I think I may have inadvertently stumbled upon a new law of investment: don't take financial advice on newspaper publishers from newspaper journalists - at least not from this one.

That would appear to be the moral of the first-quarter travails of the Tempus Ten, in which Johnston Press, the owner of The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post, has been the conspicuous underperformer. Unsettled by this month's full-year results, in which the company gave warning of a fall in print advertising revenues, longer-running concerns on the erosion of regional newspapers' franchise by online media, and a £692 million debt burden, the shares have more than halved since the start of the year, slashing Johnston's stock market value to just £371 million (against £1.4 billion this time last year). Clearly, this column's contention at the turn of the year (that advertising weakness and balance sheet pressure was fully priced in) was not shared by the rest of the stock market: with nearly 20 per cent of its equity on loan, Johnston has been one of London's most heavily shorted stocks. Indeed, with the exception of another media stock - Yell Group, down 66 per cent - Johnston, now at a 12-year low, has been the single worst performer in the FTSE 350.

If there are grounds for optimism, they lie in recent vigorous boardroom share-buying, and the fact that short-sellers, having booked big profits, are now turning their attention elsewhere. Less encouraging is that a 10 per cent fall in 2008 advertising revenues from current forecast levels could be enough to put the company in breach of its banking covenants.

Better news is that Johnston's plunge has not prevented the Tempus Ten from meeting at least one of its three objectives: to outpace the progress of the FTSE all-share index. With that benchmark down 14.4 per cent since the start of the year, the Ten - down 13.6 per cent - has modestly outperformed by 0.8 percentage points. If Johnston were excluded, the portfolio's loss would have been a more palatable 9.2 per cent. Even so, that outcome still leaves the Ten woefully short of its two other targets: to record positive returns in absolute terms, and to exceed the return that could have been achieved by holding cash in a deposit account paying Bank of England rates.

It might also come as no surprise that the other constituent of the Ten most heavily tied to consumer spending has been the next worse performer. Wolfson Microelectronics, the designer of semiconductors used in Apple's iPhone, is down 38 per cent. Although February's full-year results contained little to upset, a subsequent profit warning from rival CSR, which complained of an inventory build-up in China, has weighed on the entire sector.

The boldest selection in the Tempus Ten - that of Northern Foods, a perennial underperformer among food producers - has yet to pay off. Again, January's post-Christmas update showed the Goodfella's pizza to Fox's biscuits maker performing to plan.

However, noises from Marks & Spencer, Northern's biggest customer, that it is seeking “material improvements” in supplier terms, combined with severe commodity cost inflation, have taken their toll: the shares have dropped 12 per cent. Thursday's year-end trading statement from the company will go some way to show whether those concerns are justified.

Smiths Group, the engineering conglomerate, down 10 per cent, had managed to keep within sight of this year's opening level until Wednesday's first-half results. However, the turnaround plan of Philip Bowman, its new chief executive, to pursue performance improvements over the next two years in tandem with bolt-on acquisitions, served to take some of the speculative heat out of the shares, which had been buoyed by hopes of a near-term break-up.

Strategic pronouncements from another new boss, Roger Siddle, chief executive of BPP Holdings, were no more warmly received. Shares in the education and training provider have fallen nearly 17 per cent, and found little support from Mr Siddle's plans to bring in management consultants and take a short-term hit from restructuring and increased IT investment. However, with one of BPP's founders thought to have been selling down his remaining stake ahead of the end of the tax year, one of the other recent pressures on the shares should soon abate.

What of the rest? Rexam, Capita Group and AssetCo, the portfolio's tiddler, look like fulfilling their function of providing defensive growth, and remain comfortingly close to January's level.

So, too, Keller Group, the FTSE 250 ground engineering specialist, although this week's slide in America's Architects Billings Index, a reliable lead indicator of non-residential construction activity in the US, is a cause for concern.

That only one of the portfolio's constituents is showing a positive return - albeit a healthy double-digit percentage gain - might seem a minor consolation, but the advance of Smith & Nephew is welcome all the same. In rising nearly 11 per cent, the maker of orthopaedic devices has been the second-best performer in the FTSE 100 this year - beaten by British Energy, up 13 per cent following this week's admission of merger talks.

Securing an absolute return from equities in a year when financial markets remain plagued by too much leverage and too little liquidity remains a tall order: Federal Reserve-sponsored bailouts of Wall Street banks and rising investor confidence do not usually go hand in hand, whatever their intention.

If previous bear markets are a reliable guide, the 19 per cent fall in the FTSE all-share from last year's peak suggests this one has farther to run. All the same, that the Ten's sea of red should show a little more blue by the half-year stage seems a reasonable enough request.

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