In March, Baltic investors mostly bought shares of the US technology giant Apple through the Luminor Investor platform – in total, investors spent 2.4 million Eur on Apple shares. These shares were also at the top of the list of most sold ones – sales transactions of Apple shares were accounted for 2.5 million. Eur. The TOP3 most popular purchases (in euros) on the self-investment platform also included shares of the German bank Commerzbank and the US software and hardware manufacturer Microsoft, with investors spending 440 and 434 thousand Eur respectively.
Rolandas Juteika, Head of Luminor's Savings and Investment Product Development Division for the Baltics, said that some investors lost rational thinking in March as stock price volatility reached an all-time high, according to the VIX index. On the other hand, for other investors, this period allowed buying depreciated securities.
"When emotions rather than a cold mind dictates the decisions of a significant number of investors, lovers of technical analysis got involved in trading. With stocks fluctuating a double-digit per cent per day in one direction or another, this is a great opportunity for them to earn quite a significant profit in a very short period of time. However, the risk is very high. The other part of investors - long-term investors – were using the so-called "buy and hold" strategy and also actively filled their investment portfolios. March was an excellent opportunity to buy cheaper shares and wait for them to rise in the future," says R. Juteika.
In terms of the number of purchase transactions on the Luminor Investor platform, Commerzbank shares were at the top of the TOP5 stocks in March. Behind Commerzbank, the most popular share list includes German car manufacturer Daimler, the US television broadcasting platform Roku, Apple and Microsoft.
Among exchange-traded funds (ETFs), iShares Core MSCI World UCITS, which follows the MSCI World Index, was the most interested by investors in March (purchases exceeded 1 million Eur). Last month, iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS, the fund following the US stock index S&P 500, ranked TOP2 among ETF's with more than 933 thousand Eur transactions. The iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS, which follows the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index, was also in the top three ETF funds in March.
With markets fluctuating, private investors were reluctant to trade bonds in March actively. The number of bond transactions was minimal.
The Luminor Investor platform enables retail investors to invest in more than 14,500 simple financial instruments, including stocks, bonds, ETFs and mutual funds. According to the beginning of April, 82 per cent. of the platform's investors recorded profits.
