Many investors will be rushing to fill up what’s left of their Stocks and Shares ISA allowance before 5 April. But sometimes the amount of investment options available — over 1,000 companies on the London Stock Exchange alone — can be a bit overwhelming.
This is where exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can come in very handy. By owning a basket of 50 or 100 stocks, an investor gets diversified exposure to a particular theme, sector, or geography.
With this in mind, here are two ETFs that are buying opportunities worth thinking about right now.
Physical AI revolution
Let’s start with an ETF that offers deep exposure to perhaps one of the most powerful technology trends this century. That is the iShares Automation & Robotics UCITS ETF (LSE:RBTX).
This fund focuses on companies developing automation and robotic technology. This area is being turbocharged by rapid advancements in AI, leading to what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently called a “ChatGPT moment” for robotics (physical AI).
The ETF holds 134 stocks, covering the entire ecosystem required to make machines intelligent and autonomous. So that’s AI, which is ‘brains’ behind the automation, machine vision and sensor technologies, semiconductor equipment, and traditional manufacturing robots.
Now, what I like here is that the ETF diverges significantly from the top of the Nasdaq-100 index. The single Magnificent Seven stock is Nvidia, but the AI chip leader is only a 3.13% weighting. This means there is far less Big Tech concentration risk.
| Top five holdings (March 2026) | |
|---|---|
| Advantest | Semiconductor testing equipment |
| Intel | Processors for PCs and servers |
| KLA | Inspection systems for chip manufacturing |
| Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | Designs CPUs and GPUs |
| Teradyne | Semiconductor testing equipment and industrial robots |
A key risk here would be a global slowdown, which could result in slower adoption of robotic technology. Cost inflation and supply chain snags are also challenges that this industry is facing right now.
However, the loner-term trajectory looks far more certain. Nvidia’s chief executive says that in future every industrial company will be a robotics company, creating a multi-trillion dollar global market.
This ETF offers long-term investors exposure to this growth without having to pick individual winners. The ongoing charge is 0.4%.
High-quality blue chips
The second fund is iShares Core EURO STOXX 50 UCITS ETF (LSE:EUE), which is made up of the 50 largest blue chips from the eurozone.
Admittedly, Europe isn’t known for fast growth. As the old (perhaps slightly unfair) saying goes, “the US innovates, the EU regulates“. Indeed, between 2008 and 2023, EU GDP increased by 13.5% while US GDP rose by 87%, according to the World Bank.
The gap is probably going to widen further as the US is a net exporter of energy and AI technology while the EU relies on imports for both. Therefore, a spike in energy costs could hit European companies and consumers hard this year.
Yet there are some truly world-class businesses across Europe, including ASML, Banco Santander, LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), Hermes International, and German software firm SAP.
Zooming in on ASML, this is the only company in the world that makes EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography machines. Without these, there would be no advanced semiconductors and AI revolution.
Or take plane maker Airbus, another top holding in the ETF. Its current order backlog is approximately 8,754 commercial aircraft (or about 10 years of work).
Moreover, European shares are cheap, with the ETF trading at just 17 times earnings while sporting a 2.6% dividend yield. The ongoing charge here is just 0.1%.
