“The end of the tax year is looming large, but you don’t have to rush into any investment decisions. If you need more time, you can secure your Stocks and Shares ISA for this year by opening it with cash and investing at a later date, even if that happens to be after 5th April.

This is also an option for investors who may be concerned about the effect the UK election will have on UK stocks, and who want to wait until after May to invest. However so far this year it doesn’t look like the UK stock market gives a hoot about the election; it has already returned 5 per cent since the start of 2015.

Perhaps this will change as we near the election, though many of the companies in the UK stock market are global businesses, with around two thirds of FTSE earnings hailing from overseas. ISA investors are better served by thinking long term, beyond this election and even the next one, and focusing on choosing investments that are going to help them meet their savings goals.’

Adventurous ISA investors
Active fund ideas: Lindsell Train Global Equity and Sanditon European

Lindsell Train Global Equity. Run by management duo Nick Train and Michael Lindsell, this is a concentrated portfolio of around 30 companies, hand-picked by the manager for being top quality, global businesses the fund can buy and hold for the long term. The fund is only 4 years old, but we have assembled portfolio data to analyse the managers’ performance on other global mandates going back to February 2001. Over this period they have returned 309 per cent, compared to 94 per cent from the MSCI AC World Index.

Sanditon European. Fund manager Chris Rice builds a portfolio based on his assessment of where we are in the economic cycle, and which stocks and sectors he thinks will do well as a result. This fund was launched just 6 months ago, but Rice has a track record dating back to 1994 (previously at HSBC and Cazenove), over which time he has outperformed the European stock market by 255 per cent.

More on Europe. Europe is a contrarian investment right now, but recent signals suggests the Eurozone may be pulling out of its nosedive. The European Central Bank has revised up its 2015 GDP growth forecast for the euro zone from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. While the latest figures show the currency bloc is still experiencing deflation, the 1.1 trillion euro QE programme and a falling currency should provide some inflationary support.

Passive fund idea: BlackRock Emerging Markets Equity Tracker
Emerging markets are a useful addition to a portfolio. Developed market companies have grown by 96 per cent since the start of 2000, whereas the FTSE All-World Emerging Index has grown by 237 per cent. We consider the BlackRock Emerging Markets Equity Tracker to be a very good tracker for exposure to developing markets.

Investment trust idea: Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust
This is a global trust with some pretty punchy positions- the top ten holdings make up around half of the portfolio and show some heavy exposure to technology and emerging markets stocks- Google, Facebook and Amazon are supplemented by Chinese tech and e-commerce giants Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba. This isn’t a trust for the faint-hearted and it is likely to suffer in a sell-off, but long-term investors with a taste for adventure might consider it for a slice of their ISA.

Conservative ISA investors
Active fund ideas: Newton Real Return and Henderson Cautious Managed
Newton Real Return. With global stock markets riding high, some investors may want a more conservative approach from their ISA fund this year. Newton Real Return fits the bill here as its primary focus is on capital preservation, though it can and does fall in value. The fund is constructed as a core portfolio of equities and bonds which can be supplemented by positions in cash, currencies and commodities. This is a long running fund with an excellent track record of protecting investors while generating decent returns, and deserves consideration by conservative ISA investors.

Henderson Cautious Managed. Fund manager Chris Burvill takes a simple approach to investment, looking for undervalued stocks UK stocks and supplementing this with a portfolio of bonds and cash to add some ballast. Burvill hunts in the large cap space and has a preference for higher yield stocks. He very much sticks to his knitting and has proved to be a dab hand at it over the years. Since 2003, Burvill has returned 150% for investors, compared to 97% from the average fund in his sector.

Passive fund idea: BlackRock Consensus 85
Currently the market is narrow for passive funds that use a range of assets to shelter investors from market falls. Conservative investors might mix their own tracker funds across different asset classes, but this means being more on the ball – even traditionally less volatile areas like gilts have risks, particularly at current prices.

BlackRock Consensus 85 is one of the few mixed asset passive funds around. It is a balanced fund which uses passive investments to build a low cost, global portfolio of shares, bonds, property and cash. The fund bases its asset allocation on what the average balanced managed pension fund is doing, and typically holds around 70% in equities.

Investment trust idea: RIT Capital Partners
This is a highly diversified, global multi-asset portfolio which aims to deliver long term growth with some measure of capital preservation too. The fund has an unconstrained approach, and can invest in both quoted and unquoted stocks, bonds, other managed funds, currencies and gold.

Income ISA investors
Active fund ideas: Marlborough Multi Cap Income and Ecclesiastical Higher Income
Marlborough Multi Cap Income. This fund offers investors a different take on the traditional UK Equity Income fund. Most funds in this space invest in the big blue chips of the FTSE 100, while this one prefers to look for opportunities amongst the UK’s medium and smaller cap companies. These companies present a fertile hunting ground for seasoned stock pickers like Giles Hargeave and Siddarth Chand Lall, who run the Marlborough fund. The yield on the fund currently stands at 4.1% (variable, not guaranteed).

Ecclesiastical Higher Income. A little known fund, with a long and illustrious track record. This is actually a balanced managed fund; it invests predominantly in equities, with some fixed interest to reduce volatility. Robin Hepworth, who runs the fund, looks for companies with a healthy yield he can invest in for the very long term- he has continually held some of the companies he put money in when this fund was launched in 1994, including GlaxoSmithKline, BP and Shell. Over that time the fund has turned a £10,000 investment into £63,500, compared to the average fund in its sector which has produced £34,600. The current yield on the fund is 4.1% (variable not guaranteed).

Passive fund idea: Legal & General UK 100 Index
The FTSE 100 index is one of the most dependable indices for income. The index has yielded over 3% for most of the last decade, particularly appealing when interest rates are so low. Our favourite fund tracking the FTSE 100 is the Legal and General UK 100 Index Trust, which is available from an annual fund charge of just 0.06%. The yield on the fund is currently 3.3% (variable not guaranteed).

Investment trust idea: Perpetual Income & Growth Investment Trust
Mark Barnett took over Invesco Perpetual Income and High Income from Neil Woodford last year, but he has been running this investment trust since 1999. This trust is run along similar lines to his UK Strategic Income fund, with a focus on finding undervalued, unloved UK companies with the potential to provide a growing dividend. The fund is biased towards medium and smaller companies, with a current yield of 2.9% (variable not guaranteed).