Wednesday 03 April 2024 3:24 pm  |  Updated:  Wednesday 03 April 2024 3:25 pm

Fundsmith Equity tops most-bought list despite ‘doghouse’ performance

By: Elliot Gulliver-Needham

Fundsmith Equity, the largest fund in the UK, topped the most-bought list for the UK on platform Interactive Investor in March, despite landing on Bestinvest’s ‘doghouse’ list at the start of the month.

Run by fund manager Terry Smith, Fundsmith Equity reclaimed the top spot on the most-bought list, moving up one place from second.

However, the fund was labelled as one of the 151 persistent underperformers last month by the ‘Spot the Dog’ report, after it returned 28.3 per cent in the past three years, pushing it to the bottom half of performers in the Investment Association Global sector.

The fund is up 9.6 per cent since the beginning of 2024, behind the 9.8 per cent return of the MSCI World index. The other actively managed funds in the top 10 are Jupiter India and Royal London Short Term Money Market, with the rest passive index funds.

Other than slight shifting in the rankings, the top 10 list for both funds and investment trusts stayed mostly the same from February.

The only new entrant was the global-focused F&C Investment Trust, the oldest investment trust in the UK, having previously reached the top list in October 2023.

“Going global is one of key themes continuing to play out among our customers. Among funds seven of the top 10 invests globally, and for investment trusts six have global approaches,” said Kyle Caldwell, collectives specialist at Interactive Investor.

Looking to stocks, and Nvidia continued to dominate the top spot, having risen almost 90 per cent just in the last three months.

“Tesla remains among the most-popular stocks among ii customers – its shares have been struggling so far in 2024, weighed down by weak electric vehicle demand and higher interest rates,” said Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor.

“However, its loyal band of followers are clearly using this pullback as an opportunity to ‘buy the dip’,” she added.

Other strong performers in the top 10 included solid dividend paying FTSE 100 stocks such as Vodafone, Legal & General and Lloyds, who all make frequent appearances on the monthly list.

However, other FTSE 100 regulators slipped off the list in March, with Glencore, FT Group and HSBC all falling out of the top 10.

“All three are nursing losses year-to-date having underperformed the wider UK blue-chip index in the first quarter,” noted Scholar.

A new addition to the top performers this month was BAE Systems, which has seen prices rise nearly 20 per cent since the beginning of the year due to rising global conflicts.