Investing in a Stocks and Shares ISA continues to be one of the best tax-efficient ways for UK investors to build wealth. But a recurring challenge is deciding which companies to buy shares in. Fortunately, with insights from Hargreaves Lansdown, we can see exactly which stocks are proving to be the most popular. And right now, the top five are:
- Nvidia
- Rolls-Royce Holdings
- Tesla
- MicroStrategy
- Glencore (LSE:GLEN)
Given these stocks must be popular for a good reason, should investors simply be following the crowd and snapping up shares themselves? Of course not!
In the stock market, popularity rarely results in market-beating returns. This is largely because by the time a stock has become popular, most of the unrealised gains have already been baked into the share price. However, that doesn’t mean these are necessarily bad businesses.
Blindly following the fact is likely going to end in disappointment. However, researching further could reveal interesting opportunities for the future once the hype dies down and a potentially more attractive price emerges.
Excitement for Glencore
Let’s zoom in on Glencore. The mining giant has had quite a rough ride lately, with its share price tumbling by over 40% in the last 12 months. However since April, the stock has finally started slowly moving back in the right direction.
This change in attitude comes on the back of the group’s first-quarter production report for 2025. While copper production levels have kicked off slowly, management expects this to improve drastically throughout the rest of the year.
At the same time, cobalt production – a critical ingredient for lithium-ion batteries – has surged by 44%. And thanks to the group’s 2024 Elk Valley Resources acquisition, steelmaking coal production skyrocketed by almost 500%!
These gains are being offset by lower production volumes of gold, silver, nickel and, as previously mentioned, copper. However, despite these headwinds, management‘s reiterated its full-year guidance.
What could go wrong?
Glencore produces critical metals and materials for high-demand technologies such as electric vehicles, data centres, industrial infrastructure, and renewable energy. And this reassertion of targets, along with the stock’s low price point, seems to have sparked some early recovery excitement from investors. So much so that analyst consensus is currently projecting a potential 40% share price gain over the next 12 months.
However, while this may indeed be a valuable opportunity. There are still some notable risks that investors must consider beyond commodity price fluctuations.
ESG investors are hardly fond of management’s move to bolster its coal mining operations in the takeover of Elk Valley Resources, opening the door to reputational risk. At the same time, China remains one of Glencore’s key customer markets. Should the tariff dispute between the US and China continue, a resulting economic slowdown (particularly in electronics) could adversely impact Glencore’s revenue and earnings.
The latter risk seems to be the biggest threat right now, in my opinion. And while investing early during a recovery story can be lucrative, it’s possible we haven’t seen the bottom yet. Therefore, while international trade disputes between the US and China continue, this isn’t a stock I’m rushing to add to my Stocks and Shares ISA, even though it’s seemingly a popular investment right now.
As for the other businesses on this list, research and due diligence are critical to understanding both the risks and potential rewards.
