The ASX share market has been through a rollercoaster of a year in 2022. For plenty of ASX tech shares, it has been a year to forget.
Inflation and higher interest rates have punished the valuations of plenty of businesses that are expected to grow their operations over the coming years.
After all of the investor panic that we saw earlier in the year, there appear to be signs that investors are now returning to the market.
Image source: Getty Images
Is confidence returning?
According to the Sharesies Investing Insights report for October 2022, there was "steady buying by the majority of investors, with some choosing to buy and sell the market moves."
For me, this was one of the most interesting takeaways from the report:
Twice as much buying as selling on the Sharesies platform this month. Buy orders outstripping sell orders is a consistent pattern on the platform over the last six months, regardless of market volatility.
Which ASX shares are people buying?
ASX mining shares were some of the most popular investments last month according to the report.
In terms of the total amount invested, in dollar terms, these were the top ten: Sayona Mining Ltd (ASX: SYA), New Hope Corporation Limited (ASX: NHC), Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG), Core Lithium Ltd (ASX: CXO), Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS), Qx Resources Ltd (ASX: QXR), Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS), BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP), Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) and Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT).
However, the list was a little different when you look at which were the top 10 most bought ASX shares by the number of investors. Here is the list: BHP, Fortescue, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), Pilbara Minerals, Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES), Core Lithium, Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW), Qantas, Coles Group Ltd (ASX: COL) and Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, investors were drawn to a number of ASX's blue chips.
Strong levels of ETF investing
According to the report, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw four times as much buying in dollar volume traded terms as selling in October.
Sharesies suggested that this was "likely driven by investors employing a dollar-cost averaging investment strategy".
These were some of the ETFs getting investor attention last month:
Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX: VAS)
VanEck Global Clean Energy ETF (ASX: CLNE)
BetaShares Climate Change Innovation ETF (ASX: ERTH)
iShares Core MSCI World Ex Aus ESG Leaders ETF (ASX: IWLD)
iShares Core MSCI Australia ESG Leaders ETF (ASX: IESG)
Foolish takeaway
While investors may be coming back to the market, it doesn't mean that the market has reached a bottom yet. Only time will tell whether June was the month we saw the lowest prices for many ASX shares.
