Top 10 most-bought investment funds: August 2025

The most eye-catching change in our monthly rankings is that value-focused fund Artemis Global Income rose three places to the fourth spot in August’s top 10.

The top is based on the number of buys among interactive investor customers, with regular investing excluded.

The £3.2 billion fund is a strong performer over one, three, and five years, with returns of 39%, 81.8%, and 161.5% respectively against global equity income sector returns of 9.5%, 31.9% and 68%.

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Its performance has proved that a high weighting to the US is not a pre-requisite to success. It currently has 32.1% invested in North America, while the MSCI World Index, a benchmark for global equity markets, has just over 70% in the US. Investors who are wary of technology concentration risk may be drawn to the fund’s lower weighting to the world’s biggest market.

According to its July factsheet, the next highest allocations are to Europe excluding the UK (29.1%) and Emerging Markets (19.6%). Investors can own the fund for 0.84% a year.

Artemis Global Income launched 15 years ago in 2010. Its managers invest primarily in a mix of lesser-known medium-sized companies (typically valued at £500 million and above) and lower-volatility “mega” companies.

The portfolio is made up of between 60 and 80 companies, with its managers looking for companies that they believe can keep growing their dividends. Its largest weighting is to financials (37.5%), followed by Industrials (23.6%) and Energy (10.3%). Top 10 holdings include South Korean video surveillance firm Hanwha Techwin, US energy company Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX), and defence firm Rheinmetall AG (XETRA:RHM).

Another value-focused fund and top performer, Ranmore Global Equity ranked 10th, also has a lower weighting to the US, with 21% currently in North America. Its top 10 holdings include online travel agency Expedia Group Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), discount retailer B&M European Value Retail SA (LSE:BME), and Baidu Inc (SEHK:9888), the largest search engine in China. Its performance over one, three, and five years is 32%, 88.2% and 160.4%.

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The only other active fund in the top 10, Royal London Short Term Money Market, kept its place at the top of the table. It offers investors a “cash-like return” for a very low risk and can be held inside ISAs and SIPPs. The yield is closely linked to the Bank of England base rate, so when interest rates fall, so does the yield. Investors may buy this fund when seeking a place to keep cash while they wait for opportunities.

Turning now to passive funds, L&G Global Technology Index, which remains in third place, is one of only five open-ended funds to have beaten the Nasdaq index over 10 years, according to my colleague Sam Benstead. Although technology has generated fantastic returns over a decade, some investors are wary about investing in thematic funds because of their pure-play nature, which makes them higher risk.

Elsewhere in the top 10, investors were buying low-cost global index funds, such as HSBC FTSE All-World Index, Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index, Fidelity Index World and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity, or investing in highly diversified multi-asset funds Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity and Vanguard LifeStrategy 60% Equity. The latter two form part of our six-strong list of Quick-start Funds, which are among the options for an easy way to start investing.

Top 10 most-popular funds in August 2025

Source: interactive investor and FE Analytics. Performance data to 1 September 2025. Note: the top 10 is based on the number of “buys” during the month of August. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

Top 10 most-bought active funds

Although some investors are opting to buy funds with lower weightings to the US, namely Ranmore Global Equity and Artemis Global Income – both discussed above – others are happy with a lot more exposure to companies in the States.

One of two new entrants in the top 10 most-bought active funds in August was Polar Capital Global Technology. This £6.3 billion opened-ended fund, which has a 75% weighting to the US, is managed by Ben Rogoff, who was interviewed by interactive investor a few weeks ago. The topic then was the investment trust Polar Capital Technology Trust, but Rogoff covered areas applicable to both trust and fund, including artificial intelligence (AI), the future of the Magnificent Seven shares, and common holdings, such as NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA).

Rogoff described the chip-maker, which has just released second-quarter results that beat Wall Street forecasts, as “the company at the epicentre of AI”. He went on to describe AI as a “general purpose technology” and predicted that what is commonly thought of as white-collar work would be “meaningfully disrupted”, while emphasising that AI was a “phenomenal democratiser” and that it meant “we’re all going to have super-intelligence in our pockets”.

Alongside L&G Global Tech Trust (discussed in the first part of this article), Polar Capital Global Technology was one of five open-ended funds that beat the Nasdaq over 10 years.

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Fundsmith Equity is another fund, ranked eighth in the top 10, with a large weighting to the US (currently 75.3%), although it has been struggling for a few years, notably, as Smith has admitted, because of the crash in the Novo Nordisk AS ADR (NYSE:NVO) share price and the fall in the value of the US dollar in the first half of 2025. The star fund manager has also previously blamed his underperformance on the strong returns from the Magnificent Seven, which are not a large part of his portfolio.

Alec Cutler, manager of Orbis OEIC Global Balanced Standard, is similar to Ranmore Global Equity and Artemis Global Income in the sense that it has a low weighting to the US (37%). Cutler, whose fund ranked seventh in the most-bought active funds’ list in August, is quoted in a recent feature by Cherry Reynard as saying that US companies may not be as exceptional in the future as they have been in the past.

“We think the exceptionalism comes from massive stimulus, liquidity and government debt going through the roof and, most of all the rest of the world believing it, so funnelling money into it,” says Cutler.

The £5.1 billion value fund has 125 holdings, according to the latest factsheet, and among its top 10 holdings are Siemens Energy AG Ordinary Shares (XETRA:ENR), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd ADR (NYSE:TSM), and iShares Physical Gold ETC GBP (LSE:SGLN).

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The other new entrant in August, Jupiter Gold & Silver I GBP Acc (BYVJRH9) owns a mix of mining firms and precious metals. Investors are buying this fund because of the strong price of both commodities. Investors can own this fund for a cost of 1.01% a year. Its top 10 holdings include FTSE 100 miner Fresnillo (LSE:FRES), Discovery Silver Corp (TSE:DSV), and Canadian business Lundin Gold Inc (TSE:LUG).

Gold is a reliable store of value and considered a safe haven by some investors in volatile times. One downside to owning such a fund is that miners’ precious metal explorations can disappoint and the companies may operate in areas of the world prone to instability.

Top 10 most-bought active funds in August 2025