We’re in the home stretch for this year’s Stocks and Shares ISA allowance, with the 5 April deadline fast approaching. Thankfully, the annual limit is £20,000 for the forthcoming 2026/27 year too.
Here, I want to see how well a typical ISA might have performed so far in 2025/26. In other words, how much would someone have now from a £20k investment made on 7 April 2025?
Stock-picker’s market
Now, I should start by saying that I would have chosen 6 April, but that was a Sunday so markets weren’t open. Therefore, I’m assuming someone may have deposited their entire £20k on the Sunday but didn’t invest it until the next day.
Moreover, there will naturally be a great deal of variety in stock-picking, making a ‘typical’ ISA hard to define. Some focus only on blue-chip dividends shares, others on US growth stocks. Many ISAs are mixed, while more investors are buying passive index trackers.
But had some savvy stock-picker bought shares of Fresnillo, Airtel Africa and Rolls-Royce, they’d be patting themselves on the back because in the past year these are up 324%, 141% and 70%, respectively.
Indeed, four separate FTSE 100 shares have generated triple-digit returns in the past year, and a further 19 have delivered gains between 40% and 95%. Note, none of these numbers take dividends into account.
I should also mention that 7 April 2025 was a fantastic time to buy shares. Days before, President Trump had rocked global markets with his tariffs policy, sending most stocks down 15%-25% almost instantly.
But as Warren Buffett’s advice goes: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful“.
UK investors greedily gobbling up high-quality shares back then will likely have made solid returns since (even if a handful of popular stocks like Diageo and Taylor Wimpey haven’t done well).
A cracking result
What about an investor who put their £20k into a FTSE 100 tracker on 7 April? Well, they would have done very well too, with the index up roughly 33% since then.
Adding in the dividends, I calculate they would now have more than £27k. A cracking result, albeit a little fortuitous given the tariffs timing.
Looking ahead
I don’t envisage another 12 months like that but still see attractive opportunities in the FTSE 100 today. One is Legal & General (LSE:LGEN), which has fallen around 12.5% in the past month.
A big chunk of this came this week, as the life insurer reported results that underwhelmed the City. The problem appears to be that core operating profit of £1.62bn and a Solvency II cover ratio of 210% came in below market expectations.
However, core operating earnings per share growth of 9% was at the top of where management guided (6%–9%). And the massive £1.2bn share buyback announced was the largest in the company’s history.
Fair to say, the report was a mixed bag, and the risk now is that markets head south due to a protracted Iran conflict and constrained oil and gas supplies. The firm’s assets under management could shrink.
Yet the key attraction remains the blockbuster dividend yield, which now sits at just over 9% on a forward-looking basis. Given the level of income on offer, I think this FTSE 100 stock’s worth looking into for the 2026/27 ISA year.
