10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 4 October 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

BP (LSE:BP.) retains the top spot after a spike in oil prices last week. Brent crude raced from $71 a barrel to $78 following an escalation in the Middle East conflict. 

We’ve covered BP’s growing popularity here in recent weeks, and those investors who piled in at the multi-year low of 380p, or even sub-400p, are sitting pretty right now. BP shares are currently changing hands for 423p.

BP’s popularity kept Phoenix Group Holdings (LSE:PHNX) from reclaiming first place. The life and pensions company jumped three places as investors continue to value its 10% dividend yield, enhanced further by a 7% decline in the share price last week.

Having partially recovered from a recent slump on its decision not to sell its over-50s life assurance business SunLife, the FTSE 100 company was hit by a broker downgrade. Analysts at UBS cut their rating from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ with a price target of 530p versus 610p previously, amid worries about "low solvency and high leverage”.

“We see elevated risks to solvency based on our updated forecasts following 1H24 results when solvency missed expectations by -5 percentage points. We see the risk/reward at Phoenix balanced. Within the subsector we like Aviva (LSE:AV.) (Buy) as a diversified quality play and Legal & General Group (LSE:LGEN) (Buy) on its cheap valuation.”

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GSK (LSE:GSK) was also in demand, racing seven places up the table to third position. The shares fell again last week and are now down 12% since mid-September at their lowest since the end of 2023. Rival AstraZeneca (LSE:AZN) has had issues too, but those shares are still up almost 9% this year compared with GSK’s flat performance.

There were four new entries last week. Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Ordinary Shares (LSE:AML) is the easiest to explain, with investors picking up cheap stock after the luxury carmaker’s latest profits warning. Shares plunged by more than a third to their lowest since November 2022, taking losses in 2024 so far to almost 50%.

“In our view, maintaining the 2025 guidance is ambitious although we acknowledge that the completely renewed model line-up will likely be supportive for demand and pricing,” said Deutsche Bank. “That said, end markets are softening and the expected global market growth for 2025 is rather muted.”

The broker cut its 2024 and 2025 forecasts and slashed its target price from 200p to 140p.

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Elsewhere, and into the world of sub-penny shares, Tower Resources (LSE:TRP) took off after publishing half-year results. Shares in the tiny Africa-focused energy company rallied more than 300% in a couple of days from 0.013p to a peak of 0.0542p.

Excitement was generated by news that £6 million Tower has received a proposal for financing of the NJOM-3 well in Cameroon via a farm-out of a minority position. The potential deal is with “a substantial upstream company with existing production”, although others have expressed an interest in a partnership.

“There are two other parties in particular who have undertaken substantial due diligence on the project over the past few months, and we are also expecting a proposal from at least one of these companies,” said Tower. “Our intention is to conclude a transaction as soon as possible.”

Back among the blue-chips, income stock Aviva and easyJet (LSE:EZJ) made it back into the top 10. Aviva is in at number seven after a month-long break, while the short-haul airline enters the list for the first time since topping the table at the end of July.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Passive funds rose up the most-bought fund and trust ranking last week, as investors looked to “own the haystack” rather than trust a fund manager to successfully find the needle.

Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity A Acc rose two places to first place, displacing Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW), while L&G Global Technology Index, Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity, HSBC FTSE All-World Indexand Fidelity Index World all increased in popularity.

The active funds that dropped down the list were: Greencoat UK Wind, City of London Ord (LSE:CTY) and Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT). The first two are income strategies, yielding 7% and 4.7% respectively, while Scottish Mortgage is a growth investment trust, investing in tech names such as Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). 

Passive funds are performing well this year, linked to the continued dominance of the largest American companies as they innovate in artificial intelligence (AI), and benefit from improved investor sentiment as interest rates and inflation fall.

Fidelity Index World, which tracks the MSCI World index, is up 13.5% this year and is ranked 144 out of 551 global funds. Vanguard LifeStrategy is up the same amount, showing that low fees and owning the entire market can deliver strong returns.

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The ever-popular L&G Global Technology Index Trust is up 23% this year, making it the second-best performing technology fund available to UK-based investors.

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