Our share tips recovered from a rocky start to push further ahead last week with all four of our investment portfolios managing to record gains when we carried out our review of progress on Wednesday morning.
The standout performance came from residential landlord Grainger which continued to race ahead after its recent trading update to sport a double-your-money overall rise of more than 100% for the first time.
The group, once one of Scotland's biggest private landlords, is seen as a prime beneficiary of London's booming housing market with more than 70% of its assets now in the capital and directors have unveiled plans to step up their exposure with plans to build dozens of £1 million flats in Chelsea.
Most brokers continue to tip the shares but we have prepared for any sudden downturn by raising our stop loss level at which we will sell the shares and take profits.
Other tips gained from recent trading news with engineering group IMI finally breaking into profit after a capital restructuring and cash handout and housebuilder Galliford Try perking up after announcing a big dividend increase.
Services conglomerate DCC was another big gainer with its shares up more than 200p after directors reassured investors that profits were holding up well despite the effects of a mild winter.
Others to outperform the general stock market included heavyweights Stagecoach, GKN, Kingfisher and Compass.
But we also had some losers with Iomart and alternative energy group Infinis both suffering from profit taking after recent rises, limiting the overall valuation increase in the 2014 portfolio to little more than 1%.
The 2012 and 2011 selections recorded fractional gains after slippages in Signet and Home Retail Group but the 2013 portfolio continued to outperform on the back of Grainger and Gallifiord Try with a further rise of 2.5% over the week.
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