10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 13 September 2024

We look at the investments ii customers have been buying within their ISAs during the previous week. The data includes only real-time trades, not regular investing instructions, and combines the use of both existing funds and new money.

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Top 10 shares in ISAs

Investors love to bag a bargain and, as is often the case, stocks that have dropped sharply in value often feature in this list of 10 most-bought stocks in ISAs on the ii platform.

It’s Rentokil Initial (LSE:RTO)’s turn this time after the pest control giant downgraded North America profit guidance again. It now believes second-half revenue in the region will grow by about 1% compared with previous guidance of about 3%, knocking a potential £20 million off the profit figure. The company also flagged over-resourcing during the peak summer months, which has wiped out around £50 million of profit.

Group annual pre-tax profit is tipped to drop around 10% to about £700 million, with analysts at Deutsche Bank cutting their forecast by 11% to £691 million. That factors in the risk of further integration disruption in the near term. As such, the price target is also cut from 550p to 465p. Rentokil shares fell much as 23% in the aftermath to a post-pandemic low of 361.7p.

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Just days after making a new high, shares in AstraZeneca (LSE:AZN), the country’s biggest company at about £186 billion currently, took a dive.

Astra disappointed investors with an update on late-stage trial results for its Dato-DXd lung cancer drug. It was enough for analysts at Deutsche Bank to downgrade their rating from ‘hold’ to ‘sell’ and reduce the price target by 4.5% from 11,000p to 10,500p.

“Having been longstanding supporters of the enviable oncology-driven innovation/growth story at AZN, it challenged us as much as any to accept the reality that TROP2 asset datopotamab was not going to be the next breakthrough in lung cancer we had hoped last summer,” wrote the broker.

“Subsequent events not only reinforced that perspective, but raised the prospect of regulatory hurdles in our view, culminating this week in the final missing piece of the puzzle which not only failed to reassure on those concerns, but raised some new ones. Dato is not the only important pipeline prospect for AZN, but it is a key building block of the HSD H2’20s revenue guide and now looks in question.”

UBS also says sell with price target of 11,300p.

Greatland Gold (LSE:GGP), a former golden child of the AIM market, attracted attention after it announced the acquisition of the 70% stake in the Havieron gold-copper project it didn’t already own, plus 100% ownership of the nearby Telfer gold-copper mine.

It will pay Newmont Mining $475 million in a mix of cash, Greatland shares and debt repayment as part of a deal expected to complete during the final quarter of 2024. It has already raised £325 million (£248.6 million) via a placing at 4.8p a share, plus £6.7 million through a retail share offer at the same price.

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Shares in Greatland, which discovered Havieron in 2018, fell from around 7p to below 5p briefly, a price not seen since April 2020 and a long way from the high of 38.5p at the start of 2021.

And finally, M&G Ordinary Shares (LSE:MNG) remains popular following recent better-than-expected first-half results, racing six places up the table to number two. It’s kept off top spot by BP (LSE:BP.), which holds on to first place for a second week as bargain hunters pick subdued shares that traded just below 396p briefly last week, a new two-year low.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Two new global tracker funds entered the top 10 most-bought collectives list last week: Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index and Fidelity Index World.  

While both global funds, the portfolios are different. The Vanguard strategy (costing 0.23% a year in fees) owns more than 7,000 shares, including those from emerging markets, and the Fidelity fund (charging 0.12% in fees) owns about 1,500 shares just from developed markets, such as the US, Japan and Europe. 

Other risers last week were L&G Global Technology Index Trust (up six places to third); Jupiter India (up four places to fourth) and JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (LSE:JGGI) (up one place to sixth). These funds have been consistently popular this year and have delivered strong returns.  

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However, the most popular collective was Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity, a Super 60-rated fund that owns a basket of Vanguard’s own passive equity and bond funds to give investors a ready-made diversified portfolio.  

It knocked BlackRock World Mining Trust (LSE:BRWM) off the top spot. Investors are moving to buy the dip in this trust’s shares, which have been under pressure due to falling commodity prices.  

Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT) and Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW) dropped in popularity last week, while Royal London Short Term Money Market held on to fifth place. City of London Ord (LSE:CTY) and Alliance Trust Ord (LSE:ATST) dropped out of the top 10.  

Funds and trusts section written by ii’s Sam Benstead.