10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 4 September 2026

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

Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR.) regains first place in this list of most-bought stocks in ISAs on the ii platform for the first time since mid-July. It replaces GCM Resources, which debuted in the top spot last time but slips four positions to fifth this week.

Greatland Resources Ltd (LSE:GGP) is the highest new entry in the number two spot. It’s not appeared here since the beginning of July, but a drop in share price may have triggered fresh buying interest. After touching 725p in August as the gold price rallied, the shares fell below 600p midweek as gold eased and news emerged of director selling.

You can read more about it here, but in short, a couple of board members have offloaded millions of pounds of Greatland shares not far from recent peaks.

There are three new FTSE 100 stocks this time, although none are strangers to the list.

Barclays (LSE:BARC) had been trading at the bottom of its summer trading range until a rebound midweek dragged the share price up almost 5% to their highest in a week. A downgrade to ‘neutral’ by Bank of America and 6% cut in price target to 580p didn’t help, although Jefferies raised its target by 10p to 600p.

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After dropping to 12th the previous week, Aviva is in at number eight, while BAE Systems (LSE:BA.), which found itself in 13th place previously, made the list in ninth this time.

Aviva went ex-dividend on Thursday, meaning investors buying now will not be eligible for the 14p interim dividend. Shares have already recouped some of that 14p as analysts at Barclays raised their price target for Aviva to 716p from 656p.

Bargain hunters were out in force at defence giant BAE after its shares traded down 14% from their mid-August peak at their lowest since late July. There have been some concerns about the UK government’s commitment to its initial defence spending target of 3% of gross domestic product by 2030.

A bad month for Oxford BioMedica (LSE:OXB) put the gene and cell therapy company on investors’ radars last week. Another lurch lower following a sizeable drop early August took one-month losses to almost 30%, putting the share price at levels not seen in over a year.

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A month ago, the company blamed operational delays at a US site for a cut to 2026 revenue forecasts to £180-200 million. It also mentioned deferrals and delayed timelines of selected programmes, plus “a shift in the procurement strategy and change in approval pathway for a larger client”.

This time, shares fell around 20% on news that two of its partners - Novartis AG Registered Shares (SIX:NOVN) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (NYSE:BMY) – have paused CAR-T therapy trials for autoimmune disorders due to safety concerns. However, analysts at both Panmure Gordon and RBC Capital Markets continue to back the shares.

Half-year results from Oxford, the subject of an abandoned takeover approach from Swedish private equity group EQT in January, are pencilled in for 22 September.

The five stocks making way for this week’s new entries are Nvidia, BP, Lloyds Banking, AstraZeneca and Tungsten West. 

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

There was once again plenty of appetite for low-cost global tracker funds, with four featuring in this week’s table. However, global exposure with a dollop of emerging markets is preferred, with Vanguard FTSE Global All Cp Idx £ Acc (BD3RZ58), HSBC FTSE All-World Index C Acc (BMJJJF9) and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity A Acc (B41XG30) funds all higher up the rankings than Fidelity Index World P Acc (BJS8SJ3), which focuses on developed world markets.

However, investors should be aware that over the past 18 months the AI rally has fuelled notable gains for a small number of the biggest emerging market stocks. As a result, emerging market returns have become more concentrated, and therefore more reliant on the big three names of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR (NYSE:TSM), SK hynix Inc ADR (NASDAQ:SKHY) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd DR (LSE:SMSN). TSMC alone accounts for around 15% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, while the other two make up around 12% between them.

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For actively managed funds investing globally, there’s a preference for approaches that are bold in their pursuit of outperforming the global market, with Artemis Global Income I Acc (B5ZX1M7) (fifth in our table) an example of a fund investing sufficiently differently from its benchmark.

Fidelity Index World is a new entrant, along with City of London Ord (LSE:CTY), which is favourite among income seekers with its track record of increasing dividend payments stretching back to 1966.

Polar Capital Technology and Scottish Mortgage were this week’s departures.

Funds and trusts section written by Kyle Caldwell, funds and investment education editor at ii.