel-related shares, particularly Flight Centre and Qantas. This age demographic also took a liking to Bass Oil (ASX code BAS). The stock is up 121% this year.

Selfwealth’s top 20 stocks for February 2023