(News Bulletin 247) – The number of individual investors active in the financial markets fell slightly in the first quarter, according to the latest AMF barometer, which also notes a strong attraction among investors for passive management.

As at the end of 2023, the French were a little less present on the financial markets.

The number of active individual investors on the stock market in the first quarter is in fact on a slight decline, despite the CAC 40 records over the period, reveals the fourteenth edition of the Dashboard of active individual investors of the Financial Markets Authority ( AMF).

Since January 2021, the AMF has published every three months a dashboard of individual investors active in the financial markets during the previous quarter. It makes it possible to monitor changes in the behavior of individual investors.

During the first three months of the year, 737,000 individuals made at least one purchase or sale of shares, which is 1.2% less than in the first quarter of 2023. The AMF had then identified 746,000 individuals who had made at least one purchase or sale of shares.

In detail, 568,000 investors bought shares between January and March, a number which increased slightly by 3% over one year, but which jumped 10.9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023 (512,000).

The number of new individual investors, who had never placed a stock market order before or had been inactive since January 2018, increased over one year to stand at 59,000, compared to 51,000 over the first three months of the year. 2023. This number is also increasing over a rolling quarter (43,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023).

The boom in passive management

As for several quarters now, the AMF has noted a strong attraction among investors for exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Over the first three months of 2024, the number of investors who bought or sold at least one ETF increased to 216,000. This contingent of active investors in ETFs increased by 36% over one year and 30% over a rolling quarter.

Also, the number of people who purchased an ETF increased to 194,000, a figure significantly “higher than in previous quarters”, notes the AMF which specifies that among these buyers, 53,000 people invested for the first time in these passive management products.

“For the first time, for ETFs, the number of transactions exceeded 1 million,” adds the financial markets watchdog.

As for the number of transactions carried out for the purchase and sale of European Union shares during the quarter, this rebounded significantly compared to the two previous quarters, to more than 10 million, which represents a little less than double the quarterly average observed in 2019.