What a £20,000 FTSE 100 Tracker ISA from the 2020 Crash Would Be Worth Today

A £20,000 FTSE 100 tracker ISA opened at the market low of March 2020 would now be worth around £38,200, based on the index’s 91% capital gain since that point. That figure excludes dividends, which push the total return meaningfully higher. With the FTSE 100 recently touching a new all-time high, the arithmetic of buying during a crash deserves a closer look.

How the FTSE 100 Tracker ISA Performed Since the 2020 Low

The case for buying a broad-based index during a sell-off rests on one simple advantage: diversification blunts the damage from any single company falling for fundamental reasons. During a crash, some shares decline because they were overpriced; others drop simply because sentiment collapses. A tracker sidesteps the need to separate the two.

The FTSE 100 is up 20% over the past year alone, according to London Stock Exchange data as at 30 June 2026, when the index’s net market capitalisation stood at £2,492,473m and its dividend yield was 3.05%. The 52-week range ran from 9,095.73 to 10,910.55. For context, IG calculates that the index delivered total shareholder returns of 241% in the 20 years from 2003 to 2023, equivalent to 6.3% annualised including dividends. Catching the index at a crash low compresses years of that compounding into a much shorter window.

Capital gains are only part of the story for a crash-era buyer. The FTSE 100 currently yields 3.05%, but an investor who bought at the March 2020 low paid a fraction of today’s price for the same underlying dividend stream. On a £20,000 entry, the effective yield on that original cost is close to 6%, generating roughly £1,200 per year in passive income. That income is sheltered entirely from tax inside a Stocks and Shares ISA.

Henderson Far East Income: A High-Yield Alternative Worth Examining

For investors who want income above what the broad index offers, Henderson Far East Income (LSE: HFEL) sits at the other end of the yield spectrum. The trust currently yields 9.8%, and its share price remains around 4% below its March 2020 level, meaning a buyer today is entering at a price cheaper than the crash low itself.

Janus Henderson’s official trust page confirms that HFEL has increased its dividend consecutively for 16 years. The most recent declarations, per Association of Investment Companies (AIC) records, are 6.300p per share (ex-dividend date 30 July 2026, payment date 28 August 2026) and 6.250p per share (ex-dividend date 30 April 2026, payment date 29 May 2026).

The trust’s total return track record, again per AIC data, runs at 23.6% over one year, 50.5% over three years, 35.1% over five years, and 72.1% over ten years. For the 2025 financial year, Hargreaves Lansdown data shows total revenue of £56.31m, net income of £45.11m, total assets of £466.78m, and total liabilities of £59.12m.

The trust carries an ongoing charge of 1.12% and no performance fee, with gross gearing of 8.00%. It is Jersey-domiciled, and the FCA factsheet confirms its ISIN as JE00B1GXH751.

The portfolio is heavily weighted towards Asian semiconductor and technology names. The concentration in chipmakers is a source of short-term volatility given current market sensitivity to trade policy, but the long-term demand thesis for Asian chip production remains intact. No dividend is guaranteed, and a trust yielding close to 10% will always attract questions about sustainability. Sixteen consecutive years of growth is the trust managers’ answer, though past consistency is not a guarantee of future payments.

What the Setup Argues For Now

Crashes, by definition, are not foreseeable in timing. The lesson from 2020 is not that investors should wait for one. Markets spent much of the intervening period at levels that still rewarded patient buying. The FTSE 100 tracker outcome illustrates the point: a straightforward, low-cost position held through volatility roughly doubled in capital terms while paying dividends throughout.

For a Stocks and Shares ISA investor building income exposure today, the practical question is how much yield premium justifies moving from an index tracker into a concentrated trust like HFEL. At a 9.8% yield against the index’s 3.05%, the premium is wide. The next test is whether the trust can maintain its dividend cadence through a period when Asian equity sentiment remains hostage to US trade policy shifts. The first indication either way may come at the next quarterly declaration.