Article produced 9 January, 2025. 

Key takeaways: 

• Healthcare shares such as Mesoblast and Pro Medicus emerged as popular trades and holdings, signalling broadening exposure to this sector across the Selfwealth community. 

• As the local market declined through the month, buying conviction increased across several ASX-oriented ETFs. 

• US-oriented tech funds also garnered increased attention among Selfwealth investors. 

• It is important to always do your own research before making decisions to invest. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance, 

While 2024 proved to be a positive year for the stock market, local shares eased through December as investors recalibrated their expectations for monetary policy in the new year. 

With that, rate-sensitive sectors like technology, real estate, and financials weighed on the ASX, which declined 3.3% across the course of the month.  

However, Selfwealth investors still found plenty of opportunities to invest in, as we will see in this report. 

ASX share trading activity 

With the most trades of any individual stock, Mesoblast (ASX: MSB) captured the interest of the Selfwealth community during December. However, despite the company’s share price increasing 75% over the month, profit taking crept in, as evidenced by the fact that overall trade volumes skewed slightly towards selling activity.  

Nonetheless, trade volumes increased by nearly 170% over the month. The main driver of this was a major decision by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approved Mesoblast’s Ryoncil (remestemcel-L) product. This means the company is now offering the first mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapy in the United States. 

Elevated interest continued to surround buy-now pay-later operator Zip (ASX: ZIP). In November, the stock ranked third for overall trade volumes, however, the company fared one better in December, ranking second. Former market darling Brainchip (ASX: BRN) also enjoyed a resurgence of support. Ranking ninth for trade volumes, the chip manufacturer benefitted from news the company had secured a commercial licence agreement with a Swedish chip manufacturer focused on the space industry. The late-year news was enough to see BRN extend its full-year gains past 120%. 

With a buy-to-sell ratio of 61.6%, Pro Medicus (ASX: PME), was in 11th spot in buying popularity on the platform. In December, the company signed a seven-year $30 million deal with the largest independent, multi-specialty physician-directed medical group in the Midwest of the United States.  
This complemented a recent string of contract wins for the company, which ended the year with a market cap of approximately $27 billion. 

There were also signs of trading interest surrounding battery metals, with Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) in fifth, Novonix (ASX: NVX) in 18th, and Vulcan Energy Resources (ASX: VUL) in 20th. 

The end of the year brought with it an increase in buying sentiment for ASX-oriented funds. The main beneficiaries were the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX: VAS), the Vanguard Diversified High Growth Index ETF (ASX: VDHG) 

Elsewhere, the Global X Fang+ ETF (ASX: FANG) made the top 10. Almost eight out of every ten trades were ‘buys’, and it was only the fourth time ever that FANG featured among this list. Each of the prior occasions were also in 2024, underscoring the general trend where support for mega-tech shares lifted markets to all-time highs last year. 

Rounding things out, CSL (ASX: CSL) and Commonwealth Bank (ASX: CBA) were among high profile names where a net outflow in capital flow was observed. 

What are the most popular ASX shares and ETFs? 

Commonwealth Bank and Westpac (ASX: WBC) remain the two most popular holdings on the Selfwealth platform, as measured by value, despite outflows for both shares last month. 

However, in third and fourth positions, changes were afoot, with BHP (ASX: BHP) managing to retake its spot ahead of Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX: NEU) after just a month of being displaced.  

Much of that was attributable to BHP’s outperformance through December, not just against NEU, but even relative to other iron ore stocks. Community holdings in BHP grew nearly 5%, even in the face of a 2.5% decline in its share price. This may have had something to do with end-of-year portfolio balancing, because there was little to explain the discrepancy considering the performance of its peers. 

On that note, Fortescue (ASX: FMG) lost ground, with community holdings shrinking by around 2%, and Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) took its place in ninth spot. While WDS shares struggled through the first two-thirds of the month, momentum increased once the stock set a near three-year low on concerns about global oil demand. 

Woolworths (ASX: WOW), which has seen community buying support over recent months, moved one spot higher into 15th position. While the supermarket giant’s share price is still languishing compared to where it was a year ago, impacted by industrial action that is expected to hit the company’s bottom line, numerous Selfwealth members have taken the opportunity to add to their holdings at current levels. 

And finally, just a month after entering the top 20 for the first time, Pro Medicus moved two spots higher into 17th place, and was also joined by another high-flying health name in Mesoblast, which made its debut on the list. Shares in the regenerative medicine business jumped 75% last month, and the total value of MSB shares on the Selfwealth platform eclipsed $40 million to end the year. 

The surge in popularity of the above healthcare names came at the expense of a name that was once right near the top of the favourites in Pilbara Minerals. While PLS continues to attract buyers across the platform, with the stock setting a new two-and-a-half year low in December, PLS dropped to 19th among the most held names in the community. This is its lowest ranking since October 2021. The decline has coincided with weak lithium prices and slowing growth in electric vehicle markets. 

For the third month in a row, there were no changes to the names or order of the most popular ETFs on the Selfwealth platform. And once again, US-oriented funds saw the largest growth in holdings, specifically, the Betashares Nasdaq 100 ETF (ASX: NDQ), where holdings grew 7.1%, and the iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV), with overall holdings growing 5.2%. 

That’s all for this Trade Trends report, stay tuned for the next edition this time next month!