John Phelps's portfolio

Sunday 1 July 2012

Our celebrations were decidedly low key last week as our share tips ended the first half of 2012 showing a healthy overall profit to trounce the performance of the top companies in the FTSE 100 index.

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The total value of our four portfolios stood at £35,276 when we conducted our audit on Wednesday morning against £32,175 at the start of the year to sport a 9.65% gain compared with a 1.8% slippage in the Footsie.

But we were keenly aware the performance would have been a good deal better but for the dire showing of some of our most recent tips.It has now become apparent that we jumped the gun by recommending Petrofac and Weir at a time of falling oil prices while Marks & Spencer and Tesco have suffered further from the slowdown in high street spending.We believe all four shares continue to offer exceptional value at current levels but our short-term horizons mean that we cannot afford to bet against the crowd and we will sell our notional investments if their prices dip below our published stop-loss levels.Employment agency Hays and Scottish Gas supplier Centrica have also lost money after being tipped in the past month although we have enjoyed some success with RBS (despite its latest fiasco) and AG Barr.Our 2012 portfolio suffered particularly from the poor performance of recent tips to shed 2.5% of its total value last week while the 2009 selections dropped 1.5% despite another good showing by Diageo.There was a more solid showing by the 2010 portfolio with three of its remaining four selections recording gains to balance out a slippage in Carr's Milling after its recent strength.The 2011 list showed a small overall rise after a surge in support for satellite communications group Avanti.

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