Where politics drove us apart, music united us. 🎵 The internet reached a rare unanimous verdict on ColdPlay’s kiss cam saga, and K-Pop Demon Hunter’s record-breaking Netflix (NFLX) views had parents tuning out in solidarity when their Spotify (SPOT) ‘wrapped’ dropped this year. Trump’s Tariffs were the talk of the trading terroir, and when markets took a dive in April - the S&P 500 tanking 10% in two days - Hatch investors jumped at the opportunity. You deposited US$40.2 million in just 30 days, kept your emotions in check, and bought the dip.

Your top stocks in 2025

Hatch investors love a trend. 🚀 Meme stocks almost made a comeback this year, and searches for Labubu and PopMart on Hatch peaked when Gen Z’s version of Gremlins hit the shelves. 

While you can’t invest in SpaceX yet, or the company that made Katy Perry an extraterrestrial for 11 minutes, Hatch investors were as unbothered as Mariah. You dined out on RocketLab (RKLB) with over 22,000 trades this year, making it your fourth most traded stock, just ahead of Palantir (PLTR). 🍽️ Bon appétit, mes amis. 

Gonna be gonna be golden 💰

An asset class that’s all class 👑 it’s beating out Bitcoin, the S&P 500, the burgeoning Southland Property market (up the Stags 🦌), and Birkins for returns YTD. Gold was straight to the top of the podium in 2025; who could have guessed? Goldman Sachs, apparently, and the thousands of Hatch investors who started investing in gold stocks and ETFs this year.

Four-letter words (like Gold) are a staple of many investors’ vocabulary. What else did you search for? With an impressive 92 alternate spellings, planateer, plainter, palalaintair, Palantir (PLTR), however you spell it, is unlikely to ever make a coordinated effort and hit your top ten.

The year in numbers

You had your biggest ever month of trading on record this year, buying and selling over half a billion NZD of stocks in October. What other numbers did we hit in 2025?

• 4,042 - the highest number of trades made by a single investor 
• 28 January - the busiest trading day 
• US$8.079M - dividends paid out to Hatch investors
• US$490  - the median buy order
• US$2,581 - the mean buy order

Fairly odd pairings 🌵🦩

We firmly believe that you should be able to invest your money however you like, but 69 of you could really pick a side;🥤 with holdings in BOTH Coca-Cola (KO) and PepsiCo (PEP), where do your loyalties lie? 11 of you are investing in Ozempic makers Novo Nordisk (NVO), and McDonald’s (MCD); no obvious correlation or causation between these two as investments.

There’s hedging and there’s…leveraging. Several investors are holding both Direxion’s 3X S&P Bull ETF (SPXL) 🐂 and Direxion’s 3X S&P Bear ETF (SPXS), and a handful more hold both ProShares UltraPro S&P500 (UPRO) and Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3x Shares ETF (TMF). Read more about leveraged ETFs and inverse ETFs. 

Speaking of leveraged ETFs, your top ten most traded exchange-traded funds feature more than a few.

I only have eyes for VOO 👄 368 Hatch investors hold both the Vanguard S&P 500 (VOO) and S&P 500 ETF Trust SPDR (SPY). This Venn diagram is a circle, friends. You can use this handy fund overlap tool when comparing exchange-traded funds and see if they have similar holdings.

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What does the average Hatch investor look like?

Around 47% of our investors are Millennials, with the most common birth year being 1991. We hope you 90’s babies celebrated your 34th birthdays with something nice. Only one year to go until you’re officially masters athletes! 🤸 Look after your knees, fellow kids.

Not like us 🎤 You’re all special, but some Hatch investors are special-er. Taylor* and Travis* are a few birthdays ahead of the ‘91 babes, and are both a distinguished 96 years old. A further 124 investors are yet to celebrate any birthdays, and by the time they can read this, they’ll be enjoying several years of compounding returns on their investments. Tino pai mum and dad.

^{*Not their real names}

92% of us think we’re above average drivers, and at times, that Kiwi overconfidence extends to what we think of our investing abilities. Here’s the data so you don’t have to guess. The average Hatch portfolio return is 16.4%, while an overall return of over 200% puts you in the top 5%.

The average portfolio on Hatch is US$20,413.28 or around NZ$35,100. If you’ve got over US$72,000, then congratulations, you’re in the top 5%. 

If you’re making regular deposits into an investment account or your KiwiSaver, and you’re learning about investing, you’re already slicker than your average. 😎

Share-ing is caring ♥️ You shared the love this year and referred over 1,000 friends to Hatch, way to be a good influence. 🤫 Psst, refer a friend from now until 31 Jan and get a $30 NZD top-up.

Start ‘em young

‘Let the kids take risks’ they say. While typical kids are considering the risks of using bare feet as scooter breaks, some Hatch kids are calculating risks with their portfolios. Their focus on growth stocks tracks with a long-term mindset, however are these tots a li’l too keen on tech, and bullish on Bitcoin?  At what age do we move from dressing them in Bonds Zippy onesies to teaching them about investing in bonds? 6-7? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Our youngest investor was born on 19 November, 2025. 🍼 And a hearty 18% of our new investors this year were under 18, No Broke Boys (or girls) in this fortunate bunch. Got kids that aren’t investing yet? Opening a kids account takes just 30 seconds, about the time it takes to say DaaAAaaAaaaad 11.7 times.

Open a Kids Account

The back office 👩‍💻

We know what you've ASXed for on your NZX-mas list, and we’re working hard on making it ‘Appen. In the meantime we’ve merged 558 changes to the codebase that included a few new features:

• New watchlists. You can hold multiple watchlists along with naming and sorting them. Enter our watchlist competition
• Price alerts, just tap the bell icon on that investment and we’ll email you when your target price is reached. 
• Index filters on the browse page. You can filter by indexes like the S&P 500,  Dow Jones Industrial Average, or the Nasdaq 100.
• Passkeys on all accounts. Setting up a passkey using your thumbprint or face ID will secure your account and speed up access.
  

We also responded to 14,249 customer chats, penned educational articles that you spent 114,655 minutes reading, and welcomed Bob, Hugh, Hazel, Anneka, and Marcia to the team. 

Thanks for investing through Hatch this year, Meri Kirihimete, and have a great summer! ☀️

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Like this? 👍 Then you might like: Hatch investors’ 2024 Year in Review,  and How did you invest in 2023?

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