One by-product of the pandemic and lockdown was strong growth in the area of direct or online investing. It seems many of us were drawn to the idea of managing our own portfolios and issuing the buy and sell orders ourselves.
It became so popular, in fact, that one of the major banks with a hand in the game has launched an index for these players – tracking the most popular stocks among direct investors and trends such as whether or not people are buying riskier stocks or retreating to safety.
There are even breakdowns of investment choices by demographic such as Gen X versus Millennial and they’re even tracking trading patterns by province.
The head of this area at TD Bank, which developed what they’re calling the TD Direct Investing Index, says they are hoping to help investors make sense of market activity. And it is an interesting departure from the traditional tracking systems which tend to be about and for major institutional investors…this one is more populist and looks at how real individuals are handling their money.
