Six funds among the 16 most recommended by the top UK platforms in 2025 have logged a double-digit performance this year; nine (56%) returned between 9% and 3% and only one concluded the year-half-year at a loss.
Below, using FinXL data, Trustnet reveals the performance of the funds with more than three best-buy recommendations, as awarded last year by the analysts working on Hargreaves Lansdown’s Wealth Shortlist, AJ Bell’s Favourite Funds list, interactive investor’s Super 60 list (today known as Highly Rated Funds), Fidelity’s Select 50 and Barclays’ Smart Investor Funds list.
The favourite
The fund with the most backing was BlackRock Continental European Income, convincing analysts at all platforms except Fidelity.
Its returns in the first half of 2026 however were somewhat muted: at 6.5%, it fell short of the IA Europe Excluding UK sector average of 8.9%. This is a third-quartile performance, in line with the third-quartile return achieved in 2025.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
Managed by Brian Hall and Stuart Brown, the fund was one of the most bought of last year, adding about £276m of new money; however, Europe as a whole dropped from the best-performing market in 2025 to the worst in 2026, and investors have started to ditch European funds more recently, as we covered on Trustnet last week.
Hargreaves Lansdown analysts praised its “more defensive investment approach that could help limit volatility compared to peers in times of uncertainty”.
No other fund gained quite as much consensus, and with all other names in the list featuringe on three best-buy platforms, not four.
Tracker funds
At a whopping 53.6%, the highest return came from iShares Pacific ex Japan Equity Index, which tracks the performance of the FTSE World Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index.
Source: Trustnet
Taiwan and South Korea are the region's heaviest weights, and both markets have been on a tear thanks to TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix riding the surging AI chip demand.
No other fund came close to this result, with the next one up at approximately half the gains.
The other passive funds in the list were Vanguard Global Small Cap (18.2%), which came third overall, Fidelity Index World (10.3%) and Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe ex UK Equity (9.8%).
In fixed income, iShares Corporate Bond Index and Vanguard Global Bond Index featured at 1.1% and 1%, respectively.
Active funds
We then move to Artemis US Smaller Companies, whose 27% (versus the sector’s 23.9%) gained it the second place in the ranking.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
IA North American Smaller Companies was the fourth-best sector in the first half of the year, more than double the 10.7% from the average fund in the broader IA North America peer group, as we revealed recently.
AJ Bell analysts said the fund benefits from “an extremely experienced figurehead”, manager Cormac Weldon, who has been involved in analysing US equities for over three decades.
“The investment approach has been well honed over the years and considers top-down macro factors to identify themes and pairs these with strong bottom-up fundamental company analysis,” they said.
The process is applied throughout the North American franchise at Artemis and is additionally used on the US Select fund.
Speaking to Trustnet recently, Weldon described his process as style-agnostic.
Its stablemate Artemis Income was also in the list.
At 10.6%, Dodge & Cox Global Stock was part of interactive investor’s and Fidelity’s best buy lists last year and in January this year was added to AJ Bell’s list too. It’s not only analysts who like it: investors couldn’t keep their eyes off this strategy either in the first half of the year.
It is a £5bn global fund that buys high-quality businesses that appear undervalued due to short-term disruptions but have long-term potential.
It is managed by a committee, which AJ Bell research analyst Alex Wickham said he liked as it placed an “emphasis on group management over individual leadership”.
Its value style had underperformed growth investing for an extended period but has closed the gap in the recent past and was narrowly ahead in 2026's first half.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
At a close 10.2%, Man Japan Core Alpha was the next active name on the list.
Deemed by Hargreaves Lansdown’s analysts as “an excellent way to invest in the world's third largest economy”, the fund is run by Jeff Atherton, who uses “a clear, disciplined approach, which has served the fund well over the long term”.
This fund too leans towards value as its investing style, which is why Tom James, investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, suggested pairing it with the more growth-oriented Baillie Gifford Japanese.
With single-digit returns, Fidelity Global Dividend, Fidelity Special Situations, Liontrust UK Growth and Jupiter Strategic Bond rounded off the list.
At the very bottom, with a loss of 5.3%,) was the iShares Physical Gold ETC (exchange-traded commodity), which tracks the price of gold.
The yellow metal hasn't been calm this year: it topped $5,500 an ounce in late January before dropping below $4,000 by June.