Musk moves to second place on rich list as Tesla hits the $500BN mark and … the little Aussie stock that can

Tesla's market value reached $500 billion this week, so Elon Musk’s move up the rich ranks come as no surprise. In fact, Musk recently surpassed Bill Gates as the world's second-richest person.

Musk has a net worth of $128BN according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, just behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who has $187BN and some pocket change.

We recently caught up with trading platform Stake to identify just how much interest is in Tesla currently and how it has overtaken Microsoft.

In terms of share trading on Stake's platform, Tesla (Musk) vs Gates (Microsoft) showed an interesting swing toward Tesla:

• # unique investors in TSLA v MSFT is 3.2:1 ratio
• # trades in TSLA vs MSFT over same period is 5.6:1

Part of the reason for the interest in Tesla from Australia, is the growing attention given to the electric vehicle movement.

Aussies are buying, selling and trading in EV stocks and Tesla more than ever, essentially trading to a cultural shift.

Aussie investors have shown to be bullish on Tesla, and other EVs like NIO.

Finfeed spoke with Stake CEO and co-founder Matt Leibowitz, about the bullish stance on Tesla and EVs from Aussie traders, and what the future might hold.

“In terms of EV, there's been a real shift and awareness of the capability and potential impact for these companies going forward. Much like Microsoft and IBM were the leaders in the 1990s, Apple and Amazon in the 2000s and Facebook and Netflix in the 2010s, EVs are the landscape shifters now. Like these game changing companies had their exceptional growth early on in their life cycle, the same applies for these stocks today.”

As for the future, Leibowitz says “These stocks are still in vogue and it’s hard to say when the music will stop....or slow.

“NIO and SOLO are making all-time highs with significant volume. From an investor’s perspective, the belief is the smaller players that have some IP that is valuable to an incumbent petrol car producer may be acquisition targets. So let's see if that happens!”

Data on Tesla from Stake's platform:

• The latest surge in the Tesla share price, which had already risen by almost 500% so far this year, has also attracted Aussie investors, but this is no surprise.
• In fact, more Aussies own Tesla stocks than Tesla vehicles. And in 2020 alone, Stake saw its TSLA traders increase by 1013%.
• The money that has been traded via Stake for Tesla trades has also increased by 1840% in 2020, going from $22,782,610 to $442,074,491.
• Total individual trades for Tesla also saw an almost 800% rise in 2020, with traders revved up for what Musk might do next.

In other news - Salesforce in talks to takeover Slack

Salesforce has begun talks to acquire popular workplace communications firm Slack.

A deal is reportedly just days away, with the business software giant looking to take on Microsoft.

The move would see Salesforce step out of the technical side of business software into a more mainstream sphere of communications.

News sent Slack’s share price up nearly 38%, while Salesforce’s share price was down -5.4%.

The Aussie stock that could

Alexium International Group Ltd (ASX: AJX) finished the week strongly.

The company has been quiet of late, but word that Colinton Capital is on board is slowly getting around.

Colinton has got behind the $40M market capped Alexium and invested a total of A$10.84M in Alexium shares and convertible notes with Senior Partner Simon Moore joining the board to help AJX realise its near-term potential.

Colinton invests in growing businesses with enterprise values from $20 million to $200 million and specialises in providing flexible capital solutions for expansion, succession planning, management buy-outs/buy-ins, public-to-private transactions and active minority public positions, an ideal partner for Alexium in terms of negotiating the corporate world.

Colinton’s investment in Alexium appears perfectly timed with the group having battled through the difficult phase of research and development, launching new products and establishing robust relationships with clients/distributors, including the US Defence Force.

Alexium finished Friday trading up 20.63%.

You can read more about the company in the article: Cooling Technology for a Hot Market: Why we Invested in AJX

What to watch

Here are eToro analyst Adam Vettese’s market moving events to watch.

Reach plc: UK red-top media firm Reach plc is reporting its interim results on Friday. The company includes a diverse set of print and online media titles such as the Daily Mirror and Daily Express, plus a range of other regional titles. The firm’s share price has traded close to its 2020 high in recent days, but investors should focus on its debt levels as it updates the market. The firm has reasonably strong cash levels, but this is dwarfed by its pile of liabilities which totalled £614.8 million at its last reporting. The group’s stable of media titles are well-positioned to capture more online market share, but its ability to realise gains are hampered by considerations such as pension liabilities and the recent shuttering of two print sites.

OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2020: The OECD is well-known for its influential economic reports and outlooks and the Digital Economy Outlook for 2020 is no exception. The organisation is publishing its latest report on Friday. The outlook will consider trends in the digital economy and analyse opportunities and challenges for the sector. For investors it will provide useful insights into where digital transformations are happening and what trends there are to be followed in the future. The report also looks at policy change from governments around the world, setting the backdrop for the regulatory landscapes companies will need to operate in.

The best and worst performing sectors this week

Then Australian market once again performed well with most sectors up for the week.

Energy was the best performer up over 8 per cent followed by Materials and Utilities, both up over 3 per cent. The worst performing sectors were Healthcare down over 2 per cent while Industrials and Consumer Staples were even.

Looking at the ASX/S&P top 100 stocks, the best performers include Whitehaven Coal which rose strongly to be up over 16 per cent, while Origin Energy was up over 13 per cent and Pendal Group up over 11 per cent. The worst performers were Virgin Money down over 11 per cent, while Evolution Mining and Northern Star Resources were down over 8 per cent.

So what do we expect in the market moving forward?

According to Wealth Within’s Dale Gillham, “November has been a very good month with the All Ordinaries Index up over 11 per cent and now in positive territory for the calendar year after being down for most of 2020. While I remain confident that our market is bullish and will remain so until late January and possibly into February, it is currently running very fast as it has only had two trading days down in the last 18 days.

“This strong momentum will slow soon and, as a result, we may see the market fall for one or two weeks as we move into Christmas. We need to remember that during the second half of December, as we move closer to the festive season, the volume of stocks traded will decrease and this may be the catalyst for the brief pull back in the market. That said, my expectation is that All Ordinaries Index will continue to move up to break above the previous all-time high of 7,289 set in February of this year.”