Kudos to the investors who chose to stick with the herd and bought one of the most-bought global funds of 2025, because eight out of 10 funds with last year’s highest inflows managed to beat their sector average in 2026 so far.
Those who picked a tracker had even better chances of success, as all of the most-bought trackers beat the IA Global sector average of 10.1%. Investing actively required more skill: of the three active strategies in the list, only one was above average: Schroder QEP Global Core.
In this ongoing series, Trustnet is testing investors’ short-term instincts by reviewing how the most-bought funds of last year have performed in the first six months of 2026. Today, we turn to the IA Global sector, with the most-bought funds of last year listed in the table below.
Source: FinXL
Trackers dominate
L&G International Index Trust led the group with a 13.8% return, ahead of a cluster of Vanguard and other passive strategies in the 12-13% range.
The £8.1bn L&G fund charges 0.13% and appears on Hargreaves Lansdown's Wealth Shortlist, with HL analysts highlighting it for being “one of the lowest-cost global tracker funds available”.
It also gives UK investors exposure to global markets without adding to their home bias, as HL noted, and this is a feature of almost all the funds in this table, as we point out later.
In second place, Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index is the largest fund on the entire list at £31.9bn, more than double the size of the next biggest. Priced at 0.14% and RSMR rated, it returned 13.1% – a performance very nearly matched by the next two funds – Dimensional International Core Equity and Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index.
The Vanguard all cap fund includes UK companies alongside its global exposure, as does the popular Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity, which returned 12.4%.
At £12.7bn, Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity is the second-largest fund in the group and charges 0.20%.
It carries a Titan Square Mile ‘recommended’ rating alongside an RSMR rating and a FE fundinfo Crown rating of four. Its bias to UK companies is still there but was softened earlier this year, with exposure to the home market reduced from 25% to 20%.
Scottish Widows International Equity Tracker almost matched Vanguard with an 11.8% return but costs considerably more at 0.57%, the priciest pure tracker on the list.
Fidelity Index World returned 10.3%, just ahead of the 10.1% sector average. At £16bn, it charges 0.12% and appears on three separate best-buy lists: Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Barclays.
Analysts from all three platforms agreed that the vehicle offers investors a diversified, low-cost and efficient way to track developed-market stocks, backed up by the reputation and experienced management of one of the largest investment companies in the world.
Active funds lag behind
Turning to actively managed strategies, Schroder QEP Global Core was the only one to beat the sector average, returning 12%. The fund uses a quantitative process that screens over 15,000 stocks down to several hundred, ranking them on quality and value factors, and is restricted to positions within 50 basis points of the index at stock level.
RSMR described it as “a low-cost way to gain access to an actively managed strategy with low tracking error to the MSCI World Index”. It charges 0.30% and carries a four crown rating.
Failing to beat the average peer, Capital Group New Perspective returned 8.9% and is the smallest fund on the list at £455m. It charges 0.68% and takes a bottom-up, stock-picking approach spread across close to 300 holdings, with more than a third of names held for eight years or more.
RSMR analysts called it “an ideal core holding in equities”, pointing to its long record across market cycles.
WS Purisima Global Total Return finished last at 8.4%. It is the most expensive fund on the list by some distance at 1.51%, more than 10 times L&G's charge.