Another super-charged performance from Glasgow's Smart Metering Systems took some of the sting out of a disappointing showing by the majority of our share tips last week.
Further support saw shares in the Aim-listed group move to fresh peaks with a double-digit rise to take their overall gain past the 20% mark in less than a fortnight.
The Smart upsurge helped our 2014 portfolio to move against the general trend with its overall valuation up 2.8% to a new all-time high when we carried out our review on Wednesday.
But other tips were hit by a general markdown following a slide in US prices earlier in the week and growing concerns that UK interest rates may rise earlier than expected because of the strength of the economic recovery. Companies which rely on consumer spending were particularly hard hit, including housebuilder Galliford Try, residential landlord Grainger and retailers Marks & Spencer, N Brown and Argos owner Home Retail.
We sold our holding in Royal Mail as the price fell back to our stop/loss level. The sale realised a healthy £477 profit on the £750 holding acquired on last October's flotation - a 63% return in less than six months. We also disposed of our nominal holding in the Drax power station for a more modest £72 gain after its shares triggered their own sell signal.
Both our 2011 and 2011 portfolios saw overall falls of around 3% on the week.
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