WE JOINED a global dash for cash last week when no fewer than five share tips triggered sell signals under our stop-loss system after suffering further heavy falls as a result of the Chinese financial crisis.
The sales realised a modest overall profit thanks to earlier gains notched up by FirstGroup, farm breeding specialist Genus and animal feeds-to-cakes supplier Carrs before their recent falls from grace.
In contrast, Scottish oil and gas explorer Parkmead incurred a further hefty loss after we gave the shares a second chance following an earlier ill-timed recommendation and we also lost money on our notional investment in credit-checking giant Experian. We use the stop-loss system to eject any share that has fallen 10 per cent from previous peaks and we were keenly aware that a number of disposals were inevitable with the FTSE 100 share index, slumping by some eight per cent last week alone.
The sales boosted our notional cash reserves to a hefty £15,300 compared to total assets of some £45,500 held in our four investment portfolios. This is far too high in normal circumstances but does offer a degree of protection against any further downwards spiral in share prices and we are content to sit on the sidelines for another week before deciding if the timing is right to go bargain hunting. In the meantime, it is possible that other tips could fall victim to the stop-loss system with RELX (the old Reed Elsevier), Produce Investments and Cambian looking particularly vulnerable.
All four of our investment portfolios suffered from the general mark-down last week with falls of up to 3.5 per cent recorded by the 2013, 2014 and 2015 selections when we carried out our weekly review on Wednesday. The 2012 portfolio fared still worse, with a near-seven per cent tumble to end its lengthy period of outperformance. Damage was caused by a bout of profit-taking in safety equipment firm Halma after its recent spectacular performance.
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