In this article, we will look at August’s Top 10 traded U.S. stocks on Singapore’s POEMS trading platform, based on their gross market value traded. We hope this data will give you an overall macroeconomic view and provide insights on liquidity and consumer trend that affect these popular traded stocks.

We saw three U.S. major indexes: Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite continue to rise in the month of August. While Dow Jones Index was approximately 3% away from setting its new all-time high, both S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose beyond 3,500 points and 12,000 mark respectively.

Without further ado, let’s countdown the list starting from the 10th position:

10^th: Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ: ZM)

One of the rising stars amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom Video finally made it to the top 10 list on POEMS. The stock’s price surpassed USD300 and soared more than 40% since its last quarterly earnings report.

Amidst the consistent surge in new COVID-19 cases, the usage of Zoom video remains high and looks set to become a permanent structural change. Investors’ focus will be on the company’s second quarter earnings release (released on 31 Aug) where it justifies whether its rise to stardom is sustainable. The consensus EPS forecast for the quarter is USD0.34¹.

9^th: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NASDAQ: BABA)

China’s tech giant fell from its previous 6th spot in July, but still maintained its position as one of the most traded stocks on POEMS. Alibaba’s stock price has been consistently inching high and is now trading at near 52-weeks high level.

The consistent rise in the tech giant’s share price in August could be attributed by the IPO announcement of the much anticipated ANT Financial Group, which is an affiliate of Alibaba. The fintech company is looking to raise a record of USD30 billion shares in its planned IPO².

This will certainly capture investors’ interest in Alibaba.

8^th: Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA)

One of the forerunners in coming up with COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna has fallen off from its 4^th position in July. The company’s share price in August was not encouraging when it plunged to USD64 on 31 August after hitting a record high at USD95 on 17 July.

Though the clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate (Mrna-1273) is progressing well, the biotech company’s patents filed are probed by the U.S. Defense Department. The company is alleged to have failed to disclose USD25 million in government funding as required by federal law³.

7^th: Sorrento Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: SRNE)

Another forerunner of the COVID-19 vaccine, Sorrento Therapeutics improved its standing among the top traded stocks on POEMS to the 7^th spot. The biotech company sees the share price hit its record high of USD19.39 on 10 August before retracing back to USD8 level on 31 August.

The fall from its record high share price was mainly due to a controversial report published by Hindenburg Research with regards to the company’s COVID-19 diagnostic products, where it is believed to manipulate negatively on the company’s stock price⁴. Following that, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also announced the emergency use authorisation of SalivaDirect COVID-10 diagnostic test developed by Yale University. This competes directly with Sorrento’s COVI-TRACE.

6^th: Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB)

Facebook claims its 6^th spot on the list in August. With NASDAQ surging to past record level, this tech giant is one of the tech leaders leading the way and trading at record levels. Facebook’s share price broke the USD300 price level on 26 August though it has since fallen to USD295.

The recent operational mistake of Facebook to remove a militia page puts the company in a vulnerable position especially so after the previous hate speech saga from U.S. President Donald Trump resulting in an advertisement boycott. This had happened when two people who were shot and killed during protests, following a white police officer’s shooting that left a black man, Jacob Blake Jr, paralysed. All eyes were on Facebook on its handling of this thorny situation⁵.

5^th: Fastly Inc (NYSE: FSLY)

Fastly, a provider of edge cloud computing and content delivery network (CDN) climbed all the way from 10^th spot in July to 5^th this month. However, it was a roller coaster ride for Fastly’s share price. After hitting high at USD116 on 5 August, it took a fall to USD73 on 11 August before recovering to about USD94 towards the end of August.

The sink in share price was mainly due to the forward guidance during its earnings announcement where it fall short of lofty hopes. However, the management is still confident of the business growth for the remainder of 2020. On 27 August, Fastly announced its acquisition of Signal Sciences to enhance its cyber security’s solutions offering⁵.

4^th: Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL)

The popular maker of iPhone, Apple, finally made it to the list this month, occupying the 4^th position. Its share price surpassed USD500 and is more than double as compared to March.

At the end of July, Apple announced its quarterly result which smashed analysts’ estimates and sent the stock soaring high. On the same day, Apple also announced a forward stock split of 4 for 1, which took effect on 31 August, the same day as Tesla. The shares soared higher and propelle Apple as the first U.S. company to surpass USD2 trillion market cap. In August 2018, Apple was the first U.S. company to hit USD1 trillion⁶. It only took Apple around two years to double its valuation.

3^rd: Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT)

The tech giant took a step back this month but remained on the list’s the top 3. In comparison to other stocks on the list, the price movement of Microsoft is relatively stable in August with only about a fluctuation of +/- 5%.

The trading volume on Microsoft remained high mainly due to the news and rumours around its bidding on TikTok. The popular video application was forced to sell its U.S. business due to the privacy issues raised by the U.S. government. However, the deal remains uncertain as China has recently tightened their tech export rule⁷.

2^nd: NIO Inc (NYSE: NIO)

A rival to Tesla, NIO together with recently listed Li Auto and XPeng, are competing against Tesla in China, the world’s largest electronic vehicle market. NIO climbed up one spot to second this month.

The stock crossed the USD20 mark, up almost 90% on 26 August. However, the share price took a dip upon announcement of its additional offering. NIO announced a secondary offering in August to seek additional funding of around USD1.4 – 1.7 billion⁸.

1^st: Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA)

The month of August belongs to the electronic vehicle maker and leader, Tesla. Top on the list, its total value traded on POEMS is also higher than the previous month.

On 10 August, Tesla announced a forward split of 5 for 1 with effect on 31 August and the stocks spiked about 70%. In July, Tesla took over Toyota as the world’s largest car maker in term of market capitalisation and today, it is worth more than 2 times of Toyota⁹.

Reference:

• ^[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/zm/earnings#
• ^[2] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Alibaba-s-Ant-targets-largest-ever-30bn-IPO-report
• ^[3] https://www.ft.com/content/2be1f87e-9e96-4e23-9cc5-33ba35e50586
• ^[4] https://investors.sorrentotherapeutics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/sorrento-take-action-against-hindenburg-research-statements
• ^[5] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/zuckerberg-says-facebook-s-failure-to-remove-militia-page-an–operational-mistake–13065294
• ^[6] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/19/apple-reaches-2-trillion-market-cap.html
• ^[7] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/29/21406884/tiktok-china-tech-export-sale-microsoft-trump
• ^[8] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/why-nios-%241.5-billion-stock-offering-is-bullish-2020-08-28
• ^[9] https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-worth-double-toyota-as-investors-look-to-massive-ev-battery-play-52786/

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