10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 16 August 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

There was quite a bit of chopping and changing last week as Legal & General Group (LSE:LGEN) lost the top spot and NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) also gave up a place to sit in third position.  

This time it’s Rio Tinto Registered Shares (LSE:RIO) out front after another bad week had the shares briefly below £46, their lowest in a year and down over 20% from the May peak above £58. The decline coincides with a drop in the price of iron ore to its lowest in more than 14 months, blamed on persistently weak property data out of China, a major consumer of iron ore.

A bet that Chinese demand will improve had investors picking up cheap stock and locking in a forecast dividend yield of almost 7%.

OSB Group (LSE:OSB) slumped more than 20% at one stage in the middle of the week as “competition in a subdued mortgage market” forced it to cut full-year forecasts. Alongside half-year results, the One Savings Bank firm said it now expects net interest margin (NIM) of 2.3-2.4% compared with previous guidance of 2.5%. Bargain hunters clearly believe there’s value in the shares near a four-month low.

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Among the small-caps, Neo Energy Metals (LSE:NEO) makes its first appearance here following an impressive 170% surge in its share price.

The jump from 0.425p to an intraday high of 1.16p followed news that Neo had done a deal to buy uranium and gold projects in South Africa for £7.5 million in cash plus royalties. It will also issue £8.5 million of new Neo shares at 1.25p to the seller Sunshine Mineral Reserve.

The so-called Beisa Projects include 90 million pounds of uranium and 4.2 million ounces of gold, with a combined in situ value in excess of $17 billion.

“This acquisition marks a major milestone for Neo Energy Metals, and significantly expands our footprint in one of the richest and long-standing uranium producing regions in the world,” said chief executive Sean Heathcote.

“The Beisa North and Beisa South Uranium Projects not only bolster our uranium resource base but also further strengthens the company's ability to achieve its strategic goal of becoming a major player in global uranium market and as South Africa's leading uranium company.

“In the coming weeks, we will look to finalise the formal documentation and regulatory approvals for the acquisition with the team at Sunshine Mineral Reserves and in parallel with that finalise the debt funding arrangements.”

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Legal & General’s ever-popular technology tracker fund regained the top spot last week, as tech shares continued to rebound from sharp decline at the beginning of the month.

Costing in 0.32% in fees, it has about 15% invested in each of Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia.

But not all tech-focussed funds gained in popularity. In fact, Scottish Mortgage, the investment trust that focusses on innovation winners, such as Amazon, Nvidia and SpaceX, dropped nine places to tenth. This came even as the shares rallied about 3% last week.

Two large tracker funds gained in popularity last week: Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity, which rose two places to second; and Fidelity Index World, rising three places to seventh.

Vanguard’s product is a fund of funds, owning its own index funds tracking equity and bond markets. Fidelity’s fund owns the largest 1,500 shares globally from developed markets, ranked according to how large the companies are.

There were three new entries on the most-bought list last week: Royal London Short Term Money Market, which yields 5.29% by investing in cash-like instruments; NextEnergy Solar, which yields more than 10% and is on a 20% discount to net asset value; and Jupiter India, which is one of the top-performing Indian equity funds.

Also dropping in popularity last week were Greencoat UK Wind, HSBC FTSE All- World Index, while City of London, Alliance Trust and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity fell off the list.

JPMorgan Global Growth & Income was unchanged in fifth place.

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

Data is 12-15 August 2024.