Our share tips suffered their biggest relapse in more than six months last week as the stock market digested further poor news on the global economy.
The general retreat saw the total value of our four portfolios drop by more than £550 to £46,793 when we conducted our review of progress on Wednesday morning, a slippage of 0.85%. That is a good deal better than the 4.4% drop in the FTSE 100 share index over the same period, although we recognise that is little comfort to our followers.
Much of the damage was caused by a handful of poor performers, with several now in danger of triggering "sell" signals. Longstanding recommendations Smiths Industries and B&Q retailer Kingfisher look particularly vulnerable. New Year tip Smart Metering Systems could also be in line for an early exit after an encouraging start.
Nearly all of our tips recorded some sort of fall last week with only Optos, Dunelm and Fuller Smith & Turner escaping the sell-off, which came as a result of poor economic news from the US and China and currency jitters in emerging markets.
The 2012 portfolio was the biggest casualty with a hefty 3.9% fall over the week, with jeweller Signet falling back into losses after its recent good run and Stagecoach on the retreat.
The 2013 tips shed 2.6% of their value while the 2011 portfolio was down 1.7% despite the protection offered by its large cash reserves. Our New Year recommendations saw a 1.5% slippage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article