Fundsmith Equity and Scottish Mortgage retain bestseller crowns in August

investmentweek.co.uk:

Out of the ten most bought funds for the period, half were trackers either from Vanguard, L&G or HSBC.

interactive investor's latest platform purchase data for August varied little from July's results on the open-ended side, as Kyle Caldwell, collectives specialist for ii, noted investors continued to back Terry Smith's flagship fund and otherwise opt for low-cost, global trackers.

Out of the ten most bought funds for the period, half were trackers either from Vanguard, Legal & General or HSBC.

The closed-ended side reflected what Caldwell called «dampened» enthusiasm for technology exposure.

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Two tech trusts, Polar Capital Technology and Allianz Technology, fell out of the most bought list for investment trusts, having only joined in recent months.

Caldwell said tech focused portfolios «have only briefly been in favour this year», although he noted tech-heavy SMT was an exception.

On a stock basis, investor bullishness towards tech was split, with Nvidia rejoining the list after dropping out last month, reflecting the recent buzz AI-focused stocks have received, while Tesla retained a spot in the top ten. However, tech heavyweight Microsoft dropped off the list «after a difficult August for its share price and a volatile month for markets all round», according to Victoria Scholar, head of investment at the platform.

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Caldwell added that clients were focused on income in August, with seven out of the ten most bought companies running dividends of at least 4.5%, while several of the most popular trusts paid some form of income, with the majority yielding more than 4%.

Indeed, the two new entries — Renewables Infrastructure Group