10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 21 June 2024

With the new tax year under way, 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

Ocado Group (LSE:OCDO) has long been criticised as a ‘jam tomorrow’ stock – promising much, but never quite delivering the goods. And tomorrow seems even further away following the latest dent to prospects.

Having already halved in value this year, the shares lurched lower again last week, plunging as much as 20% to their worst levels since 2017. That was in response to news that Canadian supermarket chain Sobey’s had decided to “pause” the launch of a new customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Vancouver, scheduled for 2025. The warehouse had almost been finished, but Sobey’s parent company Empire said it wanted to wait for e-commerce penetration rates in Canada to increase before proceeding. It will also end its mutual exclusivity agreement with Ocado.

However, Ocado did say its financial guidance for 2024 remains unchanged, together with its target to be “cash flow positive in the mid-term”. Ocado shares, which traded as low at 281.2p, ended the week at 311.4p, rewarding those quick enough and brave enough to pick up cheap stock.

YouGov (LSE:YOU) was also in a spot of bother last week after the data research and polling company warned that sales and profits would be lower than expected this year.

Shares almost halved in value to a four-year low as investors heard that adjusted operating profit would be more like £41-44 million this year rather than £67 million.

Analyst Edmond Jackson published his own thoughts on the shares in this piece for interactive investor last week.

There were three other new entries in last week’s list of most-bought ISA stock on the ii platform, among them CAP-XX Ltd (LSE:CPX).

Shares in the designer and manufacturer of supercapacitors and energy management systems briefly tripled in value, triggered by news it had strengthened the board with three experienced non-executive directors. Joining the company are former ITM Power boss Dr Graham Cooley, corporate strategy expert Peter Fraser and Dr Anthony Sive who has overseen "several significant business transformations".

It certainly encouraged interest in the stock, but even at 0.20p the shares are down 86% in 2024 so far and a long way from the 13p they changed hands for in 2021.

Raspberry Pi Holdings (LSE:RPI) has only been a listed company a couple of weeks, but it’s been a largely successful start to public life. The low-cost computer maker was priced at 280p at IPO and reached 500p by the end of week one. But week two saw the share price fall to 373.5p by Friday’s close, perhaps enticing investors who missed out at the IPO to pick up stock.

And lastly, Polarean Imaging Ordinary Shares (LSE:POLX) just makes it into the top 10 after the shares rallied by almost three-quarters in the week up to early Friday morning.

The rally appears to be in reaction to a string of stock exchange ‘notification of major holdings’ announcements, which followed a general meeting passing resolutions linked to a £9.9 million fundraising at 1p a share.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Four new strategies broke into the list of most-bought funds and trusts in ISAs last week. Their focus was on technology stocks, with Allianz Technology Trust Ord (LSE:ATT) in at number five, L&G Global 100 Index I Acc (B0CNH05) (which has 41% invested in tech) in at six and Polar Capital Technology Ord (LSE:PCT) eighth. Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity A Acc (B41XG30) was in ninth place. 

L&G Global Technology Index I Acc (B0CNH16) and Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT), which both own lots of technology stocks, were the most-bought collectives last week. 

In sterling terms, the Nasdaq 100, which is a who’s who of America’s biggest tech names, has risen 19% this year. Tech shares are performing well due to excitement around artificial intelligence, where cloud computing companies like Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), as well as computer chip manufacturers like Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) and NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), are critical to the new technology. 

Jupiter India I Acc (B4TZHH9) also rose in popularity last week, rising from eighth to third place. It is one of the top funds this calendar year, rising 22%. Over three years it has nearly doubled in value. 

Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity A Acc (B4PQW15), Royal London Short Term Money Market and HSBC FTSE All-World Index C Acc all dropped in popularity, but remained on the most-bought list. Meanwhile, Fundsmith Equity I Acc (B41YBW7), JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord (LSE:JGGI), HICL Infrastructure PLC Ord (LSE:HICL) and Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW) dropped off the list. 

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