Top brokers Aussies use to invest in stocks and ETFs

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a specific product recommendation, or taxation or financial advice and should not be relied upon as such. While we use reasonable endeavours to keep the information up-to-date, we make no representation that any information is accurate or up-to-date. If you choose to make use of the content in this article, you do so at your own risk. To the extent permitted by law, we do not assume any responsibility or liability arising from or connected with your use or reliance on the content on our site. Please check with your adviser or accountant to obtain the correct advice for your situation.

With the ever-growing number of stockbrokers available to Australian investors, many investors are left wondering which is the best broker to suit their needs. Priorities differ depending on the individual investor; for example, are they a frequent trader or more of a long-term investor? And do they prefer stocks or ETFs? With some of these questions in mind, we take a look at the most popular brokers among Sharesight users in FY23/24.

Most popular brokers for Australian investors

To determine the most popular Australian broker, we looked at the brokers with the highest number of trades amongst our user base. In this case, CMC was the clear winner, followed by Pearler and CommSec.

What makes CMC such a popular choice for Australian investors? The broker’s expansive global market support – including $0 brokerage fees for international trades in select markets – is likely one reason why CMC has been so popular with Australian investors. CMC is also connected to the Sharesight API, allowing CMC customers to effortlessly track their trades in Sharesight.

"We’re committed to continuously improving our user experience and adapting to our customers' changing needs,” says Andy Rogers, Director of Stockbroking at CMC Markets.

“The API lets us seamlessly integrate Sharesight’s features into our platform, allowing us to quickly enhance the overall customer experience."

This is the third year in a row that CMC has topped the rankings as Australian Sharesight users’ preferred broker. Meanwhile, Pearler has entered the rankings for the first time since 2022, coming in as the second-most popular broker among our user base. Much like CMC, Pearler has integrated with the Sharesight API, allowing investors to measure their long-term portfolio performance with ease.

“At Pearler, we’ve built a community around sensible – even boring – long-term investing over speculative trading,” says Pearler CEO and Co-founder Nick Nicolaides.

“We’ve always believed that investing should be as stress-free as possible, and Sharesight’s portfolio management tools make this easier than ever.”

CommSec also remained a clear favourite for Australian investors in FY23/24, which can likely be attributed to CommSec’s long history as a leading Australian broker. It’s also easy for Australian investors to get their CommSec trades into Sharesight, with support for CommSec CSV files (spreadsheets) to import historical trading data into Sharesight, plus the ability to automatically forward trade confirmation emails to Sharesight to capture any ongoing trades.

Ranked fourth this year, Australian investors likely gravitated to Selfwealth due to its low-cost flat fee trading and access to US markets. Much like CommSec, Selfwealth also supports CSV files and trade confirmation forwarding, making it easy for investors to keep their trading information up to date in their Sharesight portfolio.

“Founded in 2012 and now with over 128,000 active Australian investors, Selfwealth has established itself as a trusted online trading platform,” says Brendan Mutton, Head of Sales and Partnerships at Selfwealth.

“Being ASX listed and locally owned and operated, we often hear from our customers that they appreciate the transparency and support we offer, access to international markets as well as our consistent flat fee brokerage. Our customers are at the centre of everything we do, we listen to them to meet their evolving investment needs and to enhance the customer experience.”

Top Australian brokers for ETF investors

With ETFs continuing to grow in popularity, especially among new investors or those seeking diversification, we also felt it was important to highlight the most popular brokers for ETF investing. As shown in the chart below, CMC came out on top, followed by Pearler, with CommSec in third place. Notably, for the first time, the rankings for the top ETF brokers and the most popular brokers (overall) are in the same order, with the key difference being that Pearler and CMC are closer in the rankings as Sharesight users’ preferred broker for ETF investing.

With CMC being Sharesight users’ preferred broker overall, it makes sense that the broker also topped the list of investors’ favourite brokers for investing in ETFs.

It’s also not hard to see why Pearler was a close second, considering the platform’s focus on long-term investing, with ETF investing being a key strategy for many long-term investors.

“ETF investing has always been the foundation of the Pearler community’s investing habits,” says Nicolaides.

“In fact, the 10 most popular investments within Pearler are all ETFs. To us, this indicates that more and more Australians are choosing to tune out the noise, buy the market, and passively invest for the long term.”

Most popular ETFs for Australian investors

As can be seen from the chart below, the most popular ETF amongst our Australian user base was Vanguard’s Australian Shares Index (ASX: VAS), followed by Vanguard’s MSCI Index International Shares (ASX: VGS) and iShares’ Core S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV). For the first time, these rankings have changed, with IVV rising in popularity, moving from fifth place to third.

It’s easy to see why VAS remains a popular choice for Australian investors, as this ETF tracks the ASX 300, making it a good choice for investors looking to diversify and balance their portfolio while still focusing on Australian shares.

VGS also tends to be a popular ETF for Australian investors looking to diversify their portfolio, as it provides exposure to many of the world’s biggest companies listed in developed countries, and is exposed to fluctuating values of foreign currencies.

At the same time, IVV tends to be popular with investors seeking exposure to US markets, as this ETF seeks to track the investment results of the 500 largest US stocks by market capitalisation.

Track all your investments in one place with Sharesight

Thousands of investors like you are already using Sharesight to track the performance of their ASX investments – along with the rest of their portfolio – all in one place. If you’re not already using Sharesight, what are you waiting for? Sign up and:

• Track all of your investments in one place, including global stocks, ETFs, mutual/managed funds, property and even cryptocurrency
• Automatically track your dividend and distribution income from stocks, ETFs and mutual/managed funds
• Run powerful reports built for investors, including performance, portfolio diversity, contribution analysis, future income, exposure, multi-period and multi-currency valuation
• See the true picture of your investment performance, including the impact of brokerage fees, dividends, and capital gains with Sharesight’s annualised performance calculation methodology

Sign up for a FREE Sharesight account and get started tracking your investment performance (and tax) today.

FURTHER READING

• How to track exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
• 3 reasons why you need to be tracking dividends
• 7 reasons why Sharesight is better than a spreadsheet