Last minute ISA investment ideas

And if you’re not ready to invest right now, either because of uncertainty in the current market conditions, or because you’re just not sure, well there’s still time to at least use those allowances by putting cash in, and making a decision later on what to invest in. But don’t wait too long because, as we always say, time in the market is always better than timing the market.

For more investment ideas, visit our website at News & Insights

Use the player icons above to listen on your favourite podcast app, or read the full transcript below.

This podcast was recorded on March 30 2026 and all information was correct at the time of recording.

Nothing in this podcast is personal advice – you should seek advice if you’re unsure what’s right for you. Investments rise and fall in value, so you could get back less than you invest. And past performance is not a guide to the future.

Full podcast episode transcript

[0:00] Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to the Switch Your Money On podcast from Hargreaves Lansdown. I’m Emma Wall – Chief Investment Strategist.

[0:05] Matt Britzman: And I’m Matt Britzman – Senior Equity Analyst – and this is your Investment Special.

And this episode is landing on 2^nd April, so that means one thing – the tax year-end deadline is around the corner. You’ve got until midnight on 5^th April to use any remaining allowances.

[0:19] Emma Wall: Yeah, that’s right, Matt. Today, we’re gonna be sharing some last-minute ISA investment ideas, because we know people do leave it to the last minute – so we’ve got some shares and some fund ideas to help you make the most of your ISA allowance.

[Pause]

[0:33] Emma Wall: Not just about squeezing money in before the deadline... it’s also a great time to review your portfolio, to make sure it still lines up with your goals, and check it’s well constructed – especially if you’re adding new money. And, when it comes to adding new money, if you (for understandable reasons, given where markets are) are finding, actually, making investment decisions too overwhelming, and you’re not ready to take advantage of some of the investment ideas that we share today, we would encourage you to do what we call ‘Cash Park’ – which is put the money into those allowances, so they’re using up this year’s tax allowance, and then make a decision on where to invest at a later date – although don’t leave it too long because time in the market is always better than timing the market.

[1:14] Matt Britzman: Quite right – sound advice, Emma. And, before we get to some of those ideas, d’you wanna just touch a bit on why these tax wrappers are so important for investors to use?

[1:24] Emma Wall. Yeah. As we know, every Budget, there’s always tax-tinkering – and those tax rises that we’ve seen in recent years... it just means sheltering your investments in tax-efficient accounts, like ISAs, is more valuable than ever – it really makes your money work harder and future-proofs your finances.

You know, this is a reminder that tax rules can and do change – so benefits depend on your personal circumstances – but sheltering your investment income from tax, and investment growth from Capital Gains Tax... always a good idea.

A well-constructed ISA portfolio should really be diversified – that’s the other thing we should say before we go into the ideas. So, thinking about the geographies that you’re exposed to – thinking about the asset types you’re exposed to – thinking about the sectors that you’re exposed to – all adds resilience to your portfolio in tough markets – and, you know, exposure to areas that might be out of favour right now gives you potential for them to recover in the future – and it means that all your portfolio is not pointing all in one direction. And that is really how we’ve thought about today’s ideas as well – different roles, different parts of your portfolio.

So, Matt, I’m gonna start with you, with your stock ideas... what have you and your team got on the radar?

[2:30] Matt Britzman: Yeah, thanks Emma. So, we will discuss three of the ideas today... Listeners want to go on the website, there’s six ideas that I’ve picked in total across tax wrappers – and, like you say, fitting different parts of different people’s portfolios.

The first one that we’ll start with... and, just before I do, it’s worth saying, none of these picks are designed to be standalone solutions – rather building blocks that contribute to a broader portfolio – and that should match objectives, risks – and, as we always say, diversification is king.

So, the first one is a pick from the US – it’s Mastercard. Most people will know this as one of the largest card-payment networks in the world – essentially operates in a two-way duopoly, with Visa, in that space. And we think card payments look reasonably attractive right now – as an industry, as a sector. It’s sat at the centre of multiple structural shifts that we’ve already had, so, if we think moving away from cheques, growth of online shopping, contactless payments – digital wallets that are coming about now – and one of the things [s.l. improvements 3:31] is that continued global shift towards card payment remains supportive of Mastercard over the long term.

It’s also not just a payments network anymore. There’s different services – such as cybersecurity and data analytics – to go out to its financial institutions, partners, and retailers – and that really helps because it’s helping to drive margins higher. We see further growth potential coming from parts of the business outside of the traditional payments world – so, like I said, those extra added-on services.

We also think that Mastercard has some good exposure to regions with longer-term structural growth – and, potentially, better growth drivers, for example, in emerging markets.

So, putting that all together, it’s an attractive industry – two companies, effectively, own this. There’s some risks at large at the moment – cryptocurrency, and digital assets, and digital payments is one of the things that’s been a hot topic of late. We don’t dismiss those risks – we do think that Mastercard has a good ability to get ahead of those curves – and, I mentioned before, a few of the transitions that these payment providers have already worked their way through – but it’s certainly a risk to manage for that one.

I’m gonna flip us back to the UK for the next name, with Marks and Spencer’s – you know, bellwether of British food and retail. This actually also featured on our ‘5 shares to watch’ list for 2026 – and part of that investment case was this is a company that came under pressure last year.

If you’ll remember, Emma, we kind of went through this period where there seemed to be a cyberattack around every corner – and Marks and Spencer was one of the names that got caught up in that... led to a sell-off last year – and quite a big hit to performance for Marks and Spencer.

Now, we expect operations to return to about full flow kind of around now – March to April-time – so we’ll see if that pulls through in next set of results – and that’s leading us to think that second-half profits will see a nice rebound from last year’s levels. We also think that incident, itself, has caused a sharpened focus from management and operational performance and strategic improvements.

So, we’re quite optimistic that this is a name that can bounce back from those challenges stronger than it was before. There’s a few different angles to Marks and Spencer’s, with Food and Fashion, Home and Beauty. One of the things we think’s significantly improved over a kind of a multi-year period for Marks and Spencer is its relative position in that Fashion, Home and Beauty segment – which has been a good driver of optimism for us for the name.

On the valuation side of things, it still sits at a discount to its peers despite having some good performance more recently, once that cyberattack has finished. We think there’s still more room for that to grow. The risk here is that this is a fiercely competitive market across Food and Fashion. They’re also, obviously, coming back from taking a hit last year – so execution now is gonna be an interesting thing to watch, to manage, and for investors to be aware of.

The final one is slightly different in terms of its approach – perhaps a little bit more niche – so something for investors (potential investors) to think about... it’s Intuitive Surgical. So, this is a company that creates robotic surgery tools – it’s actually one of the dominant names in the robotic surgery space.

Now, I think, one of the things that we think about when we’re looking at longer-term growth drivers and sectors that can improve is areas that are gonna benefit from AI, and areas that are gonna benefit from technological developments – and we think Robotics and Automation is one of those such areas. We also think that Healthcare is an area that can benefit significantly from these kinds of improvements – so it fits a couple of those buckets that we’re looking at at the moment.

This is a name that finished 2025 with good momentum. 2026-guidance was good, if not great – and I’ve highlighted a little bit of a slowdown from 2025 growth, but we do think that management tend to come in a little conservative – so we’re still seeing a good 2026 on our numbers.

This is one of those names where we think there’s scope for upgrades to come – we think it’s in a really good industry and sector – it is one of the leading players. Now, again, as with everything, there’s risks – and those benefits and strengths don’t come without a lofty valuation.

[7:46] Emma Wall: Thanks Matt – three quite different names there. But, even with that diversification, it’s probably worth pointing out to our listeners that investing in individual stocks is not for everyone, is it? – particularly, I think, if you’re a brand new beginner investor, or someone with ‘Less risk tolerance,’ shall we say!

[8:02] Matt Britzman: Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, there is inherently a higher barrier to entry to investing and analysing individual companies. You know, if you think about a fund investor, when you’re buying a fund – you probably know this better than I do, Emma – but dunno what the average equity large-cap fund would have... 30-50 underlying companies, probably – something like that?

So, for an individual investor to go out and investigate, research, analyse 30-50 companies, it’s gonna be difficult – so ‘Time’ is one of the barriers on this. And then, there’s knowledge and understanding of what runs a business – how financials work.

So, it is a bit more of a complicated world to go into – and is a little bit more difficult to really achieve that diversification when investing in individual equities, if you don’t have those two things – the time, and then the underlying knowledge.

[8:48] Emma Wall: I mean, like you say, so there’s 50 shares in a fund... if an individual company’s price falls, it’s gonna have just less impact on your overall investment – whereas, if you invest in three shares, and one of those companies falls... that’s a third of your portfolio that’s got that risk.

Still, three really strong picks from you there, Matt – so thank you very much. And we will, neatly, segway now onto funds, as we’ve been talking about funds... not risk-free – no investing is risk-free – but that diversification element just comes with funds, and I’ve got three quite differentiated picks – as you gave me in the share world.

Gonna start with T. Rowe Global Value. So, as it says on the tin, this is a global fund, and this is a fund where the managers actively pick investments – and it blends deep-value stocks with higher-quality businesses – and one of the reasons why we like this fund is that’s two areas that have been quite out of favour.

So, if you think about the run of much of the last 10 years, growth companies (particularly US growth companies) have really driven performance – and, actually, we think adding a fund like this to a portfolio adds diversification – adds sector diversification. Also, quality companies – although there are no guarantees – are more likely to hold up in times of economic stress... the type of businesses (as we’ve talked before on the podcast), which are less economically-sensitive. You know, if you’re buying consumer staples, you still need consumer staples, even if economic growth slows. So, we like T. Rowe Price, there – good diversified portfolios, with a kind of tilt that many of our clients already have towards US growth and Big Tech.

And then the second pick... very different – it’s Troy Trojan. So, this is what we call a fund which is... rather than going out-and-out growth, it’s really focused on capital preservation – so could be a good addition to a portfolio, where you’re looking to de-risk. You may be approaching or in retirement – you may be looking to add to an equity-rich portfolio, to add some balance – and may aim to grow investors’ money steadily whilst limiting the losses and falling market. So, won’t out-perform a market that’s going great guns, but should, hopefully, help to preserve some of your capital when markets are falling – or when markets are volatile – and they do this through a mix of asset classes. So, they’ve got equity – or ‘Shares,’ as we call it – but also bonds – particularly lower-risk bonds, such as gilts (the UK Government issue bonds) – gold, and some cash – and they, as I said, designed to have moderate long-term growth, but particularly resilience during periods of market stress, such as the ones that we’re experiencing at the moment.

And then, pick-number-three... we thought we’d go different again, and that’s looking to our domestic market, with Liontrust UK Growth – which invests in high-quality UK companies – so those types of companies we talked about earlier (and we’ve talked about before on the podcast), with durable, competitive advantages. And the fund managers here – again, another actively managed fund – look for companies that they think have strong balance sheets and sustainable long-term profits. It offers a bit of a contrarian exposure to an out-of-favour UK style.

For more information, should say, on each of the funds – their charges and specific risks – please see the links to the fact sheets and key investor information, which can be found on our website.

Investing in funds is not right for everyone, and you should only invest if the objectives are aligned with your own, and there’s a specific need for the type of investment being made. Make sure you understand the specific risks of an investment before you invest and make sure any new investment forms part of a diversified portfolio.

[12:19] Matt Britzman: Thanks, Emma.

That’s all for this week. This session was recorded on March 30^th 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.

Next week, Helen Morrissey and Clare Stinton will be back with another Personal Finance episode.

[12:31] Emma Wall: And nothing in this podcast is personal advice – you should always seek advice if you’re unsure what’s right for you.

[12:36] Matt Brtitzman: Investments rise and fall in value, so you could get back less than you invest, and past performance is not a guide to the future.

[12:41] Emma Wall: As always, this is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any of the investments or companies we’ve discussed today, and no view is given on the present, or future value, or price of any investment – and investors should form their own view on any proposed investment.

[12:53] Matt Brtizman: Thanks, everyone, for listening. All that’s left is for us to thank your Producer, Elizabeth Hotson.

[12:58] Emma Wall: We’ll be back again soon – goodbye!

[12:59] Matt Britzman: Goodbye!