Our share tips joined in the fun to score their biggest gains of 2015 last week as the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 share index finally made the breakthrough to a new record high.
All four of our investment portfolios also climbed to new peaks with their total valuation up by more than £750 when we carried out our usual review of progress on Friday morning.
More than half the gain was achieved by our latest 2015 selections which rose a remarkable 6.7% over the week, thanks largely to a surge in the value of Dunfermline based Optos after directors recommended a
£259 million takeover bid from the Nikon cameras giant.
Cattle and pig breeding specialist Genus also stood out in the same portfolio with an 8% rise after much better than expected trading news although the overall gain was trimmed by a drop in the price of technical publisher Reed Elsevier when directors disclosed plans for a full merger with their Dutch partners.
The other three portfolios scored almost identical overall gains of around the 2% mark although there were some wide divergences in the performance of individual recommendations.
The disappointing Majestic Wine group, for example, reversed earlier losses with a good gain after the abrupt departure of its chief executive led to some vague speculation of early developments to combat increasing supermarket competition.
Advertising giant WPP was another to out-perform the buoyant stock market in the run up to its annual results presentation on March 9 and performance engineering consultant Ricardo was also in favour after encouraging trading news..
But mortgage bank TSB took a knock when directors took the edge off news of a solid set of yearly figures by confirming they were interested in potential acquisitions while shares of motorway barriers group Hill & Smith went into reverse on a bout of profit taking after their recent good rise.
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