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Retail Investors’ Most Popular Stocks of 2023 So Far

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Most Popular Stocks of 2023 With Retail Investors

Retail Investors’ Most Popular Stocks of 2023 (YTD)

According to VandaTrack, retail investors are still a force to be reckoned with, adding an average of $1.5 billion each day into U.S. markets.

This is a record-breaking level of inflows, which raises the question: what are investors buying? To find out, we’ve visualized the 10 most popular picks of 2023, as of February 15.

The Top 10 List

Most of the names in this list won’t come as a surprise. They represent eight of the world’s largest and most well-known tech companies, as well as two highly popular U.S. equity ETFs.

RankNameTickerRetail net flows
(USD millions)
1TeslaTSLA$9,751
2SPDR S&P 500 ETFSPY$3,572
3AmazonAMZN$1,786
4AppleAAPL$1,674
5NVIDIANVDA$1,367
6Invesco QQQ ETFQQQ$1,353
7AlphabetGOOG/L$1,218
8AMDAMD$941
9MetaMETA$780
10MicrosoftMSFT$768

Looking closer at the numbers, we can see that Tesla’s net retail flows of $9.75 billion are greater than all of the other individual stocks combined ($8.5 billion). This is a sign that investors still have plenty of faith in Tesla, even as its market share is beginning to shrink.

We recently covered Tesla’s profit margins (net profits per vehicle) in a separate infographic.

Perhaps the least common name on a top 10 ranking such as this is AMD. The chipmaker has made for a compelling underdog story in recent years, gaining significant market share from its long time rival, Intel.

What About the Meme Stocks?

Several meme stocks made it into the broader top 100 list. This includes Bed Bath & Beyond, which ranked 47th with $114 million in net retail flows.

The retailer has been struggling to avoid bankruptcy, recently raising $225 million through an underwritten public offering of preferred shares. A further $800 million could be coming, if certain conditions are met.

The company says it’s committed to paying down its overdue debts, and will be closing stores to reduce costs.

AMC Entertainment, which saw extreme volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranked 52nd on the list for retail investors with $90 million in net flows. The stock has generated a 27% return YTD (as of Feb. 15). The cinema operator’s revenues have been recovering since the pandemic, but they’ve yet to reach pre-2020 levels.

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Mining

Ranked: The World’s Top Diamond Mining Countries, by Carats and Value

Who are the leaders in rough diamond production and how much is their diamond output worth?

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A cropped chart showing the leaders in rough diamond mining and how much their diamond output is worth.

Ranked: World Diamond Mining By Country, Carat, and Value

Only 22 countries in the world engage in rough diamond production—also known as uncut, raw or natural diamonds—mining for them from deposits within their territories.

This chart, by Sam Parker illustrates the leaders in rough diamond production by weight and value. It uses data from Kimberly Process (an international certification organization) along with estimates by Dr. Ashok Damarupurshad, a precious metals and diamond specialist in South Africa.

Rough Diamond Production, By Weight

Russia takes the top spot as the world’s largest rough diamond producer, mining close to 42 million carats in 2022, well ahead of its peers.

ℹ️ Carat is the unit of measurement for the physical weight of diamonds. One carat equals 0.200 grams, which means it takes over 2,265 carats to equal 1 pound.

Russia’s large lead over second-place Botswana (24.8 million carats) and third-ranked Canada (16.2 million carats) indicates that the country’s diamond production is circumventing sanctions due to the difficulties in tracing a diamond’s origin.

Here’s a quick breakdown of rough diamond production in the world.

RankCountryRough Diamond
Production (Carats)
1🇷🇺 Russia41,923,910
2🇧🇼 Botswana24,752,967
3🇨🇦 Canada16,249,218
4🇨🇩 DRC9,908,998
5🇿🇦 South Africa9,660,233
6🇦🇴 Angola8,763,309
7🇿🇼 Zimbabwe4,461,450
8🇳🇦 Namibia2,054,227
9🇱🇸 Lesotho727,737
10🇸🇱 Sierra Leone688,970
11🇹🇿 Tanzania375,533
12🇧🇷 Brazil158,420
13🇬🇳 Guinea128,771
14🇨🇫 Central
African Republic
118,044
15🇬🇾 Guyana83,382
16🇬🇭 Ghana82,500
17🇱🇷 Liberia52,165
18🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire3,904
19🇨🇬 Republic of Congo3,534
20🇨🇲 Cameroon2,431
21🇻🇪 Venezuela1,665
22🇲🇱 Mali92
Total120,201,460

Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated.

As with most other resources, (oil, gold, uranium), rough diamond production is distributed unequally. The top 10 rough diamond producing countries by weight account for 99.2% of all rough diamonds mined in 2022.

Diamond Mining, by Country

However, higher carat mined doesn’t necessarily mean better value for the diamond. Other factors like the cut, color, and clarity also influence a diamond’s value.

Here’s a quick breakdown of diamond production by value (USD) in 2022.

RankCountryRough Diamond
Value (USD)
1🇧🇼 Botswana$4,975M
2🇷🇺 Russia$3,553M
3🇦🇴 Angola$1,965M
4🇨🇦 Canada$1,877M
5🇿🇦 South Africa$1,538M
6🇳🇦 Namibia$1,234M
7🇿🇼 Zimbabwe$424M
8🇱🇸 Lesotho$314M
9🇸🇱 Sierra Leone$143M
10🇹🇿 Tanzania$110M
11🇨🇩 DRC$65M
12🇧🇷 Brazil$30M
13🇱🇷 Liberia$18M
14🇨🇫 Central
African Republic
$15M
15🇬🇾 Guyana$14M
16🇬🇳 Guinea$6M
17🇬🇭 Ghana$3M
18🇨🇲 Cameroon$0.25M
19🇨🇬 Republic of Congo$0.20M
20🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire$0.16M
21🇻🇪 Venezuela$0.10M
22🇲🇱 Mali$0.06M
Total$16,290M

Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated. Furthermore, numbers have been rounded and may not sum to the total.

Thus, even though Botswana only produced 59% of Russia’s diamond weight in 2022, it had a trade value of nearly $5 billion, approximately 1.5 times higher than Russia’s for the same year.

Another example is Angola, which is ranked 6th in diamond production, but 3rd in diamond value.

Both countries (as well as South Africa, Canada, and Namibia) produce gem-quality rough diamonds versus countries like Russia and the DRC whose diamonds are produced mainly for industrial use.

Which Regions Produce the Most Diamonds in 2022?

Unsurprisingly, Africa is the largest rough diamond producing region, accounting for 51% of output by weight, and 66% by value.

RankRegionShare of Rough
Diamond Production (%)
Share of Rough
Diamond Value (%)
1Africa51.4%66.4%
2Europe34.9%32.9%
3North America13.5%52.8%
4South America0.2%2.4%

However diamond mining in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, fewer than 200 years old. Diamonds had been discovered—and prized—as far back as 2,000 years ago in India, later on spreading west to Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire.

By the start of the 20th century, diamond production on a large scale took off: first in South Africa, and decades later in other African countries. In fact between 1889–1959, Africa produced 98% of the world’s diamonds.

And in the latter half of the 20th century, the term blood diamond evolved from diamonds mined in African conflict zones used to finance insurgency or crime.

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