Our share tips managed to swim against the tide last week to record a useful overall rise in the face of stock market jitters over Ukraine, lower growth figures from China and the prospect of higher American interest rates.

Both our 2014 and 2013 portfolios showed good gains when we carried out our usual review on Wednesday; the other two lists were substantially unchanged.

Much of the credit for the good showing was down to another surge in the price of Scotland's Smart Metering Systems as fresh investors moved in following the group's recent takeover of a Welsh competitor. The shares feature in both of our two latest portfolios and have contributed a total of nearly £700 to total gains in 2014.

They have now risen 40% since the start of the year and we have again raised the stop/loss price at which we advise followers to sell the shares as a protection against any heavy future profit-taking.

A few other recommendations also pushed higher, including IMI, WPP, DCC, Kingfisher, Signet and Compass, although some of our more recent tips continued to disappoint, including engineers Ricardo and GKN, plus retailers Marks & Spencer and Dunelm.

We believe the shares remain undervalued but will evict them from our portfolios at the published stop/loss prices if there is no recovery,

Meantime, we decide to add one more share to our 2011 selections when Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds Banking Group suffered a markdown on Wednesday morning.

We believe the shares were unfairly punished for a disappointing trading update from rival Barclays and expect them to bounce back once terms are announced for the imminent flotation of the group's TSB operations.

Analysts expect TSB to be valued at £1.5 billion.