John Phelps’s portfolio

WE suffered a sharp reality check last week when the majority of our share tips were hit by waves of selling only days after our four portfolios had climbed to record 2013 valuations.

Later buying by a few optimistic bargainhunters saw prices pick up a little from some of the lowest levels, but our recommendations were still nursing average losses of around 3% when we conducted our usual review on Wednesday morning.

A few of our tips suffered larger than average falls, with Diageo down 8% on gossip of a pending broker downgrade and Aberdeen Asset Management suffering a similar slide on concerns assets under management will be hit by the effects of the latest market setback.

But Standard Life was our only tip to fall to its published stop-loss level after dropping 10% from its previous peak. We sold our notional shareholding for a £276 profit.

The Scottish institution had been a weak stock even before the market setback, after its shares began trading without the benefit of its latest dividends. Sentiment has been hit also by revelations of bumper boardroom pay, with news that chief executive David Nish picked up a remuneration package worth £5 million for 2012 – nearly double that of the year before.

We are keenly aware that further stock market turbulence could see other shares trigger sell signals in the near future, with Aberdeen Asset Management now only a few pence above its stop-loss level and Stagecoach out of favour after a recent stock market downgrade.

The overall performance raised questions over our decision a week ago to dip into reserves to make further purchases, but we remain positive about longer-term prospects.

Encouragingly, Smiths Industries and publishing giant Pearson both held relatively steady to limit their falls to less than 2%, while IndigoVision stood out as one of only a handful of shares to record a gain over the week.