MOST of our portfolios ended lower as investors were sitting on the fence waiting for companies to report their third quarter earnings.

The biggest decline was posted by the one-year top losers portfolio which shed a significant 4.1 per cent. Investors took profits off a few stocks which had run up quite a bit since March this year. Among them were Ausgroup, Bio-Treat, China Oilfield Technology, Mirach Energy and Sinomem Technology. There were no gainers at all in the portfolio.

The portfolio with the lowest forward price-earnings multiple as at October last year slid by 1.9 per cent. There were 18 losers compared with just four gainers in the portfolio. SC Global, JES International, China Taisan and China Zaino were among the stocks which fell the most in the portfolio.

The only portfolio which managed to eke out some gains was the analysts' top recommendations portfolio. It edged up 0.6 per cent. Gainers outnumbered losers by 11 to 10. The biggest contributors to the portfolio's gain were Noble Group, Golden Agri, First Resources and MacArthurcook Industrial Reit.

For this week, Singapore shares are seen trading higher on the back of renewed interest in the property sector as home prices rise, Dow Jones Newswires quoted dealers as saying.

Last week, the blue-chip Straits Times Index closed at 2,715.34, up 7.22 points or 0.27 per cent. Over the past week, average daily volume was 1.70 billion shares worth $1.35 billion from 2.01 billion shares valued at $1.50 billion the week before.

Data released on Friday by the government showed private residential home prices rose 15.8 per cent in the third quarter ended September after four straight quarters of decline.

'A cursory glance suggests property could potentially be a star performer in this current earnings season if rallies in key plays led by CapitaLand, City (Developments) and Keppel Land are any indication,' said AmFraser Securities' head of retail research Najeeb Jarhom.

As for our portfolios, they were created in mid-October last year with $5,000 allocated to each stock. The purpose of the portfolios is to provide real-time tracking of various trading strategies.

These strategies are - buying the stocks that are the most recommended by analysts; those that have seen the highest upgrades by analysts; the one-year top losers; the highest dividend-yielding stocks; stocks with the lowest forward price-earnings ratio and those with the lowest price-to-book ratio.

The process is mechanical - no qualitative judgement is exercised. Stocks that appear in the portfolios are not necessarily good buys. But as the status of the portfolios shows, the most bombed-out stocks have provided the best returns to investors brave enough to buy them.