InvestmentsApr 17 2019

Interactive Investor reveals most popular funds

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Interactive Investor reveals most popular funds

Big name fund managers were most popular with clients of the Interactive Investor platform in the last tax year.

The £17bn Fundsmith Equity fund was the most bought on the platform, followed by the £7bn Lindsell Train Global Equity fund.

Fundsmith Equity is the absolute top performer from more than 100 funds in the IA Global sector over the past five years, and third over the past year.

The Lindsell Train fund comes second in the same sector over five years and fifth over the past year.

The most bought investment trust on the platform was the £7.4bn Scottish Mortgage trust, which has returned 178 per cent over the past five years, compared with 86 per cent for the average trust in the AIC Global sector in the same time period.

All three of those funds deploy the growth style of investing, which tends to take the view that the short-term valuation of a company is less important than the rate of growth of that company.

The growth style of investing tends to do well when economic growth is relatively muted, because in such a climate relatively few companies are growing strongly, so the valuation of those that are is seen to matter less.

Those companies tend to have lower dividends than the market as a whole, and so perform best when interest rates and bond yields are low, as is currently the case.

This is because if the yield on lower risk assets such as cash and bonds rises, investors are more inclined to invest in these assets instead.

Growth funds either have significant exposure to technology stocks, as Scottish Mortgage does, or to companies such as Unilever, which grow consistently and regularly.

Funds

Rank

 

Stock name

 

1

 

FUNDSMITH EQUITY

 

2

 

LINDSELL TRAIN GLOBAL EQUITY

 

3

 

VANGUARD LIFESTRATEGY 80 PERCENT EQUITY

 

4

 

BAILLIE GIFFORD AMERICAN

 

5

 

BAILLIE GIFFORD GBL DISCOVERY

 

 

Investment trusts

Rank

 

Stock name

 

1

 

SCOTTISH MORTGAGE INV TRUST

 

2

 

CITY OF LONDON INVESTMENT TRUST

 

3

 

ALLIANZ TECHNOLOGY TRUST PLC

 

4

 

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST

 

5

 

F&C INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

david.thorpe@ft.com