AI share prices lift household investments to a record high

Dutch households’ investments in the stock market are worth more than ever amid the boom in enthusiasm around AI and technology, the central bank DNB has said.

The total value of shares, funds and bonds held by Dutch households rose about 12% in the second quarter to a record €234.2 billion. It is the sharpest rise in a single quarter since the bank started tracking the figures in 2018.

The gain was almost entirely down to rising share prices, which lifted the value of investments people already owned. Households did not buy more shares – over the quarter they actually sold more than they bought.

ASML, Shell and SpaceX
The fervour around AI adoption has helped ASML, the chip-machine maker, become the most valuable holding in Dutch portfolios, at about €6.1 billion. It pushed Shell, long the most popular investment, into second place at around €4.1 billion, with Rabobank third.

The quarter also saw a massive stock-market debut with Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX listed in New York in June, with Dutch households buying €169 million of its shares in the first month – the most they have ever put into a newly listed company since DNB’s records began.

Many did not hold on for long. A large part was sold again within weeks, probably to lock in the early gains, leaving €71 million still invested by the end of June.

Despite all the gains, investing remains a minority practice in the Netherlands. Only about a quarter of the country’s 8.4 million households invest at all, and the Dutch still keep far more in the bank – around €600 billion in savings – than in the markets.