John Phelps’s portfolio

EDINBURGH software group Craneware made light of last week’s stock-market downturn as its shares chalked up further double-digit gains to record yet another all-time peak.

The latest rise, following an encouraging trading update, meant our own notional holding in the 2015 portfolio achieved the rare feat of doubling in value.

A further investment for the 2013 portfolio, announced on July 3 after the Brexit vote, has risen by more than 50 per cent in less than three months.

The big attraction has been Craneware’s dollar earnings from supplying systems for American hospitals which have soared in value because of the greenback’s strength against the pound.

Followers also like the group’s conservative accountancy policy which means the group takes profits from its contracts in annual stages and can virtually guarantee earnings growth for years ahead.

Even so, the shares now have a premium rating and could be vulnerable to any downturn in sentiment.

We are happy to continue with our own investments though we have again raised the stop-loss level at which we will sell to ensure we can pocket 90 per cent of recent gains on any major setback.

The Craneware performance enabled us to record an increase of just short of one per cent in the total value of our four portfolios last week although the majority of our recommendations suffered in a general markdown which saw the FTSE 100 share index record its biggest fall in more than two months.

This was reflected in the showing of the various portfolios with the 2015 and 2013 selections showing gains of 3.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively and the other two shedding nearly one per cent.

There were some other useful gainers with Rentokil hitting another peak and Shire staging a rally after a recent sell-off but they were heavily outnumbered.