March was nothing but quiet for financial markets. After the collapse of US banks Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank at the beginning of March, followed shortly by the Credit Suisse drama in Europe, one would think that private investors would be more restrained on the equity front.
On the contrary. DNB and Nordnet both reported massive net buys of shares in March. DNB has to go beyond the beginning of the pandemic to find numbers on the same scale.
In March, the bank’s private investors bought shares worth NOK 822 million more than the shares sold. Nordnet reported a net purchase of $1 billion in the same period.
Bård Kittelsrud, Head of Equity Trading at DNB, explains buying with the exact pullback in the stock market.
Shares on the Oslo Stock Exchange returned between four and five percent in March. I assume the people at DNB saw this as a buying opportunity, Kittelsrud tells DN.
He bought financial stocks despite the turmoil
Small savers used Bankuro to buy shares of the bank. Private investors in DNB net bought DNB shares for just under NOK 140 million.
Financial stocks, like other stocks, recovered a good deal in March. Perhaps there are many who see rising interest rates as a sign that the fear of bank crises is over. For this reason, it is again profitable to buy shares of banks.
Bård Kittelsrud, Head of Equity Trading at DNB Markets Online Solutions. (photo: DNB)
Among the most popular global stocks, troubled First Republic Bank emerged as the fourth most popular stock by transaction. DNB illustrates the newfound popularity of the banking crisis in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, First Republic Bank fell in the US stock markets in March. At one point, the stock fell 75 percent in one day. At Monday’s close, the stock was trading at $14.6, compared to a value of $115 per share at the beginning of March.
Traders love the oil industry
At the same time that the banking crisis raged in Europe and the United States, the price of oil fell sharply. From March 6 to 16, the spot price of a barrel of North Sea oil fell by more than 13 percent. In parallel, the oil companies fell. Over the same period, Aker BP and Borr Drilling are down 13 percent, while Equinor is down 10 percent.
However, by the end of March, the oil price has recovered most of the decline, and thanks to Sunday’s news that OPEC+ is cutting oil production from May, the price of oil is close to the same level it was at the beginning of March.
In March, Equinor, Vår Energi and Aker BP were among the stocks that investors traded the most, led by seismic PGS.
– We see that PGS has been gaining a lot of momentum lately. It fluctuated a lot, and especially among our traders, there was a lot of PGS trading, says Kittelsrud.
In the past month, the stock has fallen more than 13 percent, while the stock has risen 17 percent in the past week.
– It is a high risk stake, so you need to be very aware of what you are investing in.
Popular Aker BP
Aker BP was also the most bought stock among private Nordnet investors. Net stake purchase was NOK 272 million, while Borr Drilling topped the sales chart, with net sale of NOK 134 million.
Investment economist Mads Johansen at Nordnet. (Photo: Gorm K. Gaare)
– Although oil prices continued to fall in 2023, Aker BP delivered strong quarterly numbers for the fourth quarter. In addition, the company reported that it would increase its dividend from $2 in 2021 to $2.2 in 2023. Throughout March, the share price continued to decline, so many clients probably consider this a buying opportunity, says Mads Svendsvik-Johansen, investment economist at Nordnet in a press release.
Borr Drilling has been a clear winner so far this year, with prices up more than 70 percent.
– I think that our clients consider this sufficient and guarantee profit in rather turbulent times on the stock exchange, – continues Johansen.(conditions)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We’d like you to share our statuses using links that lead directly to our pages. Reproduction or other use of all or part of the Content may be made only with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms see here.
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