Our share tips managed to hold steady when the stock market took a nasty knock last week as a result of Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election.
True, recommendations for overseas currency earners were hit by a sudden surge in the value of the pound on foreign exchange with Unilever, Smiths, BAE and Aggreko all going into reverse.
But their losses were largely cancelled out by gains elsewhere and the total valuation of of our four portfolios was down just 0.5 per cent when we carried out our weekly review on Wednesday morning compared with a hefty 2.5 per cent drop in the FTSE 100 share index.
Best performance came from the 2016 selections which added nearly 1 per cent thanks largely to a near 10 per cent rise in Dundee-registered Low & Bonar following a strong buy recommendation from analysts at Berenberg.
This year’s 2017 list also moved against the general trend to hit another record valuation after fresh buying for technology heavyweight Micro Focus on its moves to boost profit margins following its planned acquisition of a chunk of the US Hewlett Packard group.
Further support for property group SEGRO and flavouring and fragrances specialist Treatt also helped although Clydesdale Bank owner CYBG went back into reverse after its recent rally.
Against that, the 2015 portfolio suffered from its heavy reliance on FTSE shares and shed around 0.6 per cent of its total value despite a good performance from Costa Coffee and Premier Inns group Whitbread ahead of this Thursday’s annual results presentation.
The wooden spoon, though, went to the 2014 list which dropped by more than 1 per cent with all five recommendations suffering in last week’s general mark-down.
The overall stock market slippage has now left six recommendations showing losses since being added to our investment portfolios, This is obviously disappointing although not that surprising with the FTSE Index shedding all this year’s gains and trading back at December 2016 levels on Wednesday morning.
At this stage, we are not too concerned although will certainly shed any recommendation which triggers a sell signal under the stop loss system that comes into play when a share falls 10 per cent from previous peaks.
Scotland’s Aggreko looks particularly vulnerable and we are closely monitoring banking groups Lloyds and CYBG together with the Morrison supermarket chain as a result of their own share price weakness.
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