10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 17 January 2025
We reveal the 10 most-popular shares, funds and investment trusts added to ISAs on the interactive investor platform during the past week.
20th January 2025 12:37
by Lee Wild from interactive investor
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
Company Name | Place change | |
1 | Up 1 | |
2 | New | |
3 | New | |
4 | Down 1 | |
5 | New | |
6 | New | |
7 | New | |
8 | New | |
9 | Unchanged | |
10 | Down 9 |
There’s been a lot of activity in the list of 10 most-bought stocks in ISAs on the ii platform over the past week.
After dethroning the hugely popular MicroStrategy Inc Class A (NASDAQ:MSTR), Legal & General’s time at the top of the table was limited to just one week. It’s been replaced by Taylor Wimpey (LSE:TW.), which leads the pack for the first time having gatecrashed the top 10 at number two a week ago.
The housebuilder attracted bargain hunters after its share price fell further following an update ahead of annual results due on 27 February. While the government wants the speed of construction to increase over the next few years, housebuilders are struggling against high interest rates, low consumer confidence and cost-of-living pressures. TW shares are now down over a quarter in the past few months to prices last seen in 2023.
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Legal & General Group (LSE:LGEN) plummets all the way down the list to 10th place, overtaken by six new entries, among them Trellus Health Ordinary Shares (LSE:TRLS) and Quantum Blockchain Technologies (LSE:QBT), which make their first appearance in the top 10.
After starting the week at just 0.6p a share, Trellus rocketed 800% to a peak of 5.4p on news it had done a deal with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). The US giant will assess the potential for the Trellus Elevate programme to support patients with moderately to severely active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Trellus will get an upfront licensing fee and fixed monthly management fee for the length of the one-year collaboration.
“Trellus Elevate provides a seamless, end-to-end solution from clinical trials to commercialisation, leveraging our proprietary resilience-based approach to drive trial and patient support success”, explained Trellus chief executive Dr Marla Dubinsky.
Floated on the stock market at 40p in May 2021, Trellus traded as high as 78p shortly after, but spent the next year in decline. The share price hasn’t seen current levels since January last year.
Quantum Blockchain Technologies (LSE:QBT) had also traded near historical lows before the price took off on Friday. The shares traded at 0.725p as Thursday’s session ended but finished the week at 1.626p after peaking at 2.25p for a 210% gain.
The catalyst was news of a “breakthrough achievement” for the company’s predictive bitcoin artificial intelligence model mining tool.
Management says its Method C AI Oracle tool can give a material competitive advantage by reducing the energy cost of mining bitcoin by about 30%, or accelerating the mining speed with a 30% greater hash rate (hashing is a way of encoding digital files into alphanumeric strings).
Elsewhere, GSK (LSE:GSK) is back in the top 10 after slipping to 12th place last week, while volatile easyJet (LSE:EZJ) shares were in demand ahead of first-quarter results due on Wednesday. easyJet shares haven’t been in this list since the start of October.
JD Sports Fashion (LSE:JD.) shares slumped to prices not seen in almost five years following a trading update for the nine weeks to 4 January. “While I am pleased overall with our performance, market headwinds were higher than we anticipated and therefore our full-year profit forecast is slightly below our previous guidance,” admitted CEO Régis Schultz. A 13% dive attracted bargain hunters, meaning JD is back in this most-bought list for the first time since the end of November.
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Finally, GSTechnologies Ltd (LSE:GST), which debuted here at the beginning of January, is at number eight this time. Two weeks after completing the acquisition of CAKE and the Bake cryptocurrency platform, it has raised £2 million through a share placing at 1.9p, plus £500,000 from an offer to retail shareholders at the same price. It will use the money to accelerate the implementation of its GS Money strategy, including its latest acquisition and possible further acquisitions.
Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs
Company Name | Place change | |
1 | Up 1 | |
2 | Up 3 | |
3 | Down 2 | |
4 | New | |
5 | Unchanged | |
6 | Unchanged | |
7 | Up 1 | |
8 | Down 5 | |
9 | Down 2 | |
10 | New |
Cash was king last week, with Royal London Short Term Money Market rising one place to claim the most-popular ISA collective investment of last week.
This fund aims to give a “cash-like” return by investing in ultra-short bonds and money market instruments, with yields currently at 4.8%. However, because the yield is closely tied to the Bank of England base rate, the yield is likely to fall as interest rates drop this year.
It knocked L&G Global Technology Index Trust off the top spot. Another technology fund, Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT), overtook it to claim second place. SMT is up 8.5% this year, linked to optimism that President Trump will cut regulation for US businesses.
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There were two new entries last week: Assura (LSE:AGR) and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity. Assura is an investment trust which owns healthcare property assets in the UK, such as GP practices. It yields 9%. Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity owns a range of Vanguard’s own passive funds, charging 0.22% a year for a diversified portfolio of global equities.
They displaced Alliance Witan and Primary Health Properties.
Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity and Vanguard US Equity Index were unchanged in fifth and sixth place, while Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW) and JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord (LSE:JGGI) dropped down to eighth and ninth place respectively.
MSCI World tracker Fidelity Index World rose one place to seventh.
Funds and trusts section written by ii’s Sam Benstead.
Please remember, investment value can go up or down and you could get back less than you invest. If you’re in any doubt about the suitability of a stocks & shares ISA, you should seek independent financial advice. The tax treatment of this product depends on your individual circumstances and may change in future. If you are uncertain about the tax treatment of the product you should contact HMRC or seek independent tax advice.
These articles are provided for information purposes only. Occasionally, an opinion about whether to buy or sell a specific investment may be provided by third parties. The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.
Full performance can be found on the company or index summary page on the interactive investor website. Simply click on the company's or index name highlighted in the article.