The soaring investment trusts that beat Nvidia in 2025

Jensen Huang's $4.4trn tech behemoth was the go-to stock of last year, but nearly a fifth of investment trusts delivered better returns.

Nvidia dominated headlines once again in 2025, topping the most-bought lists on four of the largest retail trading platforms in five of the first 11 months. It also made it into the top three for nine of those months.

By the end of the year, its shares had climbed 26.4%, storming well ahead of the S&P 500’s 10.4% return.

Yet despite the impressive run, research from Kepler Trust Intelligence shows that nearly a fifth of investment trusts outperformed the tech giant.

So which trusts managed to stay ahead of the market darling?

Growth themes

The top performing trust of the year was Golden Prospect Precious Metal (GPM), whose shares soared 147.9% as gold rallied and miners finally caught up.

Commodity generalists such as CQS Natural Resources G&I (CYN) and BlackRock World Mining (BRWM) also benefited from the rising gold price, climbing an impressive 89.9% and 73.9% respectively throughout the year.

Strong copper prices over 2025 were also a boon to mining names, supported by growing demand from AI data centres and the grid expansion needed to power them. BlackRock Latin American (BRLA), a direct beneficiary through holdings such as Southern Copper in Peru, grew 52.9%, while Fidelity Emerging Markets (FEML) rose 49.3% as demand for materials boosted domestic economies in the region.

The latter was also boosted by some some lucrative investments in technology stocks connected to the artificial intelligence narrative, with Kepler’s Thomas McMahon recognising that ‘investing in AI-related assets further down the chain than Nvidia’s GPUs’ was a winning theme across all sectors. 

‘Rotating out of 2024’s leading stocks in this theme into related names yet to keep up would have been a winning strategy in 2025,’ he added. 

In a bumper year for emerging markets generally, six of the 10 trusts in the Association of Investment Trust’s (AIC) Global Emerging Markets sector outperformed Nvidia. 

The China/Greater China and Biotechnology and Healthcare sectors were two other areas that produced numerous winners last year, led by Fidelity China Special Situations (FCSS), which climbed 42.3%, Baillie Gifford China Growth (BGCG), up 37%, RTW Biotech opportunities (RTW), rising 48.5%, International Biotechnology (IBT), increasing 46.1%, and Biotech Growth (BIOG), up 39.8%.

Value 

Alongside trusts profiting from 2025’s big growth themes, Kepler also spotlighted what they dubbed the ‘plain vanilla trusts’ which successful outperformed ‘the sexiest stock in the world’.

This included Temple Bar (TMPL) with its 44.8% return and Fidelity Special Values (FSV), which climbed 35.5% throughout the year.

Lowland (LWI), Schroder Income Growth (SCF), Shires Income (SHRS), Aberdeen Equity Income (AEI), CT UK High Income (CHI), City of London (CTY) and JPMorgan Claverhouse (JCH) also made the list.  

Overall, income trusts outperformed growth trusts, while large-cap portfolios outdid their small and mid-cap counterparts over the year.

Looking at how the AI trade ‘broadened’ over 2025, McMahon highlighted small and mid-caps in the UK as ‘somewhere to watch’ over the coming year. 

‘We think they could be to UK large-caps in 2026 what the miners were to gold or the data centre materials were to GPUs in 2025,’ he said.

Most trusts in the industry’s Europe sector underperformed Nvidia, but  JPMorgan European Growth & Income (JEGI) and JPMorgan European Discovery (JEDT) were notable exceptions, delivering share price returns of 45.3% and 35.5% respectively.

Of the trusts beginning 2025 on a hefty discount, Seraphim Space (SSIT) climbed the furthest after its share price more than doubled, climbing a whopping 108.6%.

It was followed by Gresham House Energy Storage (GRID), up 71.1%, and Molten Ventures (GROW), rising 55.4%.

Other Nvidia-beating names included: