10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 26 July 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

A new name heads the list of most-bought stocks in ISAs on the ii platform, but it’s just one of six newbies making the top 10 this time.

Budget airline easyJet (LSE:EZJ) has had an eventful fortnight. First, it was dragged lower by a negative read-across from Ryanair’s warning of much lower fares needed to get bums on seats. easyJet’s share price fell as much as 14%. Then last week it reported better-than-expected third-quarter profit, and the shares rallied 11%.

That volatility has attracted investor attention, which explains why easyJet makes the top 10 for the first time since it topped the table in mid-May.

In second place, and at the other end of the market cap range, is £10 million PennPetro Energy (LSE:PPP). The oil company made it into the top 10 for the first time a week ago, and now it’s up eight places after another incredible surge in share price over the past few days.

I talked about Pennpetro last week after it signed “a very significant and transformative deal” with Madeira-based energy trading business Globalvision International. Pennpetro’s chief executive Tom Evans was uber-bullish, and the share price jumped from 0.55p to 3.9p.

A week ago, Pennpetro said Globalvision had engaged a drilling contractor to start work on the wells in Gonzales County, Texas, during early August.

Evans said: “I look forward to providing numerous updates to shareholders as we move to close this important transaction for the company and from the operations as they progress.”

There’s been no news since, but Evans’ enthusiasm has excited shareholders and potential investors, which perhaps explains the share price rally during the second half of the week from 2.6p to a peak of 10.65p on Friday. That amazing surge took the gain to over 1,800% in less than two weeks.

The share price remains highly volatile, having traded between 9p and 12.4p Monday.

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What a difference a year makes at Upland Resources Ltd (LSE:UPL). Last summer, the share price jumped from 0.53p to more than 5p over a few months following “significant progress” at Block SK334 onshore Sarawak, East Malaysia. It was well above 4p as recently as April.

But over the past week, Upland shares have fallen from 3p to a low of 0.9p. The slump was triggered by news that Petros, the state oil company of Sarawak, is planning technical work on Block SK334 to enable it to offer the Block for “competitive bidding to all interested investors”. Upland has been talking to Petros about exclusivity for “some months”.

Late last week, Upland said: “We will inform the market further in due course and look forward to meeting shareholders at the company AGM on Tuesday 30 July, 2024.”

On the other side of the pond, CrowdStrike Holdings Inc Class A (NASDAQ:CRWD) stole all the headlines days after an IT outage plunged global computer systems into chaos.

An initial 15% slump in Crowdstrike stock on 19 July attracted bargain hunters as investors assessed the potential consequences of the outage. However, there was follow-up selling through last week that eventually took the shares one-third lower, from $377 to $253 in just a matter of days.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said: “…we are slightly more constructive on Crowdstrike’s ability to limit long-term reputational damage post the outage given the company's swift response and partner checks indicating limited churn risk so far. Nearer term, we are further trimming our forecasts slightly to reflect a -20% [year-on-year] decline in net new annual recurring revenue in [the second half].”

Their price target drops from $396 to $360.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

For the seventh consecutive week, L&G Global Technology Index I Acc retains the top spot. Investor enthusiasm has not been dented by recent weakness of US tech shares. 

The passive fund has been a stellar performer over short and long term, up 33.3% over one year, 49.4% over three years and 163.9% over five years. However, it has become very concentrated, with around 15% each in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA).

Entering the table in second place as one of three new entries is Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW). Its climb up the table may have been influenced by the release of its half-year results on 24 July. Those results showed the UK wind farm investor reiterate its 10p full-year dividend target. The investment trust aims to provide investors with a yearly dividend that increases in line with RPI inflation. This has been successfully achieved each year since the trust launched in 2013.

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Another new entry in fifth place is City of London Ord (LSE:CTY) investment trust, which has been managed by Job Curtis since 1991. In a video interview with interactive investor, Curtis has previously described his investment approach as targeting consistent companies that are predominantly listed in the FTSE 100. He added: “I'm looking for consistent companies, and those sorts of companies will often have attributes such as very strong brands or a very good market-leading position, which means their profits are very defendable.” The trust has a market-beating dividend yield of around 5%.

The final new entry is Vanguard US Equity Index. This passive fund tracks the S&P Total Market Index, which comprises over 4,000 constituents including large, mid, small and micro-cap stocks.

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has left the top 10, along with two passive funds: Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity and Fidelity Index World. 

Funds and trusts section written by Kyle Caldwell, ii’s funds and investment education editor.