Top 10 most-bought ETFs: September 2026
A new name begins to show dominance.
2nd October 2026 08:50
by Dave Baxter from interactive investor
Photo: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.
Vanguard FTSE Global All-Cap ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VALL) has stormed to the top of our monthly bestseller list just six weeks after its launch.
The fund, which targets global equities and undercuts its rivals with a 0.07% fee, only launched on 18 August and still made it into the bestseller list for that month.
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September saw it climb from fifth to first place.
The fund offers something similar to global “all-world” tracker funds.
Its top 10 holdings include the Magnificent Seven shares and the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR (NYSE:TSM), while North America accounts for 65% of the portfolio.
The fund has reasonable allocations to the emerging markets and Europe.
The index that the fund tracks looks to cover “large, mid and small-cap stocks of companies globally” according to its literature, causing some potential concerns that it might be overly exposed to small-cap shares.
But the index (FTSE Global All Cap) has performed almost identically to the FTSE All-World over many standard time frames.
As such it seems the small-cap allocation, which is not disclosed by Vanguard, is not great enough to make a huge difference to returns.
Being so new, VALL lacks the one and three-year total return figures provided for the other exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the table.
But to give some context, the FTSE Global All-Cap index it tracks has returned 18.3% over one year and 65.3% over three.
The latest episode of our On the Money podcast touches on the factors investors might weigh up when considering switching to VALL.
The other mainstays
There’s a good deal of consistency in the list if we look beyond VALL’s ascent.
Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VWRP), which charges 0.14%, sits in second place, with its distribution share class in eighth.
The accumulation share class will reinvest dividends, with its distribution equivalent paying them out to the investor.
We similarly see the two share classes of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VUAG) in the list, showing that investors still want exposure to both the US and some US-heavy “global” equity portfolios. ETFs targeting other major regions, from the UK to emerging markets, are notably absent from the table.
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Investors are also going for a good level of US tech exposure via the Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 ETF GBP (LSE:EQQQ), a name that returns after a hiatus from the bestseller list. A much riskier product, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 index but with three-times leverage, slips out of the table this month.
On a similar note, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF GBP (LSE:SMGB) remains popular. It has had a strong run this year amid the artificial intelligence (AI) surge, having returned almost 90% so far in 2026.
This is a fairly concentrated portfolio. As of late September top holding Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) accounted for 11% of the portfolio, with TSMC and Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) on roughly 10% apiece.
Its 25 holdings also include NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO), SK hynix Inc ADR (NASDAQ:SKHY), ASML Holding NV (EURONEXT:ASML), Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC), Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ:LRCX) and Applied Materials Inc (NASDAQ:AMAT).
Precious metals also remain in vogue, with iShares Physical Gold ETC GBP (LSE:SGLN) and iShares Physical Silver ETC GBP (LSE:SSLN) both in the top five.
Both the US dollar gold and silver price are higher than they were a year ago, although they remain well below the levels of early 2026.
Top 10 most-popular ETFs in September
| Ranking | Exchange-traded fund | Change from August | One-year total return (%) to 30 September | Three-year total return (%) |
| 1 | Vanguard FTSE Global All-Cap ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VALL) | Up 4 | - | - |
| 2 | Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VWRP) | Down 1 | 18.3 | 65.4 |
| 3 | iShares Physical Gold ETC GBP (LSE:SGLN) | Down 1 | 10.7 | 104.8 |
| 4 | Vanguard S&P 500 ETF USD Acc GBP (LSE:VUAG) | Down 1 | 17 | 69.2 |
| 5 | iShares Physical Silver ETC GBP (LSE:SSLN) | Down 1 | 34 | 142.2 |
| 6 | Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF GBP (LSE:VUSA) | Unchanged | 17 | 69.2 |
| 7 | Amundi Smart Overnight Ret GBP H ETF Acc (LSE:CSH2) | Up 3 | 5.8 | 6.5 |
| 8 | Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF GBP (LSE:VWRL) | Up 1 | 18.3 | 65.4 |
| 9 | VanEck Semiconductor ETF GBP (LSE:SMGB) | Down 1 | 111.6 | 289.8 |
| 10 | Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 ETF GBP (LSE:EQQQ) | New | 25.2 | 91.7 |
Source: FE. Top 10 is based on the number of buys in September. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
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