The latest Sharesies Index shows retail investors moving money into cash and global funds.
Retail investors spent the September quarter moving money into savings, but they didn’t sell up.
That’s the picture in the latest Sharesies Index, which tracks how the platform’s customers in New Zealand and Australia move their money.
The index fell from a “confident” 57 at the end of June to a “cautious” 32 by the end of September, averaging 38 for the quarter. In late September it dipped to 31, its lowest since late 2024.
Sharesies builds the index from what its customers do, not what they say. It combines five measures from its Invest and Save products.
They include the balance of buying against selling, deposits against withdrawals, and how much goes into savings compared with shares.
The index doesn’t survey anyone and leaves out KiwiSaver. Sharesies says more than one million customers have joined the platform.
Cash looks better
The biggest shift was into savings. The save-to-invest ratio compares deposits into Sharesies’ savings accounts with share purchases.
It averaged 0.224 for the quarter, up 88% on April to June. In the first week of September it hit 0.338, its highest since July 2024. Investing still outweighed saving across the quarter.
Sharesies gives its reasons in the report. “Rising interest rates, continued geopolitical tensions driving high oil prices, and market uncertainty with AI and tech stock valuations under scrutiny, likely led to many retail investors shifting their focus to cash.”
Rates have moved. On 2 September the Reserve Bank lifted the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%, its second rise in a row, after annual inflation reached 4.1% in the June quarter.
The report notes the save-to-invest ratio is “heavily influenced by the interest rate environment”, because higher rates make savings more competitive with shares.
Still buying
Investors didn’t head for the exit. The net buy/sell ratio averaged 1.21, against 1.20 the quarter before, so buying still outweighed selling.
Sharesies says investors stayed “focused on accumulation rather than significant profit-taking”.
Money kept coming in too. For every $1 withdrawn from the platform, just over $2 was deposited.
That was a little softer than the previous quarter, and the ratio rose to 2.36 in late September.
Prices also settled. Volatility across the 50 most-owned investments on Sharesies averaged 0.0058, down from 0.0098 in the previous quarter.
Going global
Appetite for single companies dropped. The share of investing that went into individual companies averaged 68%, down from 72%.
It fell as low as 63% in mid-July before ending the quarter at 73%. Sharesies says the drop “likely reflected a more defensive stance” as investors moved into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and managed funds.
The fastest climbers among the 50 most-owned investments were all global funds.
The Vanguard Total World Stock ETF rose 15 places to 42nd, the Smart Global ESG ETF rose 11 to 43rd, and the Smart Total World ETF rose seven to 24th.
At the top, little changed. The Smart US 500 ETF held first place, ahead of Rocket Lab, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and Air New Zealand.
The new name in the top ten was the Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund, up two places to tenth after its price rose 18% over the quarter.
Sharesies links that to rural and agricultural sectors showing “strong economic resilience in recent months”.
Sharesies updates the index every quarter. The next edition, covering October to December, will show whether the move into cash held as rates kept rising.
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