10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 23 May 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

BP (LSE:BP.) extends its domination of this list of 10 most-bought stocks in ISAs on the ii platform to four weeks. Despite spiking above $64 a barrel last Tuesday for the first time in May, the price of oil drifted back below $62 where it remained for most of the week. That meant BP shares tracked back to the 355p level, a 4.5% decline for the week. Bargain hunters are still clearly backing BP to recover, although the timing currently looks difficult to predict.

The highest new entry this week is CapAI (LSE:CPAI). The £23 million company has appeared here a few times in the past couple of months, last featuring four weeks ago when we reported its new refined operating strategy. There’s been no fresh news in the past couple of weeks, but the shares reached a high of 0.87p last Tuesday. Investors are still backing the firm’s core philosophy “to substantially grow the business through high-efficiency, AI-led ventures, while mitigating dilution for shareholders”.

After a week’s break, Legal & General Group (LSE:LGEN) is back at number four following a sharp drop in the share price on Friday to under 235p, the lowest it’s been since the beginning of May. The fall coincided with reports in the Financial Times that L&G is merging its £500 billion index funds unit with its £12 billion exchange-traded funds (ETF) division to create a more global team.

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Lloyds Banking Group (LSE:LLOY), another yo-yo stock in this top 10 list, bounces back for the first time since the start of May at number seven. Lloyds’ share price jumped 3.8% last week, taking them to their highest since summer 2015 and within a penny of 80p.

Six weeks after making its maiden appearance here at the same time as capAI, Pantheon Resources (LSE:PANR) is at number nine this week. In April, we were talking about a 40% slump in share price following disappointing results from the first of six flow test intervals at its Megrez-1 well in Alaska.

Now, a partial recovery to 42p has unwound after management said post-flow test analysis indicates the reservoir is most likely oil wet, which means the oil is not mobile. Chair David Hobbs said: “The results of testing so far have been undeniably disappointing.”

Next, Pantheon will test the shallower L.Sag. 3 interval, which it believes “represents the greatest remaining chance of mobile oil”. If it can’t produce mobile oil, further testing on the well will be suspended. But investors are backing management to succeed, especially with the share price back below 25p for the first time this year.

Taylor Wimpey (LSE:TW.) has been there or thereabouts for a while now and, after dropping out of the top 10 a couple of weeks ago, it’s up from 14th to the 10th spot this time. Shares have bounced back from the tariff sell-off but remain significantly below last autumn’s multi-year peak above 165p.

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Still, we reported on a team of analysts at UBS who believe the sector is “primed for recovery”.

Taylor Wimpey was among their favourite plays, with a price target of 155p versus 117p currently plus an 8% dividend yield. They liked the builder’s pledge to return 7.5% of net assets or at least £250 million every year.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

The biggest riser last week was City of London Ord (LSE:CTY), jumping five places to fourth. This investment trust yields 4.3% by selecting dividend-paying UK firms and has raised its annual payout to shareholders for 58 consecutive years.  

The trust was one of seven funds that rose up the ranks last week. Rising one place each to second and third respectively were Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity and Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT). Meanwhile, HSBC FTSE All-World Index rose two places to fifth. 

There were three new entries on the list: NextEnergy Solar Ord (LSE:NESF), Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity and JPMorgan Global Growth & Income Ord (LSE:JGGI).  

These three funds invest in very different ways. NextEnergy Solar owns solar energy assets around the world but has 84% in the UK. Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity owns a basket of Vanguard’s own index funds to give investors a diversified portfolio of global shares. Meanwhile, JGGI is an active global equity fund that tries to pick both growth and income winners.

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Unchanged at the top was Royal London Short Term Money Market, which aims to generate a “cash-like" return of just above the Bank of England interest rate, which is currently 4.25%.  

L&G Global Technology Index I Acc fell eight places to 10th, while 3i Group, Greencoat UK Wind and Fidelity Index World dropped off the list.  

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