TD Ameritrade Holding’s monthly look at its 6 million clients’ trading activity shows that retail investors increased their exposure to equities in September, as the firm’s Investor Movement Index ticked up to 5.79 from August’s 5.68. The index remains near the 5.87 all-time high achieved in March.
By and large retail investors made buying opportunities of the market dips that peppered the month. The combination of mixed economic news, geopolitical unrest and the largest IPO in history created a volatile trading environment that retail investor took on by focusing on specific names.
Investors were net buyers and, unsurprisingly, Apple AAPL 0% led the trend. On the first trading day of the month the iPhone maker hit an $103.74. The all time high came as anticipation of its September 9 reveal event peaked. Shares quickly fell from that high taking a wild ride through the rest of the month — popping as the company finally introduced the iPhone 6 set, Apple Watch and Apple Pay; climbing back to $102.64 around when the new phones hit stores; and dropping all the way to $97.87 as #bendgate struck fear in the hearts of new phone owner everywhere.
All that movement created a number of buying opportunities for active traders, but more significant to the trend may have been long standing loyalty to Apple. The stock is the most widely held among TD Ameritrade’s retail investors. Nicole Sherrod, managing director of the firm’s trader group, pointed out that not only is it common to see a lot of activity in Apple stock and options when the company unveils new products, retail investors are more likely than the general population to own Apple products. TD Ameritrade has found 75% of its trading app downloads come from Apple devices. Sherrod suspects this is because, to invest in the stock market someone need to have some savings and people with some money are more likely to find Apple’s price points palatable.
Retail investors were also drawn to Yahoo YHOO +1.21%, Another household name having a volatile month in September, thanks to its large pre-IPO stake in Alibaba. Shares climbed through most of the month as Alibaba’s IPO approached but dropped sharply once the Chinese e-commerce giant began trading on the 19th. Anybody who bought Yahoo near the eventual low has may have started to see it pay off as activist investors push for a merger with AOL.
BABA data by YCharts
Yet, buying was not universal. Facebook was a net sell last month as it reached an all time high, as was Intel INTC +0.24% which climbed to a post-dot-com boom high. Amazon.com AMZN -0.13% and a number of big banks — Citigroup C -0.08% and Bank of America BAC 0% — were also net sells.
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