Baby boomers drive blue chips rise

Oksana Patron

3 August 2023

Baby boomers and established investors, typically with million dollar-plus portfolios, were still active buyers of blue chips leading into the end of last financial year, while millennials and Gen Z were more often choosing stocks which played a major role in renewable energy provision.

According to data collated from trading platform Selfwealth’s community of more than 129,000 members, baby boomers favoured prominent ASX stocks and sectors such as mining, banking, and hybrids.

At the same time, Millennials and Gen Z were more interested in companies that will play a major role in renewable energy provision, such as lithium, with Leo Lithium and Lithium Energy being the fourth and eleventh most bought securities by this cohort through June.

On the other hand, boomers liked BHP on the back of a rally in iron ore, and preferred exchange traded funds (ETFs) that offered income like the Betashares’ Australian High Interest Cash ETF, on top of companies such as Fortescue Metals Group and CSL.

Following this, Generation X were more invested in US banking, which included Bank of America and Citibank, as well as big tech, placing Tesla at fourth, Microsoft at sixth, and Apple at fourteenth in the top 15 buys for this cohort in the June 30 lead-up.

The data also showed that US stocks were popular in June across all generations and represented 37 out of the top 50 ‘buys’ by value.

The highest conviction trade across all cohorts was a $US4.16 million order for Citibank, while Tesla saw the highest individual buy order for a non-bank stock at US$3.69 million.

According to Selfwealth, across all established investors cohorts, these were the key takeaways for EOFY buying activity:
• 29 out of the top 50 ‘buys’ by value were either Bank of America or Citibank (avg. buy value: US$2.37m)
• 37 out of the top 50 ‘buys’ were US securities
• 15 out of the top 50 ‘buys’ were ETFs
• Tesla saw the highest individual buy order for a non-bank stock at US$3.69 million
• VAS recorded the highest buy order for any ASX-listed security at $3.58 million
• Excluding ETFs, just two ASX-listed stocks featured in the top 50 – CSL and EHE