John Phelps's portfolio

Sunday 17 June 2012

Our share tips were back on track last week, with all four portfolios managing to push ahead despite the continuing turmoil.

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Some of the biggest gains were seen in solid heavyweight shares such as SSE, Aggreko and Diageo although our speculative selection of RBS also showed signs of paying off with the price now up more than 12% in the past fortnight.

The rally raised questions over last week's decision to take profits on our notional investment in Glasgow's Smart Metering Systems under the stop-loss system – the share price has since risen from 140p to around 155p in the past few days.But the system has more than paid its way in the past and we will continue to recommend the sale of any share that falls 10% from previous peaks while accepting we must make the odd mistake.We believe the stock market is finely balanced just now as the US and China seem poised to take measures to stimulate their economies but Europe stumbles from one financial crisis to another.The uncertainty means we are retaining the bulk of our cash holdings. However, we decided to release a notional £2000 of the money at our review on Wednesday morning when we added Centrica and Petrofac to the 2012 selections.Centrica is something of a "safety first" choice as it is one of those defensive stocks with a good dividend history. Petrofac is more speculative but we have been watching its performance for some time and believe the shares are overdue for a bounce at current levels of below £15 at a time when the company has signalled its optimism with news of further expansion in Aberdeen, and has forecast a further 15% plus life in profits this year.We have set the usual stop-loss levels at which we advise nervous followers to sell.

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