US tech stocks top list of UAE investors’ most favourites

Dubai - Saxo Bank said investors across the world turned to financial markets as net buyers following the March global stock market crash

US technology companies attracted the highest trading volumes among investors in the UAE and around the world in 2020, according to Saxo Bank.

Peter Garnry, head of Equity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said that 2020 was all about the online versus offline world as technology companies were catapulted into the future by the Covid-19 pandemic while many physical industries such as aviation, travel, leisure, hospitality and automobiles came under significant pressure due to the severe restrictions and lockdowns.

The strict lockdowns and prolonged work-from-home trend which arose from the Covid-19 pandemic suited the business models of the US tech companies, reflected by the Nasdaq-100 being up more than 40 per cent for 2020, the bank said.

“Electric Vehicle (EV) companies ruled supreme as the best performers of 2020, with Tesla up more than 640 per cent and Nio (also referred to as the Chinese Tesla) skyrocketing by an astonishing 1069 per cent,” it said.

Other top traded global stocks include Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.

According to analysts at The Motley Fool, the pandemic has been a mixed bag for the tech industry. Amazon has thrived as consumers have shifted hard toward e-commerce, with higher sales easily offsetting additional pandemic-related costs. Microsoft has also done well, buoyed by demand for collaboration software, devices, gaming, and cloud computing services as people spend more time at home. Apple has held its own during this crisis, partly thanks to economic stimulus measures passed by Congress and partly thanks to the launch of the affordable iPhone SE.

High demand for devices has helped Intel as well, with sales of laptops surging as people work from home. Intel’s data center business is another beneficiary, with customers snapping up powerful server chips to support cloud services. While Cisco’s video conferencing business is booming, the core networking hardware business has suffered as customers pull back on spending. Netflix has seen its user base grow rapidly during the pandemic as people stayed home.

Saxo Bank said investors across the world turned to financial markets as net buyers following the March global stock market crash and historically swift recovery powered by the Federal Reserve pledge to shore up the economy.

“As the all-out stimulus to fight the biggest economic contraction since the 1930s quickly erased losses from late March, high levels of activity continued throughout 2020 and Saxo Bank welcomed more than 200,000 new clients throughout the year,” said Garnry.

“The year will be remembered for the fastest equity market rebound in modern history, following a sharp 34 per cent selloff in just 23 trading days during February and March, driven by aggressive policy action across the world,” said Garnry.

issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com