Top 5 most popular stocks in August

Important information - the value of investments and the income from them, can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest.

In many ways, therefore, the investment case for L&G is simple. Unfortunately, the business model is rather more complicated.

L&G has three pillars: ‘institutional retirement’, ‘asset management’ and ‘retail’. The institutional retirement business is the biggest, and focuses on ‘pension risk transfers’. This is when final-salary pension schemes hand over the keys to insurers to secure the retirement income of their members. This market has been booming in recent years due to higher interest rates, which have pushed many traditional pension schemes from deficit into surplus.

L&G’s asset management business is more straightforward, while the retail division focuses on workplace pensions, life insurance and individual annuities. These have been flying off the shelves recently, due to improved annuity rates.

L&G intends to return £5bn to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks by 2027.² Last month, however, a couple of equity analysts did flag growing competition in the sector, and raised concerns about the impact on L&G’s margins. Volatility in the bond market can also hurt confidence in life insurers. ­­

• More on Legal & General

Taylor Wimpey

Taylor Wimpey clung onto a spot in the best-sellers list in August - despite another tough period for shares. The housebuilder has been kicked out of the FTSE 100 for the first time in a decade, and its market cap now sits under £3.5bn.

The state of the property market is partly to blame. Interest rates remain high, which means the affordability of mortgages is an issue - particularly for first-time buyers. However, Taylor Wimpey has also been hit by some one-off costs, including a big cladding provision in its half-year results in July.

The generous dividend policy keeps attracting personal investors, however. Unlike most of its peers, Taylor Wimpey aims to pay out 7.5% of net assets or at least £250m every year - even during a downturn. Its dividend yield for 2025 now sits at 9.2%.³

This is not guaranteed, however. In 2024, dividends per share overtook earnings per share, meaning the dividend is ‘uncovered’. This situation is expected to persist in 2025 before reversing again in 2026.

• More on Taylor Wimpey

Palantir

There aren’t many companies that can make Nvidia look like a laggard. Palantir Technologies is one of them, however - at least over the past year. Since September 2024, Palantir’s share price has rocketed by almost 400%. In the same period, shares in Nvidia have grown by 60%. Please remember past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

Personal investors have cottoned onto this: Palantir was the third most popular stock on the Fidelity platform in August. However, with some claiming that Palantir is the most expensive US large cap ever to exist, a big question mark hangs over its valuation.⁴

First things first, though: what does Palantir actually do? It is often referred to as a software company, but it could also be described as a data intelligence firm. It sifts through client data and, from there, builds bespoke software to help customers work more efficiently. The US government is a key client, but it also serves private companies.

Palantir’s growth trajectory has been extraordinary. Sales hit $2.87bn last year, compared with $1.9bn two years ago. Its profit trajectory has been even steeper. In 2022, it delivered an adjusted income from operations of $421m. In 2024, this had risen to $1.13bn.⁵ Revenue and profit are expected to leap again this year.

Some analysts argue, however, that Palantir’s valuation has run away with itself. The group trades on a forward price/earnings ratio of roughly 200 times. This makes it six times more expensive than Nvidia.

• More on Palantir

Costain

From the very large to the very small. Costain is a construction company which works on projects such as HS2, with a market cap of around £350m. Despite its diminutive size, it was the fourth most popular stock on the Fidelity platform last month, on a net sales basis.

Costain has undergone a striking transformation in recent years. During the pandemic, it still carried all the baggage associated with government contractors: thin margins, irregular cash flow and problem projects.

Since then, however, Costain has grown its profit margin, reinstated its dividend and built a good cash buffer. It is also benefiting from infrastructure spending, particularly in the water sector. As such, shares have risen rapidly this year.

Unfortunately for shareholders, some of these gains were lost in August when Costain published its interim figures. Revenue fell in the first half of 2025, as did profit before tax, and management reported HS2 delays.⁶

There are still reasons to be cheerful, however. Costain is still confident it can deliver an adjusted operating margin of 4.5% this year, for example. Analysts at Peel Hunt also praised its revenue visibility. This is often a problem for construction firms, given they are constantly winning and losing contracts. ‘We remain positive given the growth and returns scenario,’ Peel Hunt concluded.

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Nvidia

Last but not least: Nvidia.

Nvidia is the biggest company in the world, boasting a valuation of over $4trn dollars. For context, the whole of the FTSE 100 is worth about $3trn.

The sheer size of the business means its financial reports attract an unprecedented amount of attention. When Nvidia published its second quarter results at the end of August, investors breathed a sigh of relief. The company grew its revenue by 56% to a massive $46.7bn. Meanwhile, net income jumped by 59% to $26.4bn. These figures were slightly above consensus estimates.⁷

Its share price is a bit wobbly though, as are investors fretting about China sales and whether the artificial intelligence boom will live up to the hype. Nvidia, after all, is the ultimate AI trade. It designs and sells powerful computer chips known as ‘graphic processing units’ needed to power the new technology.

The big concern is whether it can retain its spot in the pecking order and achieve the growth that’s needed to justify its hefty valuation. Its forward price/earnings ratio - a valuation yardstick which shows how much investors are prepared to pay for future profits - sits at around 30 times. The S&P 500 as a whole commands a valuation of roughly 22 times.

• Read: Is big tech about to stumble?

For now, Fidelity customers are feeling optimistic. Nvidia was the fifth most popular stock on the platform in August.

• More on Nvidia

10 most bought shares in August

1. Legal & General
2. Taylor Wimpey
3. Palantir Tech
4. Costain Group
5. Nvidia
6. Haleon
7. Primary Health Properties
8. Hochschild Mining
9. UnitedHealth Group
10. Foresight Group Holdings

Source: Fidelity International Personal Investing platform net combined ISA and SIPP sales 1.8.25 to 31.8.25.

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Source:

¹ Legal & General, 3 September 2025
² Legal & General, 2025 half year results, 6 August 2025
³ Taylor Wimpey, September 2025
⁴ FT, 5 June 2025
⁵ Palantir, March 2025
⁶ Costain, 20 August 2025
⁷ Nvidia, 27 August 2025