Top 10 most-popular investment funds: March 2025

Investors appear to be resisting the urge to make knee-jerk reactions and tinker with portfolios and are overwhelmingly sticking to passive strategies, with no change in the top 10 most-bought funds table in March.

In the background, President Trump’s trade wars rumble on in the run-up to UK tax year end on 5 April. Investors have just days left to use up some, or all, of their £20,000 ISA allowance (£9,000 for children) and shield their wealth from the taxman.

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Royal London Short Term Money Market, unchanged in first place, was recently named as a potential short-term play for ISA investors. Amid uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs, some investors prefer to put their money in very low-risk investments such as money market funds amid market fluctuations.

However, Tom Bigley, fund analyst at interactive investor, said that while the current yield (4.53%) and charges (0.10%) were competitive, he cautioned that “should interest continue to fall as central banks unwind monetary tightening, the yields on offer in these funds will come down”.

The second-most bought fund remains Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity, with other funds in the LifeStrategy multi-asset range, including 100% Equity, and 60% Equity, ranking in fifth and eighth place respectively. In a recent On the Money podcast episode, ii experts discussed the enduring popularity of these low-cost funds, with ii’s Sam Benstead explaining that “Vanguard builds a portfolio of passive funds for you. So, it’s kind of an active/passive approach, but the building blocks are all passive.”

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The other global passive strategies in the top 10 are HSBC FTSE All-World Index, Fidelity Index World, and Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index. All offer investors low-cost exposure to global markets, but some funds also invest in emerging markets, so it’s important to study the factsheets to understand the country exposure.

One loyal retail investor recently explained in our DIY Investor series why he’s sticking by Terry Smith’s global equity fund Fundsmith Equity despite its short-term performance woes. He said: “Fundsmith Equity holds much less than the index in the Magnificent Seven stocks. I think some of the criticism of Fundsmith Equity has been unfair, and it has still performed well over five years.”

In our top 10 table, Fundsmith Equity is the only fund showing a negative return over one year (-6.2%). Over five years, its performance is up 59.3% versus 77.6% for the average global fund.

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The final two funds in this month’s top 10, L&G Global Technology Index and Vanguard US Equity Index, are tech-focused and rank in third and ninth place respectively. There are voices urging investors to recognise and address possible concentration risk when it comes to the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks (NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc Class A (NASDAQ:META), Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)). US stock markets are currently suffering with the S&P 500 off 4.37% in the year to date and the Nasdaq down -10.2%. Specialist writer David Craik shared some ideas for investors looking to play the “new US market”.

Top 10 most-popular funds in March 2025

Source: interactive investor. Performance data to 1 April 2025. Note: the top 10 is based on the number of “buys” during the month of March. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The top 10 most-bought active funds

While passive funds are undoubtedly the most popular right now, below are the top 10 most-bought actively managed funds, according to the number of buys among interactive investor customers.

Active funds are those where a professional fund manager handpicks stocks in an attempt to outperform the market. Such funds consequently have higher fees.

Royal London Short Term Money Market, in first place, is not the only short-term money market fund attracting investor attention. Fidelity Cash and L&G Cash Trust, in eighth and ninth place respectively, can be held inside ISAs and SIPPs and investors can own these funds for 0.15% a year, which is only marginally more than the Royal London fund’s yearly ongoing charges figure of 0.10%. The Fidelity Cash fund currently yields 4.54%, while L&G yields 4.50%. Sam Benstead, ii’s fixed income lead, recently wrote an article on the best money market funds.

The price of gold passed the $3,100/oz mark recently as investors seek out safe havens amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty. The precious metal tends to perform well during recessions and can also be used as an inflation hedge. Jupiter Gold & Silver, ranked in 10th place,owns miners including Lundin Gold Inc (TSE:LUG), Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (TSE:AEM), and Discovery Silver Corp (TSE:DSV). Its one-year return is 59.6%, while over five years it has returned 127.2%. The yearly charge for this specialist fund is 1.01%. We recently published an article about how to invest in gold and why you should consider it for your portfolio.

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The fund manager Artemis has three of its funds in the top 10. They are Artemis Global Income (fourth), Artemis SmartGARP European Equity (fifth), and Artemis UK Select (seventh). Artemis Global Incomefund’s largest geographical allocation is to the US (30%), followed by Japan at 10%. In terms of sectors, its two biggest weightings are to banks (24.6%) and capital goes (20.3%). No other sector weighting goes beyond single digits. Top 10 holdings include Siemens Energy AG Ordinary Shares (XETRA:ENR), Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) and Commerzbank AG (XETRA:CBK). Its OCF is 0.87%.

European shares have had a great start to the year, while US shares have suffered a significant downturn. The “GARP” in Artemis SmartGARP European Equity means “growth at a reasonable price”. This is often understood as a mix of growth and value strategies.The fund counts healthcare firm Novartis AG Registered Shares (SIX:NOVN), and finance firms Ageas SA/ NV (EURONEXT:AGS) and UniCredit SpA (MTA:UCG) among its top 10 holdings, while its largest two weightings are to banks (20.5%) and biotech/medical (11.4%).

Artemis UK Selecthas FTSE 100 names such as Barclays (LSE:BARC) and Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR.), as well as FTSE 250 players such as Oxford Instruments (LSE:OXIG) and Morgan Sindall Group (LSE:MGNS) in its top 10. Its largest sector weighting is to banks (22.7%), followed by travel (15.7%) and financial services (11.7%). Investors can own it for 0.80% and the fund made a list of potential ISA investments that consistently deliver.

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For those investors concerned about concentration risk when it comes to mega-cap US tech stocks, Fidelity Global Technology, which ranks sixth,is a tech fund that has just four of the Magnificent Seven in its top 10 holdings (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft) among names including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR (NYSE:TSM), Texas Instruments Inc (NASDAQ:TXN), and Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ:LRCX). Its OCF is 1.04%.

Jupiter India, an adventurous fund, is ranked third and can be owned for 0.99%. Manager Avinash Vazirani has been at the helm since launch in 2008. The Indian stock market enjoyed a red-hot period of performance last year before coming off the boil, but clearly there are investors who believe the country is a long-term growth story.

Top 10 most-bought active funds in March 2025