Most investing advice starts with the same instruction: give the money at least five years. But for many, it might be difficult to look that far into the future.
Those with a shorter time horizon, for example 12 months, are usually told to put their savings in cash. Some, though, might want to know whether a fund or investment trust can do better without taking much extra risk.
While very few experts would ever advocate holding a fund or trust for as little as a year, Isaac Stell, investment manager at Wealth Club, said there are some vehicles that may represent a sensible home for investors’ capital over shorter-term periods. But he added the caveat that they “should not be held in isolation and should form part of a broad, diversified portfolio”.
Over such a short term, Ben Yearsley, investment director at Fairview Investing, was cautious on how much risk to take. “You can’t take too much risk over one year as markets are so uncertain,” he said.
Below, Trustnet looks at six holdings chosen by Yearsley, Stell and Darius McDermott, managing director at FundCalibre, split between open-ended funds and investment trusts.
Open-ended funds
Yearsley’s fund pick is Premier Miton Corporate Bond Monthly Income.
This IA Sterling Corporate Bond fund has £597.1m in assets and an ongoing charge figure (OCF) of 0.35%. Lloyd Harris and Simon Prior have managed it since August 2020.
Yearsley described Harris as “one of the more unknown bond managers but a bloody good one”.
“I like his focus on small wins,” he said. “With a yield of over 6% there’s a lot of built-in protection if rates rise.”
The fund returned 0.64% over the year to 26 October, 24th of 90 in its sector, and is down 0.08% in 2026. Ratings firm RSMR said the managers were “capable, over the longer term, of delivering relatively consistent above average returns”.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
Stell chose Royal London Diversified Asset-Backed Credit, which holds bonds backed by pools of loans and other assets. It is in the IA Targeted Absolute Return sector, where funds aim to make money in any market, and is measured against SONIA, the overnight sterling cash rate.
The £499.5m fund is managed by FE fundinfo Alpha Manager duo Shalin Shah and Matthew Franklin, who focus on areas of the market where they believe complexity and a lack of investor attention can create attractive opportunities, Stell explained.
“The emphasis on security, diversification and relatively low interest rate sensitivity has historically helped deliver strong risk-adjusted returns with lower volatility than many traditional bond funds,” he said.
It returned 5.01% over one year and 3.54% so far in 2026; it has only lost money in two calendar years since 2016, with the worst being a small fall of 0.58% in 2018.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
McDermott picked the £51m Unicorn UK Smaller Companies fund, run by Simon Moon and Fraser Mackersie. It is benchmarked against the Numis UK Smaller Companies plus AIM index and has an OCF of 0.86%.
“UK small-caps are still a long way off their 2021 highs and, even after a good third quarter, the discount to large caps has widened over the past year,” McDermott said.
“Years of selling by UK equity funds look close to running their course, while buybacks and bids from overseas acquirers are now absorbing what remains. With few sellers left, it takes little good news to move share prices.”
McDermott added that “risks remain”, because these firms are more sensitive to the UK economy and higher gilt yields.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
Closed-ended trusts
Over in the trusts universe, Yearsley picked Personal Assets Trust from the IT Flexible Investment sector, which he described as “a go-to over all time periods”.
The trust mainly holds ‘quality’ shares, gold and inflation-linked government bonds for a total of £1.7bn of assets, managed by Troy’s Sebastian Lyon and Charlotte Yonge.
It returned 3.66% over the past year, 13th of 18 in its sector, and 3.20% in 2026. Over 10 years it made 58.59%, 10th of 15 trusts.
RSMR noted that it “has lagged behind competitors in frothy markets but also provided more capital protection during market falls”. It charges an OCF of 0.67% and yields 1.26%.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
There were also more thematic plays in the list, including Stell’s choice, 3i Infrastructure.
This vehicle owns infrastructure businesses across the UK and Europe and has no specified benchmark. With £3.6bn in assets, it has a yield of 3.49% and the highest OCF of the six at 1.16%. Its 3.35% discount (according to Hargreaves Lansdown data) is relatively small compared to its yearly average of 8.59% as well as against the average peer’s.
“The trust invests in businesses that provide critical services, have high barriers to entry and generate resilient cash flows,” Stell said. It returned 10.97% over one year, fifth of eight in its sector, and 5.09% in 2026. Over five years it made 43.42%, first of seven.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
McDermott’s second pick was BlackRock World Mining Trust, in the IT Commodities & Natural Resources sector.
Commodities had a bumper year in 2025 and prices have stayed elevated into 2026, propping up the BlackRock strategy, whose streak continued onto August this year. Then, it was one of the 10 best-performing funds in the Association of Investment Companies universe, all of which were focused on metals miners, particularly gold.
The trust was also selected on Trustnet recently as a good option for a stagflation scenario.
“The entire global mining sector is worth about $2.2tn to $2.4tn, less than half the value of Nvidia alone,” McDermott said. “Investors have largely ignored the sector for 15 years, which is where the opportunity lies. Evy Hambro and Olivia Markham run one of the most experienced teams in the space.”
RSMR rates this trust as a “satellite holding” because commodities are “cyclically sensitive”.
Performance of fund against index and sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics