The FSMA has published its third Retail Investor Dashboard. The Dashboard gives a quarterly overview of the behaviour of Belgian retail investors.
Growing investor interest in the first quarter of 2025
Around 187,000 Belgian retail investors traded in shares in the first quarter of 2025. Furthermore, a record 94,000 traded in ETFs in Q1 2025, an increase of nearly 20 per cent compared to the previous quarter.
During the first quarter of 2025, 20,000, 22,000 and 4,000 Belgian retail investors traded for the first time in shares, ETFs or bonds, respectively. For the second quarter in a row, there were more new investors in ETFs than in shares.
In all, Belgian retail investors carried out more than 1,17 million share transactions in the first quarter of 2025, the highest number since Q1 2023. In comparison with the fourth quarter of 2024, the number of ETF transactions in first quarter of 2025 was up by more than 35 per cent (to 281,000). In addition, Belgian retail investors carried out nearly 25,000 bond transactions.
Belgian investors were net sellers of shares in the run up to and in the days following the announcement of import tariffs
In the days after the announcement of American import tariffs on 2 April, Belgian retail investors traded considerably more shares and ETFs, whilst the number of bond transactions remained more or less stable. Despite the uncertainty caused by that announcement, a majority of the transactions carried out by Belgian retail investments were purchases.
However, in terms of volume, both before and after that announcement, Belgian retail investors were net sellers of shares: the total value of sales was higher than the total value of purchases. The bulk of the net sales of shares by Belgian retail investors were made by investors aged 60 and over and by men.