2024-04-29 16:18:00
There are fewer individual investors active on the stock market. This is what emerges from the quarterly count by the Financial Supervisory Authority (AMF) of the place of individuals in the stock market universe. It reveals that a total of 737,000 people bought or sold shares at least once during the first three months of the year. Their number is down slightly by 1.2% compared to the same period last year, according to the French stock market watchdog.
On the other hand, the number of new investors is increasing. These new investors, i.e. individuals who carried out their very first stock market transaction in the first quarter of 2024, are more than a year ago (59,000), the AMF states, without quantifying this increase.
The AMF barometer includes in the category ” new investors », persons for whom no stock market transactions have been registered since 2018, with no data prior to that year.
Exchange-traded funds are becoming increasingly popular
Furthermore, the stock market watchdog notes ” the increasing use of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by private investors “, in his press release. An ETF (exchange-traded fund) is an investment vehicle listed on a stock exchange. First popular in the United States, it is usually used to replicate the performance of a stock market index, in passive management, that is, without the intervention of a manager.
Since the end of February, the AMF has changed the regulations to approve active ETFs, an investment instrument that depends on the intervention of a professional asset manager who will try, not to replicate, but to beat the market results.
Of 737,000 active individual investors, 216,000 bought or sold at least one ETF in the first quarter, or 36% more than during the first three months of the previous year, according to the AMF. Among these buyers, 53,000 people made their first investment via an ETF. And for the first time, in the first quarter of 2024, ” the number of transactions carried out on ETFs admitted to trading in Europe has exceeded one million », continues the institution.
Finally, the average age of individual investors in ETFs rose from more than 60 years in 2018 and 2019 to 48 years last year, observes the AMF, which announced the publication of a study devoted to investors in ETFs during the year.
Individuals who are already less active on the stock market in 2023
During the whole of 2023, 1.538 million individuals in France carried out at least one transaction on financial products such as shares, the AMF’s dashboard for active individual investors, published every quarter, revealed in January.
This figure is down 8.83% compared to 2022 and 10.16% compared to the peak in 2021, according to data published by the AMF. The IPO of Française des Jeux at the end of 2019, then the decline in the markets following the fall in prices that accompanied the arrival of Covid-19 in Europe, led to a spectacular upsurge in individual interest in financial products.
AMF has been conducting this study since 2018, which only includes ” financial instruments listed in the EU » offered via investment service providers. It therefore does not take into account transactions carried out in the foreign exchange market or even bitcoin.
11% decrease in transactions over one year
The number of transactions carried out in 2023 will fall by 11% year-on-year, to 37.7 million, AMF concludes. The decline is particularly visible in stocks, which are the main financial instrument used by individuals: barely 1.3 million people bought or sold them in 2023, compared to 1.5 in 2022.
On the other hand, passive investing via ETFs, funds that aim to replicate the performance of an index, such as the CAC 40, had already continued to gain popularity last year: the number of investors increased by 18% in 2023, to reach a new record with almost 300,000 individuals.
This trend is observed around the world: In the US, assets under management in passively managed funds exceeded those that were actively managed for the first time at the end of 2023, financial data provider Morningstar revealed in mid-January.
(With AFP)
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