John Phelps’s portfolio

OUR tips pushed higher last week in the face of growing concerns about European banking and an IMF warning of a world trade slowdown.

The majority of recommendations scored further gains although Royal Mail was hit by worries over increasing competition for its parcels business following Deutsche Post’s takeover bid for the publicly-quoted UK Mail company, and Lloyds Banking suffered in a general markdown of financial stocks.

In contrast, Edinburgh software group Craneware continued its sparkling run which has seen its share price surge more than 60 per cent in the past three months with the news that chief executive Keith Neilson has splashed out another £63,000 to top up his shareholdings.

RPC Group, owner of Greenock-based British Polythene, was another to outperform following fresh “buy” notes from Berenberg and Jefferies International, while Dundee-registered Low & Bonar moved back into profit after its recent weakness.

Smiths Group also registered a gain approaching five per cent on hopes of a boost from the strength of the US dollar despite disappointing trading news on its John Crane oil services division. We are far from complacent about some of these gains and have raised our stop-loss targets on Smiths, Diageo, RPC, Craneware and Dairy Crest which were all trading at their highest levels since joining our portfolios when we reviewed progress on Wednesday.

These figures are set at 10 per cent below peak share prices and are used as a “sell” signal to ensure we can lock in profits on our notional investments on any major setback.

Our 2016 portfolio, which includes three of these star performers, led the way last week with a gain of 3.2 per cent while the 2015 and 2014 selections saw valuations increase by 1.2 per cent and 1.8 per cent

The 2013 list suffered from poor showings by Royal Mail and Lloyds to shed 0.3 per cent despite a further £120 gain recorded by our notional investment in Craneware.