Most popular stocks of 2023: AI on the up while interest in Netflix plummets

Investors are increasingly buying into the AI trend, while their love affair with Tesla continues, according to new data showing the most popular stocks of 2023.

Interest in Netflix, on the other hand, has plummeted, and the streaming giant is no longer in the top 10 list of most traded stocks.

The investment platform Saxo reveals that Tesla is the most traded stock by UK clients so far this year (from 1 January to 18 July), continuing its dominance as the number one share.

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Amazon and Apple have switched places, with Amazon now in second place, and Apple third.

However, perhaps most notable is two AI stocks that are climbing up the top 10 ranks. Nvidia has edged into the top five while Palantir Technologies, which didn’t make the top 10 for the same period in 2022, ranks ninth for 2023. 

Meanwhile, Netflix has crashed out of the top 10, suggesting it could be struggling in the streaming wars against newer competitors. It has also made significant changes recently to its account models like cracking down on password-sharing. 

Anaam Raza of investment platform Saxo says that AI companies like Palantir Technologies and Nvidia becoming some of the most popular rising investments of 2023 “does not come as a surprise considering the overwhelming interest in this industry and megatrend”.

She adds: “The fast-growing nature of AI, which has been a hot topic both inside and outside of the world of trading, makes it an attractive option for investors to back. 

The competition will no doubt grow fierce in the second half of 2023 as companies put cash behind the ever-innovating sector in an effort to keep up with the big players, such as the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.”

Holly Mackay, founder of the financial website Boring Money, calls it an “AI frenzy” and says in her blog that the share prices of Tesla and Nvidia have shot up this year. 

“Tesla has accelerated by over 100% and Nvidia has swollen its waistline by 190% since January,” she comments. “Nvidia recently joined the exclusive $1 trillion market capitalisation club, nipping at the heels of Amazon and getting closer to Alphabet, Facebook and Apple. 

Collectively these five companies (which I like to summarise as NAAAF) make up one-quarter of the S&P 500 and have accounted for almost all of its gains this year. So it’s a pretty polarised story that can be loosely summarised as AI = good and Everything Else = bad.”

The Saxo data also shows that Microsoft has held its spot in fourth place, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta slipped two places from fifth to seventh in a year that saw the company make significant job cuts after reporting earnings were down at the latter end of 2022. 

Alphabet, Alibaba and Rolls-Royce make up the rest of the top 10, taking the sixth, eighth and tenth spots respectively. Last year, BP was in ninth position but it has now disappeared from the top 10.

In terms of Netflix’s departure from the top 10, Raza comments: “This indicates Netflix may be losing the streaming wars in what has become quite a saturated market for consumers. 

With the company recently also announcing changes to its subscription model for new users and the scrapping of its basic ad-free tier, investors may have doubts about the stability of Netflix’s future.”