Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs
Both Polar Capital Technology Ord PCT
and Henderson Far East Income Ord HFEL have returned to our bestseller list, after a volatile few weeks for both.
Tech stocks in both the US and Asia have had a tough ride thanks to worries about the sustainability of AI spending. But investors continue to back the sector via PCT, which has outperformed peers this year in part thanks to its greater exposure to Asia.
The L&G Global Tech Index Trust, which has more of a US bias, slips out of the table and moves to 13th place. We also see the steady UK income trust City of London drift out of the table this time.
The list otherwise shows plenty of consistency. Royal London Short Term Money Mkt Y Acc (B8XYYQ8) maintains the top spot, while three broad tracker funds also sit in the list.
Investors are making good use of quite different active funds.
Henderson Far East Income and Greencoat UK Wind UKW
continue to stand out thanks to their bumper share price dividend yields, while Scottish Mortgage Ord SMT0.75% targets tech, AI and other future trends.
The value-minded Artemis Global Income I Acc (B5ZX1M7), which is sitting on some strong returns this year, also stays in the most-bought list.
US midterms 2026: what election could mean for your portfolio
Americans are preparing to vote in elections that could set the tone for the next two years, not just in Washington but on Wall Street and in the Square Mile. Analyst John Ficenec explains why.
21st October 2026
by John Ficenec from interactive investor
Share on
The US midterm elections in early November could change the political landscape that has helped lift share prices to record highs. At the same time, global markets have been on shaky ground recently with soaring borrowing costs and fears over AI investment unnerving investors. As the prospect of a divided house in the world’s largest economy hurtles into view, it’s important for investors to consider what it could mean for their savings.
Markets abhor uncertainty
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, markets hate uncertainty. The latest polling and prediction market figures make grim reading for the Donald Trump presidency and Republican supporters. According to The Economist’s tracker of YouGov polling, Trump’s approval rating is at -27, a new low and significantly worse than both Joe Biden and the first Trump presidency at the midterm point. Prediction markets are skewed towards Democrats taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Polymarket, where people bet on real world events, is currently showing a 91% chance of the Democrats taking the House, and a 65% chance of them controlling the Senate.
The potential for a significant shift in the political landscape of the United States has unsettled markets. The S&P 500 has largely drifted sideways since early August, while the tech-focused Nasdaq index has struggled to make any headway since early May. The run into midterm elections on 3 November has also coincided with a period when markets have historically suffered from lower returns during September.
Silver linings
The good news is that research shows that once the election uncertainty clears, markets have historically wasted no time getting back on the front foot. This year looks like no exception, with Jim Reid, global head of macro strategy at Deutsche Bank, adding that it’s possible marketa are “already feeling the gravitational pull of the midterms”.
Average S&P 500 performance after midterm elections since the Second World War (with range)
Source: Bloomberg Finance LP, Deutsche Bank. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
The historic performance of markets is even more encouraging when you begin to look at the last few months of the year. Once again, looking back at 100 years of stock market performance, we find that October, November and December have provided decent returns. While we would never make an investment decision based on a previous year’s performance, it can put recent market weakness into perspective, rather than as a portent of doom or any sign of things to come.
S&P 500 monthly performance (1928-2025). Seasonals consistently matter
Source: Bloomberg Finance LP, Deutsche Bank. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Divided politics are no problem for returns
If the Republicans were to lose control of both the House and the Senate in the coming elections, it wouldn’t necessarily be bad news for stock markets. In fact, there is strong historical precedent for stock markets continuing just fine.
One of the golden eras for the US stock market was the 12 years from 1981 to 1993 when the S&P 500 more than quadrupled in value. The Ronald Reagan years from 1981 to 1989 were divided, with a Republican president and Democrats in control of the House of Representatives. During the administration of George Bush senior from 1989 to 1993, again it was a Republican president and Democratic Congress.
The American political system is designed to function extremely effectively with differences of opinion. James Madison, the father of the US Constitution, built the structure of the presidency as the executive to run the country but with the checks and balances of a House of Representatives and a Senate.
In the midterms, all 435 members of the lower House of Representatives are up for election and are currently split 214 Democrat and 219 Republican, with one independent and one vacancy. While a third, or 35, of the 100 total seats in the upper house of the Senate are up for grabs and are split 45 Democrat, 53 Republican and two Independent. While current polling is pointing towards the Democrats taking the House, it is much harder to call the result in the Senate.
Executive orders
One of the main factors regardless of the result of the midterms is that President Trump will still be in charge, and that points towards a bumpy ride for the next two years. Trump has expanded the thinking of the unitary executive theory, namely that the president has the authority to do as he pleases, to new levels.
Foreign economic policy has been shaken up through tariffs, and international relations have been unsettled by supporting wars in the Middle East. Analysts from JP Morgan think this will continue after the midterms, believing “the trajectory of policy volatility is likely to be the status quo”.
In terms of the backdrop for the US economy, much of the main factors look set to continue as well. Elevated inflation and higher oil prices are putting pressure on consumers and businesses, although this is being offset by a key piece of Trump legislation, The Big Beautiful Bill, which will deliver an estimated $3.8 trillion (£2.8 trillion) in tax cuts to US business during the coming decade. Against those two competing factors, it’s easy to see how the stock market will continue to do what it does best and grind higher.
What do the midterms hold for AI investment?
One area that has come into focus has been the rapid growth of investment by AI hyperscalers (large cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud) and how this could be impacted by a change in the US political system. While both the Democratic and Republican parties are broadly supportive of the US becoming a world leader in AI technology, the pace of getting there could be different
The problem has been the massive growth of data-centre construction needed to power the AI hyperscalers. This has placed a strain on local power and water networks. If the Republicans hold on to both the House and the Senate, it seems likely the pace of construction would not slow. Whereas Democratic candidates looking to win local elections have been campaigning on greater control over data construction and more legislation to safeguard the nascent AI technology. For a sector where valuations have already been pushed to extremes, a slowdown in growth rates could be a headwind for further gains.
Potential impacts for healthcare and consumer staples
One feature of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill was to greatly reduce government spending on healthcare and support for households. If the Republicans retain control, it looks like reduced government spending would be a drag on these sectors.
However, if the Democrats control Congress, they could use their voting power to delay and slow spending cuts. This in turn could see healthcare and consumer staple names recover in the US into the year-end.
Macro will remain in the driving seat
While the midterm elections will provide a fascinating piece of political theatre, the far more important issue for investors will be to keep an eye on macro forces driving the markets. Policymakers are under serious pressure to keep a cap on inflation with interest rates already rising in the US. The direction of inflation and central bank rates has resulted in wild swings in the gold price and other commodities.
The markets ignored soaring borrowing costs on government bonds for most of the summer, but have suddenly woken up to the fact that there may be a limit on fiscal expansion. The funding of vast investment into building data centres has also begun to stress the credit ratings of some of the companies involved.
The movement lower in technology names last week could just have been a pause for breath. But if it was the start of something more serious, you can expect the trends that emerged to continue in the coming months. Namely investors turning to the safety of fixed income like US treasuries and UK gilts that both rallied. Also, the FTSE 100 has a strong showing in dividend-paying defensive names that attract investors during a downturn, such as tobacco, defence, consumer staples, and infrastructure groups.
The key feature of the midterms seems to be that, as an investor, making any decisions based on the outcome looks like folly. Far better to keep a balanced portfolio, which should mean you still benefit from markets recovering into the end of the year.
John Ficenec is a freelance contributor and not a direct employee of interactive investor.
Headline Risk Rising? These Monthly Dividends up to 14% Are Still Getting Paid
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: October 23, 2026
Getting antsy about the midterms? Wondering whether oil will ever come back down? Afraid the AI bubble is going to pop, blowing a dotcom-sized hole into your retirement portfolio?
I’m not. Because I’ve found the best cure for headline risk is a fat income check—preferably one that arrives every month.
The headline risks I mentioned are really starting to eat away at investors big and small. The VIX volatility index just spiked to multimonth highs. Hedge funds have been unloading their tech holdings at the fastest rate in a decade. Even though the major indices are just a percent or two off their highs, breadth has been terrible and small caps are actually in a correction.
Not to mention, one of our favorite indicators of stock market sentiment has swung to “shaking in their boots.”
Investors Are Panicked. That’s Usually Our Cue to Buy!
Source: CNN Fear & Greed Index
It’s easy to think “defense” in this market—uncertainty tends to put a premium on protection. However, enough stocks have sustained enough damage that we contrarians can cast a wide net for more aggressive opportunities.
And my favorite waters to trawl are in monthly dividend stocks, whose yields are often enough to provide us with a big offset against market downturns.
Have you found yourself trying to convert a portfolio of quarterly dividend payers into a smooth monthly income stream? It is doable, but there’s a pattern to the quarterly payers that we need to smooth out. They tend to dish their dividends in one of three phases.
The early birds are our January, April, July and October payers. They pay in the first month of the quarter. Then we’ve got our “middle children,” delivering in February, May, August and November. Then we have our latecomers. They pay right before the end of the quarter: March, June, September and December.
Now if we stack too many of these January payers together, for example, we might run low on cash by the time it comes to March. I know, I know. There’s a way that we can account for it by taking a certain amount of money from our brokerage account into our checking account. We could leave a buffer there. But why deal with all of this when we can just find companies that pay monthly?
Boards are finally starting to catch on to this. We have not one, not two, but three companies below that have converted from previous quarterly dividends to monthly payers. They are beginning to see things our way. All we want is that monthly check.
But we can’t buy just any monthly payer, because we want to make sure that that check’s going to be cut on time, on target, for all 12 months. I hate to say it, but there are many monthly payers with a sketchy history of dividend cuts over the last decade. Let’s look at a five-pack today, including those three newly converted monthly payers.
UDR (UDR, 5.1% dividend yield) is a multifamily real estate investment trust (REIT) that has been doing business for more than half a century and boasts an ownership position in more than 60,000 apartment homes. It’s geographically diverse, too, with net operating income split 40/35/25 across the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic, West Coast and Sunbelt, respectively.
This has been a roller-coaster of an industry, especially since COVID, but UDR has managed to deliver at least some level of dividend-growth through it … up until the only kind of dividend “cut” I like to see:
When a Quarterly Payout Turns Into a Monthly Payout
That’s right: This summer, UDR converted its vanilla quarterly distribution schedule into a monthly rate, which—thanks to the power of faster compounding—is also a minor raise in its own right.
As for the business itself? UDR has done well in navigating what has been a difficult environment for multifamily operators. In fact, that environment is the biggest near-term ceiling for this stock.
The yield, which is now back above 5%, is near historical highs. At 13 times 2027 estimates for funds from operations (FFO, an important REIT profitability metric), the discount could be a little deeper. And while higher interest rates don’t exactly help UDR’s ability to borrow, they do make apartment living look more affordable than a costly mortgage.
But the multifamily space has still been sluggish compared to its historical norms, so new money might not collect much more than UDR’s frequent dividend in the short run.
I’m also keeping my eye on another recent monthly convert—Four Corners Property Trust (FCPT, 7.0% dividend yield), a restaurant-focused retail REIT with 9.0 million square feet across 1,336 properties in 48 states. The full details are in my latest REIT missive, but it’s a solid portfolio that would look better if its so-so valuation contracted a bit more.
Yet another recent convert is a leader in its space. I’m talking about Capital Southwest Corp. (CSWC, 11.4% dividend yield), a member of another high-yield industry: business development companies (BDCs).
CSWC provides capital to smaller businesses that Wall Street banks either don’t want to do business with, or would charge them through the nose to do so. It targets firms that generate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of between $3 million and $25 million.
BDCs mostly work in credit, and Capital Southwest is no different, with the vast majority of its deals made with floating-rate first-lien debt. Its diversified portfolio of 141 companies represents about a dozen industries, most notably healthcare, media/marketing and consumer services. And this portfolio is able to generate a current 10.4% “base” yield that it tops off with supplementals.
Those Supplementals Add Roughly 1% More to CSWC’s Yield
BDCs commonly offer high-single- and even double-digit yields. The problem is that it’s a brutal industry where many stocks’ yield is the only source of positive return we’ll get. Not so with CSWC, which is one of the better operators: it only uses moderate leverage and its dividend is well-covered.
The catch is that CSWC commands a high premium. It’s getting cheaper—a 40% premium has been reduced to 35% in only a week’s time—but it’s still among the pricier BDCs.
We can also get high and diversified monthly yields from the closed-end fund (CEF) space.
Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund (JFR, 12.9% distribution rate), for instance, pays us nearly 13%, which it generates from floating-rate senior loans and (to a lesser extent) junky corporate debt.
Managers Scott Caraher and Coale Mechlin have assembled a portfolio of roughly 490 issues, split roughly 80/20 between the U.S. and the rest of the world. About 90% of its assets are rated non-investment-grade, and more than half of that is rated B or lower. Caraher and Mechlin aren’t afraid to take big swings with debt leverage, either. Total leverage is nearly 40% right now.
“Floating-rate” refers to their variable interest rates, which are tied to a benchmark but adjusted as that benchmark changes. This reduces what they distribute in falling-rate environments, but raises their income payments when rates are climbing, like they are now.
But I’m keeping a closer eye on JFR’s discount to net asset value (NAV). It currently trades at about 10% less than what its assets are, which is already deeper than its 8% five-year average. Nuveen’s fund tends to behave well under this level.
However, JFR Really Gets Going When That Discount Widens Past 15%
PIMCO High Income Fund (PHK, 14.2% distribution rate) pays even more on an even broader basket of debt.
Managers Alfred Murata, Mohit Mittal and Giang Bui can effectively go anywhere, and they do. They currently have double-digit allocations to high-yield credit, non-agency mortgage securities, non-USD developed-market bonds, and emerging-market bonds. They also own a little investment-grade credit, U.S. government debt and other short-duration debt.
This CEF shifts between using moderate and high levels of leverage; it’s currently near 30%, but I’ve seen as little as 15%. Still, it’s enough that PIMCO’s fund has sharp peaks and valleys.
Its pricing to NAV doesn’t jump around like it used to. But it still trades at a long-term 5% average premium to NAV, it’s still pretty sensitive to trading at a discount …
… And Right Now, PHK Trades at a 4% Discount
My 2027 Income Plan: 3 Monthly Dividends Paying Out 11% or More!
The Federal Reserve probably isn’t coming to rescue these bond funds anytime soon. So while they look good as eventual high-yield swing plays, I’m looking elsewhere for long-term wealth-building solutions.
Right now, as I look ahead to 2027, I’m laser-focused on a trio of incredible income plays that most people don’t even know about.
I call them my “Monthly Dividend Superstars.”
They’re three 11%-plus investments that fully subscribe to the idea that “boring is beautiful.”
| LensUp Scanner contact@lensup.ai 13.210.161.205 | I keep the AGNC chart open most mornings, mainly to check the monthly payout is still where my spreadsheet thinks it is. The price swings don’t bother me, but I do like seeing that dividend line stay flat.The chart is the easy part, though. This week my kid’s school sent a permission form home as two phone photos, and they wanted it back as one clean printable PDF, small enough for their portal to take. I shot both pages on my phone and ran them through LensUp — it runs in the browser tab and the files never leave the device, which I cared about since the form had her details on it. The compression aims at whatever size you pick, so it landed slightly over, but the portal accepted it anyway. |
|---|
The SNOWBALL is currently building a position in AGNC, where the current yield is around 16%. The intention is to pair trade the position with a lower risk, lower yielding share, which share is the known unknown.
The SNOWBALL has a comparator share VWRP.
Income for the SNOWBALL for calendar year 2026 will be around 13k, although some receipts may slip into next year.
Using the 4% rule the current income from VWRP would be £6,791.00
The current price is the same as the price in May, so you wouldn’t have added any profit to your retirement fund. In 2022 the price moved sideways so for 2 years, so your retirement fund would also have moved sideways.
Since May the SNOWBALL has earned £4,264 for re-investment in shares that pay a dividend and the cash has been re-invested back into the SNOWBALL. The current plan for the SNOWBALL is to re-invest all the earned dividends until the day arrives that you want to spend your hard earned, without having to sell any shares to do so.
Dividends year to date £11,114
There is currently another £436 xd.
Current cash to re-invest £1,116.00. 2b re-invested next week.
The current fcast for the SNOWBALL for 2027 is 12k, which could be bettered.
With prices currently falling Mr. Market is providing a great opportunity to re-invest at a higher yield. The conundrum being is if you wait, will the prices continue to fall and the yields continue to rise ?
There are plenty of fallers this week, remember as prices fall the yield rises.
“AI FOMO” Sent This Fund Soaring. Then It Lost 33%.
by Michael Foster, Investment Strategist
There are hundreds of closed-end funds (CEFs) out there, and almost all of them have an investor they’re perfect for.
I say “almost” because there are a few that are, in my view, not appropriate for any investor. These CEFs are highly speculative and, for the most part, don’t provide a dividend. That flies in the face of a key reason to own CEFs in the first place: high payouts! These funds typically yield around 8%.
We also generally want to be wary of new CEFs with little performance history. When you combine that with a lack of payout focus, you can find yourself taking on some very significant risk.
I’ve got three examples that put this into focus. Two of them – RoboStrategy (BOT) and Powerlaw Corp. (PWRL) – only began trading publicly around the middle of this year. And, to be fair, while RoboStrategy doesn’t offer a dividend, Powerlaw did just begin offering one: Its first monthly payout was declared in September and will be paid October 30. It yields 8.1% on its market price.
Our third fund is called Destiny Tech100 Inc. (DXYZ). It also yields 0%, though it’s just a little bit older, having hit the public markets back in March 2024.
The thing that might appeal to investors about all three is that they provide access to private tech companies. That includes AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic, one or both of which feature in the portfolios of PWRL and DXYZ.
However, that appeal is quickly blunted by the funds’ performance. All three of them – BOT, in red below; DXYZ, in yellow; and PWRL, in blue – are down so far this year, in a period when the S&P 500 is up 12.8%.
That’s a problem, especially as tech has done even better: The NASDAQ 100 is up 17% as I write this.
To be sure, since BOT and PWRL are so new, we’re looking at a very short sample period here. DXYZ, however, is a more interesting case. Take a look again at the yellow line above. You can see that the fund was up over 100% on the year at one point. And if we zoom back further, we see that DXYZ is still up since it listed in March 2024.
That’s a lot of volatility. But that overall strong return is due in large part to the fund’s holdings: privately held Anthropic and OpenAI, along with Space Exploration Technologies Co, (SPCX), are the top three.
Source: Destiny
This setup has powered DXYZ’s growth, but as we just saw, that growth has been uneven. And because of that volatility, you had to get the timing right to profit. And that’s before we get to the fund’s valuation, which has another tale to tell us.
Consider that when I first wrote about DXYZ for Contrarian Outlook, on February 25, 2025, it traded at an 807% premium to net asset value (NAV, or the value of its underlying portfolio), which I pointed out at the time. That huge premium is why I recommended avoiding DXYZ then.
Since then, the fund’s total return, based on its market price, is negative 33%. This decline comes in a period in which tech gained a lot, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.
This is the real risk with speculative CEFs like DXYZ: if you buy when they’re overpriced relative to fundamentals, they can fall significantly, even if their underlying assets grow. Anthropic and OpenAI are worth more than they were in February 2025, but that 807% premium meant DXYZ shareholders did not benefit, even as those who held these shares by other means did.
This case also illustrates another important facet of dividends: The need to cover them helps ensure management stays disciplined. Moreover, strong funds with long track records have demonstrated they’re serious about building lasting wealth.
But despite all that, DXYZ still attracted investors, even when it was priced over eight times its actual NAV. It just goes to show the power of FOMO, especially around breakthroughs like AI.
What about BOT and PWRL? As I write this, PWRL has a 28% discount to NAV, and BOT has a roughly 100% premium. Meantime, both funds are down significantly since their IPOs. That suggests BOT’s premium could shrink – and PWRL’s already-deep discount may not be deep enough.
By the way, none of this is to say that tech and CEFs can’t be a wonderful combination. One of our biggest total returns at my CEF Insider service so far this year came when we booked 48% on the Columbia Seligman Premium Technology Growth Fund (STK) in 10 months, having bought it in November 2025 and sold in September 2026. The fund yielded 8%, on a trailing-12-month basis (thanks in part to a year-end special dividend) when we bought it.
But the recent bull run and intense enthusiasm about private AI companies means there is a new crop of tech-focused CEFs that entail a lot of hidden risks (not to mention scant attention to dividends). Those are the ones we need to be wary of.
Why Settle for 0% Payouts (When You Can Bank 10% “AI-Powered” Dividends)?
You don’t need to pay a ridiculous 807% premium or settle for a 0% dividend to profit from AI.
My AI “Pivot-Point” Portfolio goes in the opposite direction: It throws off a 10% average dividend and holds 4 CEFs that profit from AI’s true growth.
It does so by going beyond tech and investing in companies that are putting AI to work – and starting to profit as a result.
Its focus: 4 underappreciated areas of the economy where AI is having a big impact. Each fund taps into one of these “pivot points”:
- A 9.1%-payer dialed into the growth of robotics in manufacturing.
- An 11.1% dividend backed by AI’s acceleration of drug development.
- An 8.1% dividend that benefits as mid-sized businesses integrate AI – and grow.
- A 12.9%-payer that holds the utility and infrastructure plays best positioned to profit from AI’s surging power demand.
That’s AI upside backed by steady cash flow, not speculation.
I’ve put my research on all 4 of these funds in a Special Report, “The AI “Pivot-Point” Portfolio: 4 Funds for 10% Dividends.”Click here and I’ll tell you more about these 4 income plays and give you a copy of this free report.
Strong dividend performance in Q3 has led Computershare to improve its outlook for 2026, which is set to be the best year for dividends since 2019.
Total dividends are expected to reach £93 billion, up 7.3% on 2025’s figure, while regular payouts (which exclude one-off payments) are forecast to reach £8.8 billion, up 4.8% on the year.
Computershare said the outlook has been improved due to stronger than expected UK economic growth and favourable stock market conditions.
Computershare said earnings across the wider market have remained robust and that it expects regular dividend payouts to finish the year comfortably higher than in 2025.
