Smartphone stock trading becomes a global craze

Obscure companies gain from surge

Dirt cheap, automated on apps and championed by newbie traders who brandish their broker balances on Twitter, the stuck-at-home trading phenomenon, born in the USA, has become a global craze.

Retail’s tentacles are everywhere. In the UK, tax-free savings account openings at Interactive Investor jumped 238 per cent for investors between 25 and 34 years of age in April and May.

In India, newly minted day traders are crowing after falling in love with stocks that trade below 7 US cents apiece and riding most of them straight up.

Small-time investors in Moscow bought almost twice as many Russian shares in June than in April.

In Malaysia, individual buyers are at least partially behind giant rallies in medical glove makers — one gained more than 1,500 per cent this year. In Japan, tiny investors boosted an obscure biotech venture with seven straight years of losses by almost 11-fold on optimism for an unproven coronavirus treatment.