10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 22 August 2025

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

Wishbone Gold (LSE:WSBN), the mining company with three major exploration properties in Australia and three minor prospects, debuts in this list of most-bought stock in ISAs on the ii platform in first place.

The AIM-listed shares came to life late June through early July, but there was a fresh rally at the beginning of last week. Wishbone surged as much as 300% to over 1.6p, their highest since the end of 2023.

Latest gains followed news of a significant expansion of the breccia pipe interval at its Red Setter Gold Dome Project in Western Australia. Red Setter is Wishbone’s flagship project just 13km from Newcrest’s Telfer operations, a major gold-copper mine in the Pilbara region.

WH Smith (LSE:SMWH) had a terrible week after it spotted a big error in the accounts at its North American division. The travel sector newsagent warned of an accounting error relating to the early recognition of supplier discounts. It means that earnings were taken as soon as the deal was done rather than being allocated to outer years.

Analysts were quick to cut price targets to 800p or less as Smith shares slumped from over 1,100p to 628p, not far off the Covid low. Some investors are betting there’ll be a bounce, but plenty of experts doubt a review being undertaken by auditors at Deloitte will finish before November’s annual results. Any recovery could be slow progress.

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After a tricky five months, Pantheon Resources (LSE:PANR) shares nudged higher last week to their best since May. The move higher came as the company, which is developing the Kodiak and Ahpun oil fields in Alaska, announced better-than-expected results from the Dubhe-1 appraisal well.

“The well confirms the presence and quality of the oil and gas reservoirs in the Ahpun field, exceeding our pre-drill expectations,” said chief development officer Erich Krumanocker. “The upside presented by the SMD-C and Slope Fan zones highlights the enormous potential in our portfolio.”

Investors appeared to lose a little bit of interest in Metals One (LSE:MET1) last week, dropping six places to the 10th spot. The shares, which have only been out of the top 10 on one occasion since early June, traded between 5p and 6p through the week.

Only news in the past few days has been notice of the exercise of over 93 million cash warrants at 2p. There are only 850,000 shares outstanding, so the equity fundraise announced in January is now complete. Metals also said it had issued 380,000 ordinary shares at 5p to settle a deferred consideration obligation as part of a deal done in 2023.

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Palantir Technologies Inc Ordinary Shares - Class A (NASDAQ:PLTR) hit a record a couple of weeks ago, but the stock dropped from over $177 to a week low at around $144. Interest among some high-profile short-sellers, profit taking following a 400% gain in the past year, and reports of institutional selling are to blame. But there are still investors willing to bet on further upside.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Unchanged at the top is the Royal London Short Term Money Market fund, which offers a cash-like return through investing in very low-risk bonds with short lifespans, typically just a couple of months. Returns, although not guaranteed, are typically in line with the Bank of England base rate. The fund, which holds over £9 billion in assets, has a current yield of 4.3%.

Advancing two places to second is Artemis Global Income. This fund has captured the attention of ii customers over the past couple of months on the back of strong gains over multiple time periods. It has returned 41.2%, 78.3% and 155.4% over one, three and five years. Those gains comfortably outpace the wider global equity income sector returns of 10.9%, 29.6% and 64.9%.

The fund has achieved strong outperformance despite having a notably underweight to US shares, with just over a quarter of the fund invested in the world’s biggest economy. The MSCI World Index, a benchmark for global equity markets, holds just over 70% in the US.

A recent On The Money podcast episode explored the topic of whether those who invest globally, particularly via index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), are overexposed to US shares. We also covered the debate in a news analysis feature.

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Four global index funds, which follow the ups and downs of the wider market, feature in our top 10: Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity (in third place); HSBC FTSE All-World Index (sixth); Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index (a new entry in eighth) and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity (in 10th). Such low-cost funds offer investors simple exposure to the world’s biggest businesses, with US firms accounting for a large proportion of the global market.

Those who invest globally will have around 20% of their money in the so-called Magnificent Seven technology companies: Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Meta Platforms Inc Class A (NASDAQ:META) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA).

ii customers are also looking for more dedicated technology exposure, reflected by the continued presence of L&G Global Technology Index, Polar Capital Technology Ord (LSE:PCT) and Scottish Mortgage (LSE:SMT).

Ben Rogoff, manager of Polar Capital Technology Trust, recently sat down with interactive investor to discuss how his £4.6 billion technology fund invests, including performance, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the economy, developments in AI technology, and recent changes to the portfolio.

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Renewables Infrastructure Group dropped off the list this week.