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Retirement

SMSFs hungry for equity investing

  • January 22 2018
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Retirement

SMSFs hungry for equity investing

By Lucy Dean
January 22 2018

Australian SMSFs are growing more confident with “exotic equity instruments in the market” and are ready to take chances on new sectors, a major bank has revealed.

SMSFs hungry for equity investing

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  • January 22 2018
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Australian SMSFs are growing more confident with “exotic equity instruments in the market” and are ready to take chances on new sectors, a major bank has revealed.

SMSFs hungry for equity investing

NAB today released its nabtrade data which analysed SMSF equity trading patterns in the year to 15 December.

According to the data, interest in equity investing “surged”, with international shares, domestic exchange-traded funds, unlisted managed funds (mFunds) and partially paid shares the flavours du jour for 2017.

Further, the data showed that SMSFs nearly tripled their investments in mFunds, and raised their ETF and partially paid shares holdings by 55 per cent and 51 per cent correspondingly.

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“The analysis shows that investors are getting comfortable with the more exotic equity instruments in the market and are prepared to spread risk,” NAB SMSF and customer behaviour director, Gemma Dale said.

SMSFs hungry for equity investing

“Low levels of volatility and the strong performance of domestic and international markets gave investors confidence to look for new opportunities,” she continued.

The data also revealed that preference shares saw investor holdings grow by 34 per cent, while traditional equity holdings were up 13.5 per cent.

At the same time, interest in floating rate notes and options investment decreased.

Ms Dale said that for equity markets broadly, SMSF investors saw their total portfolios grow by more than 15 per cent.

As for specific sectors, Ms Dale said 2017 followed the trend in recent years with financials and materials sectors the most heavily traded. Those sectors respectively made up 36 per cent and 17 per cent of the turnover.

Meanwhile, NAB, Commonwealth Bank and Telstra were 2017’s most traded stocks.

“Telecommunication services, healthcare and consumer discretionary stocks were also popular among investors,” she added.

International trading nearly doubled, with US equities and ETFs the most traded equity instruments on international markets.

Ms Dale said this showed that SMSF investors, like retail investors are “turning to offshore markets to diversify their portfolios and to access high growth sectors in the US”.

According to its breakdown of most popular equity instruments, domestic equities were dominated by the major banks and supermarket corporations, while technology stocks like Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Tesla were most popular in terms of international equity instruments. 

Nabtrade’s top 10 domestic equity instruments

  • NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • WESTPAC BANKING CORPORATION. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • TELSTRA CORPORATION. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • BHP BILLITON. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • WESFARMERS. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • CSL. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • WOOLWORTHS GROUP. Ordinary Fully Paid
  • WOODSIDE PETROLEUM. Ordinary Fully Paid

Nabtrade’s top 10 international equity instruments

  • AMAZON COM ORD Common Stock
  • APPLE ORD Common Stock
  • FACEBOOK CL A ORD Common Stock
  • ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING ADR REP 1 ORD Depositary Receipt
  • ENPHASE ENERGY ORD Common Stock
  • TENCENT ORD Common Stock
  • TESLA ORD Common Stock
  • NVIDIA ORD Common Stock
  • MICROSOFT ORD Common Stock
  • BANK OF AMERICA ORD Common Stock
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