Most traded stocks: NVIDIA, Tesla and Hexagon

Most traded stocks of the week

Below is a list of the 20 most traded stocks among StoneX Retail clients during the five trading sessions to the end of play on Friday July 14. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been excluded.

NVIDIA climbed to fresh all-time highs on Friday before reversing course and closing down for the day. The chipmaker, which has become Wall Street’s favourite AI stock this year, found new momentum from reports it could become an anchor investor in chip design giant Arm ahead of its IPO later this year. Citigroup raised its target price on NVIDIA this morning to $520 from $420.

AMD, which appointed Phil Guido as its new chief commercial officer last week, also had its target price raised when TD Cowen upped its view to $135 from $115.

Broadcom and VMware were both popular after EU regulators gave the green light to their $61 billion combination. Broadcom offered remedies to help rivals such as Marvell Technology in order to convince regulators to give their nod to the deal. The deal pushed Broadcom shares to fresh all-time highs while VMware shares hit a 21-month high before both stocks pulled back toward the end of the week.

Microsoft hit a one-month high and edged closer toward the all-time highs we saw in June as it moved toward closing its acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. We discovered over the weekend that Microsoft has signed a binding licence deal with rival Sony to keep the popular ‘Call of Duty’ title on PlayStation. That comes soon after the US Federal Trade Commission failed to convince a judge that the deal will harm competition. The FTC is appealing, but it means for now that only UK regulators stand in the way and the Competition & Markets Authority has recently warmed to the deal.

Meta found some new support and hit 17-month highs last week amid reports it is preparing to launch a commercial version of its own AI model and from the initial success of its new social media platform Threads, which is thought to have around 114 million users, according to a tracker run by Quiver Quantitative. User growth has slowed and data from Sensor Tower suggests engagement levels have fallen since the initial hype when it was launched. TD Cowen upgraded the stock to Outperform and hiked its target price to $345 and this morning we saw Cannacord Genuity raise its target to $360 while Credit Suisse bumped-up its view to $361.

Alphabet shares are at a one-month high after Cannacord Genuity upped its target price on the stock this morning to $150 from $140, while Credit Suisse raised its view to $150 from $135. The stock rallied last week as it rolled-out its AI chatbot named Bard to Europe after addressing some regulatory concerns about privacy, as well as in Brazil.

Tesla remains among the top traded stocks ahead of quarterly results out this week. Tesla delivered a record number of vehicles in the second quarter as price cuts and other incentives keep demand growing, but the number one question this week is what impact this has had on its profitability. Margins are expected to bottom-out in the second quarter. The outlook is rosy for now, with markets anticipating further growth in deliveries and a recovery in margins in the second half, but Tesla will need to keep up with these expectations if it wants to keep on the right trajectory. You can find out everything you need to know in our Tesla Q2 Earnings Preview.

Rivian shares popped to their highest level since mid-December last week before coming under some pressure. Two brokers, Barclays and Evercore ISI, raised their target price on the electric vehicle maker to $30 as markets become more bullish on its prospects following better-than-anticipated deliveries in the latest quarter and news it has begun shipping electric vans being made for Amazon – its biggest shareholder and customer – to Europe for the first time.

Disney extended CEO Bob Iger’s contract as CEO for two years, meaning he will stay on until the end of 2026. That announcement came just days after analysts at Needham said they believe the House of Mouse could be purchased by another company within the next three years, citing the lack of a permanent CEO as one of the reasons it could be vulnerable to a takeover. The strike action being taken by writers and actors in Hollywood also weighed on the stock last week.

Netflix is in play ahead of results out this week. Subscriber growth is back on the right path, but investors will want to know how its new dual-strategy to revive growth through a crackdown on password sharing and its new ad-supported tier is faring. The fact Netflix has two substantial new catalysts to help keep subscriber numbers climbing to new record highs suggests there is an opportunity for a beat this quarter. On the other hand, a miss would suggest the new plan isn’t taking-off as quick as markets have been banking on this year.Earnings are forecast to decline for a fourth consecutive period in the second quarter but markets believe it will start to reap rewards in the second half and that EPS will begin to grow again, partly helped by easier comparatives from what we saw in the back-end of 2022 – enough so that it is forecast to report record annual earnings in 2023 despite the pressure seen on the bottom-line in the first half. All of that has the potential to keep providing Netflix shares with momentum, but only if it can keep up with market expectations. Markets have bought into Netflix’s new strategy and now it is time to start delivering. You can find out everything you need to know in our Netflix Q2 Earnings Preview.

BlackRock shares fell from five-month highs on Friday after it posted second quarter results, despite earnings rising from last year faster than anticipated. Assets under management also rose quicker than forecast. However, BlackRock saw $80.2 billion of net inflows in the quarter, but this was far less than the $86.7 billion pencilled-in by Wall Street. BlackRock said it expected a surge of investment into bond funds once interest rates peak, while CEO Larry Fink said gold investors are showing increasing demand for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin during an interview with CNBC as excitement grows we may have our first bitcoin-ETF launched this year.

Boeing shares initially found support when it revealed it delivered 266 planes in the first half, up some 23% from the year before. Production rose to 60 planes in June from 50 in May to suggest it is gaining traction after suffering from production problems earlier this year. However, the support was short-lived as we saw Boeing decline for the three days after the update as it continues to lag its rival Airbus. That is especially true considering it secured 415 orders in the first half when cancellations were taken into account, far below the 1,044 net orders announced by its European competitor.

Roche was under the spotlight last week after the Wall Street Journal reported it could buy an experimental drug for stomach disease from Roivant Sciences in a deal that could be valued at $7 billion. The drug is targeting ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The deal could be announced within days, although there is no guarantee a deal will be struck and a rival bidder could emerge, according to unnamed sources. HSBC also initiated coverage on Roche with a Buy rating on Friday.

Coinbase shares hit their highest level in 14 months on Friday before ending the day down. Coinbase and other crypto stocks rallied after a US judge ruled that XRP tokens sold by Ripple Labs to the general public are not classed as securities, helping clarify that cryptocurrencies fall under a lesser regulatory regime. Hopes of a bitcoin-ETF have also supported the industry despite regulatory pushback. Coinbase also gained ground after Needham upped its target price on the trading platform to $120 from $70, while Wedbush upped its view to $110 from $75.

Alibaba shares pushed higher last week as the Chinese government continued to show signs that it will support tech giants after years of being plagued by a regulatory crackdown. Bosses from its cloud computing unit met last week with premier Li Qiang, stating he hopes to make regulation of platform companies more transparent and predictable. Alibaba and other Chinese stocks may find it hard to keep up the pace today following the softer-than-hoped GDP figures out of China this morning.

Seagen shares have risen for five consecutive sessions and sit at their highest level since late last month. However, it disclosed late on Friday that its proposed takeover by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is likely to face an investigation by regulators in Europe. The deal is already facing an in-depth probe by US regulators. The deal was first announced back in March and, if completed, would double the size of Pfizer’s pipeline of experimental cancer drugs. Seagen hopes the deal can be closed in late 2023 or early 2024.

Australian logistics firm Goodman Group is at a one-month high.

Swedish firm Hexagon AB came under pressure last week after Morgan Stanley warned its revenue performance could suffer from lower demand across its core end markets, issuing an Underweight rating and highlighting that buy side consensus estimates are higher than consensus figures. That, it said, means risks are skewed to the downside ahead of results later this month. Hexagon also announced it is buying Hard-Line to strengthen its mining automation and safety solutions.

BP was the top traded stock listed in London last week. The stock is currently following oil prices lower in wake of the economic data out of China, although reports suggested this morning that Saudi Arabia has decided to extend production cuts until December 2024! Citigroup analysts warned last week that BP’s buybacks could slow in the second quarter compared to the first as commodity prices and refining margins ease.

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