Our share tips staged another resilient performance in the face of continuing global uncertainties with our four investment portfolios managing a useful overall rise at our weekly review of progress on Wednesday morning.

The 2013 and 2014 selections showed fractional falls while we evicted defence and medical group Smiths from the 2012 portfolio when the shares tumbled to our stop/loss level ahead of annual results.

But losses were comfortably outweighed by the gains on other tips with good showings from shares such as retailers Signet, Kingfisher and Home Retail, housebuilder Galliford Try and residential landlord Grainger.

This helped the 2011 selections to their highest-ever valuation with a 1.4% rise over the week while the 2012 portfolio put on 1.5% after heavyweight shares of the H Samuel and Ernest Jones jeweller Signet added nearly 400p following the firm's US merger.

A few shares continued to cause concern, with alternative energy supplier Infinis, cloud computing specialist Iomart and retinal imaging group Optos all in danger of triggering sell signals.

These shares could stage strong rallies when directors give trading updates in coming weeks but we have replacements in mind if we hit the stop/loss level and sell.

This week, for example, we were poised to replace Smiths group with more investment in Scotland's Smart Metering Systems but decided after a wave of profit-taking following an excellent trading update.

We will look at these shares again next week but are also drawn to a recovery in banking, investment and energy sectors which have suffered from political uncertainties in the long run-up to next year's General election.