John Phelps’s portfolio

OUR share tips continued to enjoy the stock market’s post-Brexit bounce last week with the total value of our four portfolios showing a further 2.3 per cent increase when we carried out our usual review on Wednesday morning.

More recent recommendations again led the charge with Lloyds Banking up more than 10 per cent after the Bank of England relaxed its lending rules and biotech group Shire pushing higher in response to US regulatory approval of a new eye treatment drug.

Scotland’s medical software group Craneware also stood out with a useful rise after an encouraging trading update and mining giant Anglo American celebrated its recent return to favour with a further 15 per cent rise.

Others to push to new peaks included Smiths Group, Rentokil, Halma and 3i Infrastructure. In all these case we have raised the stoploss levels at which we will sell our notional holdings to ensure that we can lock in the bulk of recent gains on any major stock market setback.

A few shares did slip into reverse last week with nervous investors taking profits on recent high performers Reckitt Benckiser, National Grid and Diageo which are all due to produce trading updates over the next fortnight.

One or two other big overseas earners also saw some of last week’s gains trimmed following a modest rally in the value of the pound after Theresa May’s coronation as new Prime Minister. Even so, the 2014 portfolio was able to record an overall gain of 5.2 per cent over the week while the 2016 and 2013 selections were up 1.7 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively.

The 2014 list, though, disappointed with a near one per cent fall after a useful rise in Smiths was cancelled out by falls elsewhere.

The poor performance encouraged us to refresh the portfolio with a little glamour on Wednesday with the nominal purchase of shares in the Pinewood-Shepperton studios group.