Dividend yields make L&G, Lloyds and Aviva among top private investor buys, growing interest in India

The top investment platform purchases by UK investors in the third quarter also saw a rebound in terms of love for US tech stocks

Proactive Published 04/10/2023

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Legal & General Group PLC (LSE:LGEN), Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LSE:LLOY) and Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.) were among the most popular share purchases for UK retail investors in the past quarter, while India has also emerged as a popular theme.

Despite interest rates from many banks' savings accounts offering above 5% in recent months top dividend-paying blue-chip company shares remained in the most demand on investment platforms, amid another big year of investor payouts.

Life insurers Legal & General (forecast yield 9.6%), Aviva (8.8%), Phoenix Group Holdings PLC (LSE:PHNX) (11.4%), along with banks Lloyds (6.4%), Barclays PLC (LSE:BARC) (5.6%) and HSBC Holdings PLC (LSE:HSBA) (8%) were all among the top-10 buys by the small investors that use the Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor and AJ Bell platforms.

Vodafone Group PLC (LSE:VOD), with a forecast 10.3% dividend yield, Glencore PLC (LSE:GLEN), estimated to yield 8.8%, and BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A), forecast to yield 6.6%, were also among the most popular additions to share portfolios.

The hunt for income continued in September, L&G and Lloyds top in both platforms and rival AJ Bell. The past month has also seen investors buying shares of M&G, which also has a yield of over 10%.

Big oil, US tech and a small cap

Miners, oil supermajors were also prevalent for presumably similar but slightly different reasons, with Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL) and BP PLC (LSE:BP.) prevalent, but their yields under 5% but oil prices rising again and recent results seeing large distributions in the form of share buybacks.

US tech, in the form of Tesla and NVIDIA, has regained its popularity with UK investors in September after a dip in August, along with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK.B), the cash-rich investment behemoth that has been ploughing funds into government bonds of late.

On the Freetrade app, where the skew of users is much younger, US tech stocks abounded in the quarter, with Tesla top and Nvidia maintaining the popularity it enjoyed across a wider investor audience earlier in the year.

As well as heavyweights on the FTSE 100 and S&P 500, September data also shows that more private investors backed AIM-listed oil and gas explorer Pantheon Resources.

It was among the most bought stocks on the ii platform following a bullish estimate of nearly one million barrels of oil for its Kodiak Field in late August, helping to send shares sharply higher over the last month.

Trusts and funds focus: India and money markets

Among investment trusts and funds, the data revealed a growing interest in India's stock market, which has been in fine form and also gaining attention for overtaking China as the world’s most populous country.

This seems to have tempted private investors to dip their toes, with the Jupiter India fund and India Capital Growth Fund Ltd (LSE:IGC) investment trust both new entrants in the top 10 most-bought list on the ii and HL platforms.

The Indian stock market has been the best-performing global index post-Covid, rising 146% since early April 2020, compared to the Nasdaq’s 97% and around 37% for the FTSE 100.

Top purchase on the AJ Bell platform for the third quarter was a money market fund, something that has come back into fashion this year.

Money market funds, which invest in a basket of short-term cash deposits and money market instruments with the aim of beating the Bank of England base rate, are often seen as a good place to hold capital withdrawn from the stock market due to recent volatility, allowing an invest to drip-feed money back into equities as the market recovers.

Top third-quarter platform purchases on interactive investor

Legal & General
Lloyds Banking
Glencore
Tesla
Rolls-Royce
Aviva
Nvidia Corp
Phoenix Group
Vodafone Group
Barclays

Hargreaves Lansdown top share purchases in third quarter (alphabetical)

AJ Bell top platform buys for Q3

Royal London Short Term Money Market
Legal & General Group
AJ Bell Adventurous
Fidelity Index World
iShares S&P 500 B ETF
Vanguard S&P 500 Ucits ETF
AJ Bell Moderately Adventurous
Phoenix Group Holdings PLC (LSE:PHNX)
Lyxor Smart Overnight Return ETF
HSBC FTSE All World Index
Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.)
Institutional Cash Series Plc Blackrock ICS Stg Lqdty Prem Gbp Acc
Vanguard Funds Plc S&P 500 Ucits E T F Inc Nav Gbp
Vanguard Lifestrategy 100 % Equity
Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index
Vanguard FTSE All World UCITS ETF
Vanguard Investments Money Mkt Fds Vanguard Stg Sht Tr Mny Mkt Inv
Royal London ICVC Short-Term Money Market Y Fund
British American Tobacco PLC (LSE:BATS)
iShares Iii Plc Core MSCI World Ucits ETF

Freetrade Q3 top buys

ii top investment trust purchases, Q3

Scottish Mortgage
Greencoat UK Wind
City of London
Alliance Trust
F&C Investment Trust
JP Morgan Global Growth
Blackrock World Mining
Merchants Trust
Murray Intl Trust
Pershing Sq Holdings

HL top investment trust purchases in Q3 (net buys, alphabetical)

Alliance Trust PLC (LSE:ATST)
BlackRock World Mining Trust PLC
Brunner Investment Trust (LSE:BUT) PLC
City Of London Investment Trust PLC
Greencoat UK Wind PLC (LSE:UKW)
HICL Infrastructure PLC
India Capital Growth Fund Ltd (LSE:IGC)
JPMorgan Global Growth & Income PLC
Merchants Trust plc (LSE:MRCH)
Pershing Square Holdings (LSE:PSH) Ltd

HL top ETF buys, Q£ (net buys, alphabetical)

HSBC MSCI World UCITS
Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 UCITS ETF
iShares MSCI World UCITS ETF
iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF
Lyxor Smart Cash (CSH2)
Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF
Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF
Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF
WisdomTree Brent crude oil 3x Daily Short
WisdomTree Natural Gas 3x Daily Short