Dutch households sold shares on a large scale at the end of last year. No less than 4.7 billion euros worth of investments were sold.
This is evident from figures from De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). The regulator is talking about the highest amount since it was measured in 2009. The record in terms of quarterly sales was until the end of 2011, when sales amounted to 2.8 billion euros. That was at the time of the euro crisis.
At the end of 2023, 2.4 billion euros worth of positions in investment funds and 2 billion euros worth of listed shares were sold. The sale of bonds generated 0.3 billion euros for Dutch households. According to DNB, the sales took place across the entire investment portfolio. There was a lot of cash, especially in December.
DNB now finds it difficult to pinpoint an exact cause for the large number of sales. “We see this remarkable development in the last quarter of last year, but we do not yet know why households sold so many investments,” says senior policy officer Martijn Boermans. “To put it mildly, possible explanations could be that households wanted to cash in on returns and make a profit with the increased stock prices in December. Perhaps they had extra expenses that month, as CBS figures showing rising household spending on services in December show, or perhaps they wanted to pay off their mortgage before the end of the year. But we can’t look into people’s minds, so it remains speculation.”
Despite the large number of sales, the value of the total investment portfolio of Dutch households increased in the last quarter of 2023 to 166 billion euros. Investors achieved a return of 8 billion euros due to the sharp increase in stock prices. In investment funds, households achieved a return of 5 billion (+ 4.5 percent). In listed shares this involved a return of 3 billion (+ 5.4 percent).
According to research by the AFM, approximately a quarter of households invest. The vast majority of households still prefer saving, as DNB figures also show. Dutch banks have no less than 458.9 billion euros in savings accounts. In addition, there is also another 117.4 billion euros in current accounts at Dutch banks.
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