It is the blessing of the Tempus Ten that it does not contain a property developer or a housebuilder, two of the worst performing sectors of 2007. But it is its curse – at least as far as the past three months are concerned – that it features a bank.

Not a Northern Rock or an Alliance & Leicester, but Britain’s second biggest, a £54 billion behemoth that takes in Coutts, Citizens in America and Direct Line.

But that spread of interests has done little to protect Royal Bank of Scotland against either the summer’s credit crunch or the perceived hex of heading the consortium that, after a six-month battle, has succeeded in securing ABN Amro. From a modest 0.6 per cent gain at the end of the March, RBS is now showing a 20.9 per cent loss since the start of the year. That slide has been the biggest contributor in taking the Tempus Ten from a modest 3.4 per cent advance at the half-year stage to a 1.9 per cent deficit by the end of last month.

That means the portfolio has so far failed in all three of its objectives: to provide a positive absolute return; to deliver more than could be returned from a riskless deposit account paying Bank of England base rates; and to beat the advance of the FTSE all-share index. On the latter, the Ten have underperformed the wider market by 4.9 percentage points. The trend may have worsened over the past three months but the pattern remains the same: half of its constituents are showing a positive return, with Johnson Matthey (JM) and Intertek retaining their sway.

JM may have fallen 9 per cent from its July high but it is still 18.3 per cent ahead on the year, having reassured last week that it remains on track to meet full-year forecasts. Not only have platinum prices remained high but demand in its environmental technologies division – the developer of catalytic converters, which should account for two thirds of sales before long – is underpinned by ever-tightening emissions legislation.

BSS Group, the distributor of plumbing supplies, has received rougher treatment. Having been 14.1 per cent ahead over the first three months, its gain has been cut to 6.3 per cent. Given that it has reassured that first-half operating profits will be “significantly ahead” of estimates and that it has seen no sign of a drop-off in trading, investors have factored in a slowdown in construction from which its public sector-bias would seem to insulate it.

Of the laggards, Cranswick, the food producer, down 19 per cent, remains dogged by concerns that margins remain under pressure from increased competition and higher agricultural prices. A trading update on Tuesday may help to dispel the gloom. Last month’s lowered output forecasts merely sent Venture Production, the North Sea oil play that is the portfolio’s worst performer, further into the red. It is now down 23 per cent.

If there is solace, it comes in this week’s surge in Asos, which came too late for our September 30 cut-off. A 6.3 per cent advance in the online fashion retailer had turned into a 21.1 per cent gain by last night’s close. The Tempus Ten sorely needs more of the same.

easyJet

It is hard to avoid the feeling that yesterday’s more than 4 per cent rise in easyJet – which made it the second-biggest riser in the FTSE 250 – may be as good as it gets for now. The low-cost carrier’s traffic figures for last month were in line with forecasts, while it indicated that pretax profits for the 12 months to September 30 will be towards the top end of its guidance of 40 per cent to 50 per cent growth. That is commendable, given the doubling of air passenger duty in the UK over the past year. Closer scrutiny reveals some unsettling trends. While passenger volumes rose 13 per cent over the past 12 months, revenue was up only 11 per cent. Yields – or total revenue per passenger – deteriorated sharply in the second half, by 6.8 per cent, against 1.8 per cent for the full 12 months.

Clearly, easyJet, like Ryanair, is making efforts to secure additional revenues through ancillary charges, such as fees for checking baggage into the hold and using the check-in desk. But whereas Ryanair predicts that yields will fall between 5 per cent and 10 per cent over the winter months, easyJet expects them to remain flat. This might seem optimistic given Ryanair’s recent sharp increase in capacity, possible customer resistance to additional charges and improvements in high-speed rail services: not least, the start of faster Eurostar services from St Pancras from November.

But the biggest threat remains oil prices. So far, easyJet has done a good job in keeping a lid on costs, and, at the half-year stage, had hedged nearly two thirds of its exposure to jet fuel for the following six months. But with kerosene prices still 33 per cent above their level of 12 months ago in US dollar terms, easyJet’s profit forecasts remain vulnerable to both their continued strength and an appreciation in the American currency. Add in the impact of an incipient consumer slowdown and 571½p, which puts the shares on a multiple of 17.2 times current year earnings, looks like a good point at which to take profits.

Waterman Group

This AIM-listed consulting engineer has a strong name in its industry – its projects ranges from Foster + Partners’s Russia Tower in Moscow, the tallest building in Europe, to News International’s new printing plant in Hertfordshire – which its standing in the City has not matched. That has less to do with its size – at £50 million it is at the smaller end of its peer group – than earnings and sales growth that has hitherto lagged its sector. But investors reacted well to full-year results, which showed a 25 per cent rise in earnings per share on organic turnover up 17 per cent. The City property market now accounts for just 10 per cent of sales, while strong demand from the Gulf and former Soviet Union means overseas makes up 25 per cent. With a new chief executive and April’s acquisition of Boreham providing further momentum, the discount of Waterman – at 12 times 2008 earnings – to its rivals should narrow. Buy at 185p.

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