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Sharesight20 - Top 20 trades on the ASX in 2018

by David Olsen, Senior Marketing Manager — Content/SEO, Sharesight | Mar 14th 2019

Our Sharesight20 snapshots of the top 20 trades on the ASX and NZX markets by Sharesight users always make for interesting reading. In this post we’re going to explore the top 20 trades on the ASX in 2018 and build a Sharesight portfolio of these 20 shares to find out how it would have performed during the year.

Sharesight20 top 20 ASX trades 2018

Top 20 ASX trades 2018

After a turbulent year, and announcing a major shake up of operations, Telstra claimed the title of the most-traded ASX stock by Sharesight users in 2018. The second most traded stock was VAS (Vanguard’s Australian Shares ETF which seeks to track the return of the S&P/ASX 300 Index), followed by NAB in third place.

Interestingly, the Sharesight20 2018 snapshot of the top 20 trades on the NZX saw ETFs dominate the top 3 spots, whereas only 2 ETFs made the top 20 trades on the ASX. As mentioned above, VAS held the number 2 position, and VGS (Vanguards International Shares) just barely made the top 10 by being the 9th most-traded holding.

Let’s explore how the investment returns a portfolio built from these 20 stocks would have performed in 2018 before we dive in to some of the news behind the interest in these stocks.

Sharesight20 ASX 2018 portfolio performance

If you held a portfolio of these 20 stocks on the ASX in 2018 (5% weighting each) you would have seen a respectable total return of 8.17% in 2018, with 5.24% of that return from dividends. Here’s how each stock in the portfolio performed:

Sharesight20ASX 2018 - Performance Report 2018-01-01 through 2018-12-31
Code Name Capital Gain % Dividends % Total Return %
A2M The A2 Milk Company 40.03% 0.00% 40.03%
AFI Australian Foundat. -3.85% 5.49% 1.65%
ANZ Anz Banking Grp Ltd -14.89% 7.95% -6.94%
APT Afterpay Touch 107.71% 0.00% 107.71%
BHP Bhp Group Limited 15.76% 7.69% 23.45%
CBA Commonwealth Bank. -9.90% 7.66% -2.23%
CSL Csl Limited 31.04% 1.62% 32.66%
MQG Macquarie Group Ltd 9.05% 6.41% 15.46%
NAB National Aust. Bank -18.60% 9.57% -9.03%
QBE Qbe Insurance Group -5.43% 2.75% -2.68%
RHC Ramsay Health Care -17.67% 2.93% -14.74%
RIO Rio Tinto Limited 3.51% 7.53% 11.03%
TLS Telstra Corporation. -21.49% 8.66% -12.83%
TPM Tpg Telecom Limited -1.98% 0.87% -1.11%
VAS Vngd Aus Shares -7.38% 5.82% -1.56%
VGS Vngd Intl Shares -2.04% 2.85% 0.81%
WBC Westpac Banking Corp -20.13% 8.57% -11.56%
WES Wesfarmers Limited -27.47% 7.17% -20.29%
WOW Woolworths Group Ltd 7.77% 5.39% 13.16%
WPL Woodside Petroleum -5.32% 5.85% 0.53%
TOTAL 2.93% 5.24% 8.17%

Sharesight20ASX 2018 company news

Afterpay Touch (ASX: APT)

The A2 Milk Company (ASX: A2M)

BHP Group Limited (ASX: BHP)

Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG)

Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW)

Wesfarmers Limited (ASX: WOW)

Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC)

Telstra Corporation (ASX: TLS)

Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX:WBC)

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