AMC, GameStop and Tesla stock in favor as UK investors go global

Another US earnings season begins this week but interest from across the Atlantic has never been higher, as UK investors have significantly increased their backing of Wall Street stocks over the past year. At the end of May in 2020, around 4.4% of retail investor assets were held in overseas-listed shares, only up slightly from the 4% a year earlier. But as of May 2021, this had surged to 10.8% of total assets. These figures are from AJ Bell, one of the UK’s three largest investment platforms, but numbers from its rivals echo this trend, with US tech giants mixing it with ‘meme stocks’ such as GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) in the best-selling stocks list for the first half of the year. The reasons for the rise are not certain, but come amid a rise in interest in the stock market from younger investors and dramatic headlines about the meme stocks earlier this year. “Broadly speaking, international stocks have been generating more interest from UK investors in recent years,” said Laith Khalaf, financial analyst at AJ Bell. He said in “large part” this interest be put down to the stellar performance, and the familiarity, of some of the big US tech stocks. “In the last year we’ve also seen the dramatic rise of Tesla shares and the meme investing craze which propelled a couple of US companies into the spotlight. “Investors tend to focus on their home market when it comes to picking shares and this makes sense as many of the businesses will be well known to them, but until recently the UK had been a laggard amongst international markets and that may also be driving some investors to consider investing overseas.” In the top 30 lists from the three investment platforms, electric carmaker Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) and video games retailer GameStop were the most popular overseas-listed companies this year. Also highly sought after were cinema operator AMC, China-based electric vehicle manufacturer NIO Inc (NYSE:NIO), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). US earnings season begins with numbers from PepsiCo Inc (NASDAQ:PEP), JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) today. After a first-quarter US earnings season that was widely seen as exceptional, with roughly nine out of every 10 company comfortably beating expectations, Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said there is “more scope for disappointment rather than positive surprise” in the Q2 numbers. “The technology sector will be an interesting test of this optimism. Despite some recent share price difficulties resulting from a switch out of growth and into value stocks based on inflationary fears, the Nasdaq has not only regained its ground but has also pushed to new record levels.” After the banks get things going this week, IBM kicks things off for the tech industry next Monday, followed by others such as Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) on Tuesday, Intel NYSE:INTC), Snap (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR) on Thursday, Tesla on Monday the 26 July, before trillion-dollar due Apple and Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) on the following day, and fellow trillion dollar club members Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) on Wednesday and Amazon on Thursday. Top 30 best-selling shares on Interactive Investor so far in 2021 (international co's in bold) Argo Blockchain PLC Rolls Royce Holdings International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) Lloyds Banking Group BP Glaxosmithkline ITM Power Tesla Inc EasyJet Glencore Plc Vodafone Group Boohoo Group Plc Tui AG Gamestop Corp Barclays Plc Avacta Group Cineworld Group Centamin Plc Unilever Plc Eurasia Mining Omega Diagnostics Greatland Gold AMC Entertainment Holdings Novacyt Legal & General Gp Tesco Apple Inc Ceres Power Hldgs NIO Inc Synairgen Top 30 on AJ Bell Argo Blockchain Glaxosmithkline BP Lloyds Rolls Royce IAG Gamestop Unilever Tesla Aviva Royal Dutch Shell EasyJet AMC Entertainment Vodafone ITM Power L&G Avacta TUI Cineworld Tesco Astrazeneca Barclays National Grid Apple Carnival Boohoo Sylvania Platinum Greatland Gold Omega Diagnostics Rio Tinto Top 30 on Hargreaves Lansdown (in alphabetical order) Amazon.com Inc AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc Apple Inc AstraZeneca plc Avacta Group plc Aviva plc Barclays plc Boohoo Group plc BP Plc BT Group plc Carnival plc Ceres Power Holdings Cineworld Group plc easyJet plc Gamestop Corp GlaxoSmithKline plc Glencore plc Greatland Gold Plc International Consolidated Airlines Group SA ITM Power plc Legal & General Group plc Lloyds Banking Group plc NIO Inc Novacyt Rolls Royce Holdings Plc Royal Dutch Shell Tesco plc Tesla Inc Unilever plc Vodafone Group plc Before a UK investor can buy US-listed shares, they will need to complete an IRS W-8 form, which can be done online if you are a UK resident and your account is in your individual name. This saves UK investors up to 30% tax on US and Canadian income, and is valid for three years.