Paris (AFP)

It has become a ritual for Alexandre, a 25-year-old Parisian: twice a day, he consults the price of his shares on the stock market to check whether their meteoric rise that began during the first wave of the coronavirus continues.

Since March, a period during which many individuals have embarked on the world, his portfolio has posted a gain of around 15% on 6,000 euros invested, much more than he could have hoped for in a savings account.

"I am on exceptional figures and I am aware of it", admits the consultant in digital strategy who preferred to keep his surname.

He bet on Airbus, Worldline and Ingenico.

Lucid, he knows that "everything can collapse overnight".

The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) has noted the arrival of 700,000 new individual investors on the stock market since last November.

The online bank Boursorama announces to AFP a threefold increase in new customers on its stock exchange platform, and a fourfold increase in orders made.

New customers put on average 5,000 euros in the pot, she says, qualifying the year 2020 as "remarkable".

Everything was packed in mid-March, when the CAC 40 index was experiencing its worst week in 12 years.

Red then colored all the trading rooms on the planet.

- "Investing in the stock market" -

The query "invest in the stock market" on the Google search engine was then multiplied by five by the French seeing it as an opportunity to get started on the cheap while occupying their long days.

Translated into English, this query shows comparable results from the UK to Singapore via India.

And, not surprisingly, in the United States.

The share of retail investors in Wall Street exchanges rose to 20% this year from 15% in 2019, according to Bloomberg.

Among the new recruits, Gabriel Contassot, a Frenchman working in design in New York, has invested $ 18,000 since March 17, the day after the worst session for the Dow Jones in 33 years.

“I saw this period a bit like the sales,” laughs the 30-something, who monitors his portfolio three times a day made up of the “winners” of the health crisis, Zoom, Alibaba, Amazon and Tesla.

It shows a virtual gain of 30%, or about 6,000 dollars.

Like many stock marketers in the United States, he only needs his smartphone to buy and sell shares, connected to the RobinHood application, a platform with zero management fees and very sophisticated ergonomics.

- Logout -

In India, this technology is called Zerodha or Paytm Money and has enabled the number of Indians who invest for the first time to jump 50% since March, "with many housewives without any experience in the matter", according to financial consultant Aditya Joshi.

The figures are also up sharply elsewhere in Asia.

Singapore-listed companies received an influx of S $ 9.6 billion from individuals between Jan. 1 and Sept. 22, according to the local stock exchange.

The main index of the South Korean Stock Exchange saw net personal buying flows of $ 37.7 billion compared to net sales of $ 6.4 billion a year earlier.

And at the end of March in Japan, the number of personal accounts had jumped 72% compared to March 2019, according to the Financial Services Agency.

This enthusiasm, at a time when the health crisis is far from over, sometimes gives rise to fears, expressed in particular by the Indian Central Bank.

While the country suffered a historic recession of 24% in the second quarter, "the disconnection" between financial markets and the economy "involves risks", observed the institution.

The Malaysian Stock Exchange, for its part, warned young investors to beware of the rumors and "investment celebrities" that have flourished on social media.

"I had no idea about trading," says Ayman Dassouli, a student in France who saw 3,000 euros go up in smoke on the eToro platform between June and August.

But with sometimes double-digit returns for many investors who have known only fleeting moments of stress so far, the irrepressible desire to be part of the big casino outweighs the fears of losing everything.

“Honestly I see a lot of opportunities in this pandemic,” enthuses Dennis Chong, 47-year-old Malaysian, who does not want to let his savings sleep in a savings account.

And who is enthusiastic: "It's party time."

© 2020 AFP