Top 10 most-popular investment funds: November 2022
1st December 2022 12:16
by Nina Kelly from interactive investor
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Two new entries in our ranking, but one fund house dominates.
In November, Britons faced the Autumn Statement, a recession warning from the Bank of England, the biggest interest rate rise since 1989, and record high food inflation, among other concerns. As a result, money-conscious investors continued to shun active strategies for low-cost diversified global options and limited their exposure to China and the UK.
In our top 10 table of most-bought funds, which is based on the number of ‘buys’ among interactive investor customers during the month, just one active strategy remains; Fundsmith Equity. Despite its bias to growth shares, the £22.7 billion global equity fund bucked the wider trend of investors turning to trackers and remained the most-bought fund on our platform.
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This month, we reported on the changes that star investor Terry Smith has made to the Fundsmith Equity portfolio. My colleague Sam Benstead details the stocks that the fund manager has been trimming and buying.
The other funds in our top 10 table are all passive vehicles, with six from fund leviathan Vanguard. Specialist writer Rachel Lacey explains the appeal of this style of investing in a recent article about her own approach to finances.
Lacey says: “I might not be getting the highest returns that I could, but the major upside for me is that I don’t need to devote hours of my time to researching the best options.” She makes the important point that while “you’ll never beat the market with a passive investment strategy”, investors can “reduce the risk of paying a premium for an active manager who either replicates or, worse, underperforms their benchmark.”
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Three of Vanguard’s LifeStrategy multi-asset funds, 80% Equity, 100% Equity, and60% Equity, are in second, third and fifth place respectively in our table. This month, in his column, Sam Benstead considered the correlation between shares and bonds, and the performance of the latter, and how this has impacted the Vanguard LifeStrategy funds. The 80% and 60% Equity options feature in our Quick-start funds range and offer beginner investors a simple starting point.
An illuminating piece revealed that there were just three investment sectors where most active fund managers beat a passive alternative in the 10 years to June 2022. There are several passive funds on our Super 60 list of investment ideas including Vanguard US Equity Index fund, which is in fourth place.
Other trackers in this month’s table are the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index fund (sixth place); Vanguard FTSE Dev World ex-UK Equity Index(seventh); and HSBC's FTSE All-World Index(ninth).
The two new entries are HSBC American Index (eighth place) and Fidelity Index World (10th place).
The two funds that exited the top 10 were Royal London Short Term Money Markets and the L&G Global Technology Index.
Top 10 most-popular funds in November 2022
| Rank | Fund | IA sector | Ranking change since previous month | 1-year return to 1 Nov (%) | 3-year return to 1 Nov (%) |
| 1 | Fundsmith Equity | Global | No change | -11.01 | 23.2 |
| 2 | Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity | Mixed investment 40%-85% shares | No change | -3.6 | 34.5 |
| 3 | Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity | Global | No change | 0.2 | 46.6 |
| 4 | Vanguard US Equity Index | North America | Up one | 0.4 | 81.4 |
| 5 | Vanguard LifeStrategy 60% Equity | Mixed investment 40%-85% shares | Up one | -7.3 | 9.5 |
| 6 | Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index | Global | Down two | -0.9 | 30.6 |
| 7 | Vanguard FTSE Dev World ex-UK Equity Index | Global | No change | -0.3 | 35.9 |
| 8 | HSBC American Index | North America | New entry | -3.9 | 80.7 |
| 9 | HSBC FTSE All-World Index | Global | Up one | -4.2 | 28.3 |
| 10 | Fidelity Index World | Global | New entry | -4 | 30.9 |
Source: interactive investor. Note: the top 10 is based on the number of “buys” during the month of November.
These articles are provided for information purposes only. Occasionally, an opinion about whether to buy or sell a specific investment may be provided by third parties. The content is not intended to be a personal recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or product, or to adopt any investment strategy as it is not provided based on an assessment of your investing knowledge and experience, your financial situation or your investment objectives. The value of your investments, and the income derived from them, may go down as well as up. You may not get back all the money that you invest. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.
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