Week 548 Review

A week that saw some massive drops in value for some of my holdings, and big drops across 16 companies, against just 3 with a decent rise. The result was a widening of the deficit between cost and value of £2,780 to £128,418 and an increase in the deficit between injection and value to £42,968. Total portfolio value reduced to £139,800.

Worst performer was PBX:Probiotix Health which gave up all the recent gains after someone sold a massive chunk of shares. The price dropped 19% and was responsible for most of the losses given the size of my holding.

SCT:Softcat fell victim to scares over AI impacting tech companies and dropped 18% so my holding that was in profit recently is now 27% down. I would average down, but this has fallen out of my top 50 magic formula ranking so I will be selling if they ever get back into profit.

KNOS:Kainos Group fell 16% for the same reasons as SCT. My holding is now down by 16% after being profitable 2 weeks ago. This is still 24th in my magic formula ranking so I may add it to my monthly savings while the price is low, but not until it starts heading back up again.

W7L:Warpaint London was a new purchase this week after it entered my top 30 magic formula ranking. I was excited because a trading update was anticipated, but it never came. The share price dropped 13% in the few days I have owned it. All I can hope is the trading update comes next week and is better than expected, else this could have been a big mistake.

ATYM:Atalya Mining dropped 11% after a major shareholder dumped a large number of shares in a placing, so I'm now 10% down on the ones I bought last week at what I thought was a discount and 4% down on what was a profitable share.

TLOU:Tlou Energy dropped another 11% and I fear are heading towards zero.

AMRQ:Amaroq were hammered 10% possibly due to the gold price drop, but my other gold miners didn't do anywhere near as bad, so not sure what's going on with these.

AFC:AFC Energy are now sliding relentlessly and fell 7% for the 2nd week in a row.

AMP:Ampeak Energy dropped 7% for no particular reason.

FNX:Fonix is another new magic formula share that dropped 6% in the the few days since I bought them. No obvious reason for the fall unless it's part of the tech sell-off.

FSG:Foresight Group Holdings is yet another new magic formula share that also dropped 6% for no reason.

IES:Invinity Energy fell 6% and is determined that my recent purchase isn't  going to get into profit, taking a downturn just before moving into the black on several occasions now.

IPX:Impax Asset Management have been recovering lately but fell 6% this week.

N91:Ninety One has been doing really well recently, but a few institutions have been taking profits and it fell 6% this week.

CAML:Central Asia Metals fell 5% which was a surprise as I thought the copper price had rebounded.

FOUR:4imprint had gone into profit but a big fall last week and another 5% drop this week has seen them slip to a 6% loss. I'll be buying more in my monthly investment next week.

So 16 companies fell by 5% or more, including 3 I only bought this week. Not good!

In the very limited good news, POLR:Polar Capital climbed 5% which was a surprise given it is heavily invested in tech firms which all got hammered.

YU.:Yu Group climbed another 6% and has been making steady progress, and is now 14% in profit.

Share of the Week is ASHM:Ashmore Group which also climbed 6% but wins the prize because I've had it for years at a big loss and it is now only 9% down. It is in my dealing account and as soon as it gets profitable I'll be selling to help pay for my holiday, so I'm more happy than usual that it's going up. If you include dividends it's 10% up.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 28 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£87.73		-£3.71
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,486.84	(-61.1%)	-£208.10
Potential profits	£1,083.75		-£77.61
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.80		+£0.04
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£84.55	(1.2%)	-£3.72
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.37		+£0.04
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£237.52	(3.3%)	-£0.46
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash went down due to monthly fees minus the 4p interest I earned. The ISA did pretty well doe to the small rises in JLP:Jubilee Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix, but that wasn't enough to completely cancel the big drop in PBX:Probiotix Health. Value only dropped by £208 and potential profits by £77 caused by the drop in AMRQ:Amaroq.

It feels more like a flattening than a drop - maybe even a pause for breath?

Still well above the trend line

The SIPP looks like this after week 532 overall and week 12 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£2,432.39		+£739.88
Portfolio cost	£148,823.35		+£1,064.01
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£91,793.75	(-38.3%)	-£2,571.94
Potential profits	£14,086.40		-£1,030.04
Yr 11 Dividends	£494.18		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£6.07		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£4,162.12		+£1,626.53
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£1,663.01	(20.9%)	+£483.01
Total Dividends	£18,714.38		+£0
Total Interest	£26.77		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£28,828.63		+£1,626.53
Average monthly cash profit	£373.80	(4.7%)	+£12.43

A lot happened here because I re-generated my magic formula spreadsheet, and quite a few things dropped off, so I sold them to re-invest in top 30 ranking companies, not that it did me much good! I made £1,626 profit from my sales and re-invested £1,064 of that, holding the rest as cash to give me more monthly investment opportunities. Potential profits only dropped £1,030 despite cashing in, so in effect they went up about £600. Long term performance increased to 4.7% and year 11 is looking very healthy at 20%, but we're only on week 12 so that will drop to 4.8% if I don't sell anything else this year. It will drop even further when TRX:Tissue Regenix goes bust.

My first sale was RNWH:Renew Holdings which has fallen to 75th in my magic formula rankings. I sold my 157 shares at 931.88p making £161.11 (12.3%) profit. I bought 186 shares in FNX:Fonix at 175p costing £1,154.48. They are 2nd in my magic formula ranking so it was rather depressing when they fell 6% straight away. They provide mobile payment services, so I can see why they are growing, but I don't see why the tech sell-off affected them.

My next sale was FSV:Fidelity Special Values which had fallen to 84th in my magic formula ranking. I sold my 320 shares at 435.7285p making £149.42 (12%) profit. I used the proceeds to buy 502 shares in W7L:Warpaint London at 228.75p costing £1,157.28. I sat in horror as they slumped 13%. They produce make-up and have a popular brand, so I really hope they turn around after the trading update else I've bought a turkey. They are 5th in my magic formula ranking so I hoped for much better.

Next I sold ALU:Alumasc Group, which is actually only 31st in my ranking so I should have kept them, but their interim results were pretty weak so I was certain they were about to drop out of my top 50 and wanted to sell them while still in profit. I sold my 562 shares at 260.22p making £343.11 (30.6%) profit. I used the proceeds to buy 280 shares in FSG:Foresight Group Holdings at 428.49p costing £1,208.72. They are 3rd in my magic formula rankings and are an investment company specialising in things like green energy. However, they dropped 6% straight away.

Next the takeover of BEZ:Beazley was agreed, and although I sold for about £100 less than if I'd waited, I figured it was worth it to take the profits now. I sold my 170 shares at 1260.801p making £546.00 (34.1%) profit. I used the proceeds to buy 82 shares in MSI:MS International, which is a defense contractor and 16th in my magic formula ranking. I paid 1330p a share costing £1,095.60. They went up 1% by the end of the week so are almost into profit. By this time I had all the profits from the other sales to spend, so foolishly bought 20,512 shares in JLP:Jubilee Metals at 4.875p costing £1,004.96. Needless to say, as with every time I buy JLP trying to make a quick profit, the shares dropped by the end of the week and are only 4.6p to sell.

My final sale was 30 of my shares in RIO:Rio Tinto. I had bought a load due to the prospect of a merger with GLEN:Glencore, but that fell through. I decided to reduce my holding and sold them at 6868.9071p making £426.90 (26.1%) profit. I used half of the proceeds to increase my stake in GAW:Games Workshop due to the recent sharp drop in share price. I bought 7 shares at 16862p costing £1,195.19. I also bought 918 shares in BEG:Begbies Trainor Group at 119.75p costing £1,108.26. They changed their name the day after to BTG:BTG Consulting and the share price ended up just down by the spread.

So it was definitely a busy week!

We stayed above the orange line for just one week, which is very sad.

That's a dreadful dip, but I have cashed in a lot of profits and we're still well above the trend line.

This is my favourite chart. To get long term performance up from just above £300 a month to approaching £400 a month is great. If only the portfolio value wasn't at a massive loss. The encouraging thought is that this is based on my magic formula strategy, which seems to be working, so if my JLP:Jubilee Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix holdings can reverse their declines, the magic formula foundations are pretty strong, and the sooner I can ditch my SIPP holdings in JLP and OPTI the better (aside from my foolish JLP purchase this week which broke all my rules and was bonkers!)

This week sees my latest monthly investment, and I have three lots of £250 set up. I'm continuing to buy III:3i Group as my holding is up 5% and they are slowly going up, I'm returning to buy FOUR:4imprint again as they have dropped to a 6% loss despite recent positive trading, and I'm starting a new magic formula share ESCT:The European Smaller Companies Trust, which are ranked 26th.

I also really want to invest in GCP:GCP Infrastructure Investments and THX:Thor Explorations so intend to sell another 32 RIO:Rio Tinto shares, as that will still leave me with 70 and make it one of my largest holdings, but get me another two of my new top 30 ranking shares. That will leave 5 more that I can potentially invest in, plus 4 that I can't invest in as they are oil or palm oil. I wonder if that means I should extend my top 30 to 34 so I maintain a list of 30 investable companies, but keep the top 50 cut-off for when to sell. Sounds like a good plan. I do still have a lot of companies to update in my magic formula, but they are the ones nearer the bottom of the ranking last time so it's unlikely they will get into the top 50 unless they've had a big turn-around.

Week 547 Review - Friday carnage as a great week turns bad.

A great week £3,100 up turned into a bad week on Friday, as all the profits built up during the week vanished and turned into a widening of the deficit between cost and value of £780 to £125,638. The deficit between injection and value widened to £41,738 and total portfolio value fell to £140,780.

I stopped posting the wild swings of TLOU:Tlou Energy, but this week's swing was down by 35% after they reported having run out of money and needing to do an equity raise. At this share price that will lead to massive dilution. I should never have re-invested because they will run out of money before they ever generate any power. My holding is down 66% and making a £854 loss.

CWR:Ceres Power continues to swing wildly backwards and forwards, losing 15% this week, but my holding is still up by 40% and making £452 potential profit.

GGP:Greatland Resources was the worst hit of my gold mines with Friday's drop in gold price. They dropped 10% but my holding is still 88% up and making £1,596 potential profit.

AFC:AFC Energy had been on a great run but dropped 7% this week meaning my holding is down 22% and making £446 loss.

FXPO:Ferrexpo dropped 7% so my holding is down by 84% and making a £854 loss.

The OPTI:Optibiotix recovery was very short lived, dropping 7% this week and costing me around £1,000 in lost value.

CORE:Solidcore Resources was another victim of the gold dip, falling 5% to take my holding down 65% and making a loss of £1,351.

FOUR:4imprint reversed recent gains and dropped 5%, and my holding dropped to a 1% loss, down by £30.

PAF:Pan African Resources dropped 5% which was very costly to me, but my holding is still up by 331% and making £6,672 potential profit.

JLP:Jubilee Metals was well up on Thursday night, but dropped on Friday to finish just 5% up on the week. It's still a long way from me being able to sell any though.

PRU:Prudential went up another 5% and is continuing steady progress. I'm now up by 23% and making £242 potential profit.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics sneaked up another 5% and my biggest holding is only down by 10% making a £499 loss.

N91:Ninety One continues to make good progress, climbing 6% to go 30% up and making £312 potential profit.

CAML:Central Asia Metals went up 7% so I'm a bit peeved I sold most of my holding to buy shares that didn't go up that much. My SIPP holding is up by 37% and making £896 potential profit.

Share of the Week is FDM:FDM Group, which has been a real stinker lately, but a trading update showed some hope of recovery and the shares went up 12%. My holding is still down by 51% and making a £559 loss.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 27 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£91.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,694.94	(-60.9%)	-£25.10
Potential profits	£1,161.36		-£313.80
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.76		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£88.27	(1.2%)	-£3.40
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.33		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£237.98	(3.3%)	-£0.44
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Probably the flattest week ever. Distressing that potential profits fell by £313, but portfolio value only went down £25 thanks o the rise in JLP:Jubilee Metals.

I'd rather see it flatten then plummet.

Still well above the trend line. Pausing for breath or preparing to dive?

The SIPP looks like this after week 531 overall and week 11 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,692.51		+£97.48
Portfolio cost	£147,759.34		-£57.40
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£93,301.68	(-36.9%)	-£812.87
Potential profits	£15,116.44		-£708.94
Yr 11 Dividends	£494.18		+£64.44
Yr 11 Interest	£6.07		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£2,535.59		-£24.37
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£1,180.00	(14.9%)	-£100.63
Total Dividends	£18,714.38		+£64.44
Total Interest	£26.77		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£27,202.10		-£24.37
Average monthly cash profit	£361.37	(4.5%)	-£0.35

There was a retail offer for ATYM:Atalaya Mining so I sold my 70 PSN:Persimmon shares at 1421.4091p making a loss of £24.36 (2.4%), but if you take into account the £140 dividends, it was an 11% gain. That gave me the cash I needed to buy 95 shares in ATYM at 1000p costing £950. That was a decent discount until the price dropped on Friday when it became much less of a discount.

I got an £11 dividend from GAW:Games Workshop and a £53 dividend from IHP:Integrafin.

Value dropped by £812 and £708 of that was potential profit, mostly gold miners. I suppose a re-trace was bound to happen at some point.

It's hard to see, but unfortunately the green line has dropped back below the orange. Very sad.

Still well above the trend line.

I reckon another 2 weeks before the trend line catches us up.

We are about to hit February when I do my 6-monthly re-calculation of the magic formula rankings. I've already compared the FTSE 350 and AIM 100 lists and added all the new companies, so now just need to plough through and enter all the stats. It took a long time to compare the lists, so I need to come up with a more efficient method. Alternatively I could just trash the old list and replace everything. That might not be a bad plan as I can't see any great advantage in keeping the old data. I'll do that when I re-calculate AIM.

I'm hoping a few of my profitable shares will drop out of the top 50 so I can sell them and boost my profits, as well as finding some new shares to buy. Although I can't confirm until I put all the data in, a few of the new ones like BYIT:Bytes Technology and BEG:Begbies Traynor Group are looking quite promising. All will be revealed in a few weeks.

Week 546 Review - SIPP value crosses above injection line in the best week for years.

The best week for a very, very long time. A lot of shares were down, but the ones that went up did so in style, resulting in a reduction in the deficit between cost and value of £8,751 to £124,857. The deficit between injection and value reduced to £40,998 and that's all in the ISA because the SIPP is now above the injection line. Total portfolio value went up to £141,521.

Worst performer was KNOS:Kainos Group which dropped 6%. There's no obvious reason why, as they didn't go ex-dividend or anything.

ALU:Alumasc Group continue to drift, falling another 5%. My holding is still up by 17%, but it was up by over 50% not long ago. They are still near the top of my magic formula rankings so I'll ride it out, but will be very tempted to sell if they drop by another 10%.

GAW:Games Workshop fell 5% for no particular reason. My holding is still 91% up so no need to panic just yet.

SCT:Softcat dropped another 5% to go 13% down this weekend. They have dropped to 43rd in my magic formula ranking, so I am allowed to keep them, but not allowed to average down unless they can get back into the top 30.

CAML:Central Asia Metals went up 6% and I sold a few more to diversify into other things. My SIPP holding is up by 27% and making £671 potential profit, so I'm happy to keep that holding long term now.

FDM:FDM Group went up 6% and have been increasing steadily since the update that caused the shares to crash. My holding is still 56% down and making £618 paper loss, but they are 36th in my magic formula ranking so I shouldn't average down even if they seem on an upwards momentum. However, maybe that's more of a guideline, as their P/E ratio is only 9 so averaging down if they have long term upward momentum would seem sensible.

ATYM:Atalya Mining went up another 7% as copper stocks continue to do well. My holding is up 8% and making £160 potential profit.

JLP:Jubilee Metals went up another 8% this week, and I did take advantage of the upward momentum to buy some more. I may have cursed it though, as the price dropped just after I bought some. My SIPP holding is only 6% down now, and I want to sell that, so the question is how long do I leave them before taking my profit? My target is 8p so they'd need to double. That could happen quite quickly if they give a positive production update.

EDV:Endeavour Mining was my worst performing gold stock, only climbing 9%. That does put my holding up 14% with £606 potential profit. I'm hoping these will start paying a dividend soon.

HSX:Hiscox zoomed up 9% with no explanation. It may have been a reaction to the attempted takeover of BEZ:Beazeley. It put my holding up by 5% making £51 potential profit.

CWR:Ceres Power continues to motor and justify me sacrificing my BOKU:Boku shares to buy them. They went up 11% this week and took my holding up by 66% making £741 potential profit.

GGP:Greatland Resources climbed 11% as the price of gold soared, putting my holding up by 88% and making £2,057 potential profit.

PAF:Pan African Resources went up another 12% to put my holding an amazing 354% up and making £7,134 potential profit. I do regret selling a load because they have gone up more than the companies I invested in, but I did want to spread my gold risk around a bit, so it was probably the right thing to do. I reckon I went about £1,000 too far that I should have left here instead of spending twice as much on EDV:Endeavour shares than PAF.

My last gold holding AMRQ:Amaroq wins the best gold stock this week with a 13% climb. I'm only holding this in my ISA as I still regard it as a higher risk junior miner. My holding is up by 61% and making £627 potential profit. I may buy some more if I can generate any cash in my ISA, but unfortunately there's nothing I can or want to sell, so I don't know where the funds would come from.

OPTI:Optibiotix gave a positive trading statement, and the subsequent rise of 21% would normally make it Share of the Week, but not this week. My holding is still about £100k under water.

PBX:Probiotix Health also gave a positive trading statement and went up 23%. Unfortunately my free shares given as a dividend are still down by 62% but my small purchased holding is now only down 2%, and given I should never have bought it in my SIPP I will likely sell as soon as it passes breakeven, as it will add £500 to my AJ Bell monthly investment pot.

Share of the Week is BEZ:Beazley which shot up 41% after a takeover bid from Zurich. The bid was flatly refused, and fortunately the share price held firm, possibly in anticipation of an increased offer and maybe even a bidding war. My holding is now up by 23% as it was in the red before the announcement, but there is £364 potential profit and it will be more if the proposed buy-out price is reached.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 26 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£91.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,720.04	(-60.9%)	+£3,848.48
Potential profits	£1,475.16		+£415.57
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.76		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£91.67	(1.3%)	-£3.67
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.33		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£238.42	(3.3%)	-£0.44
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A massive £3,848 increase in value and satisfying £415 rise in potential profits, for an account that until recently had no profitable shares at all before I introduced the new AIM magic formula ranking. It's just a shame I rarely get a chance to buy any new shares in the ISA. If I get a big monthly savings pot in my SIPP from sales, then maybe I should divert the £250 regular savings into the ISA for a while. The problem is, only FTSE companies are eligible for the monthly savings programme, so it's not really an option.

A very nice sight, but such a long way to go to even reach the injection line. 

Still worse than 12 months ago, but should start to flatten the trend line if we can stay at this level.

The SIPP looks like this after week 530 overall and week 10 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,595.03		+£1,036.80
Portfolio cost	£147,816.74		-£712.44
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£94,114.55	(-36.3%)	+£4,190.55
Potential profits	£15,825.38		+£2,104.29
Yr 11 Dividends	£429.74		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£6.07		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£2,559.96		+£261.86
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£1,280.63	(16.1%)	-£16.21
Total Dividends	£18,649.94		+£0
Total Interest	£26.77		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£27,226.47		+£261.86
Average monthly cash profit	£361.72	(4.6%)	+£1.46

I sold my AJ Bell holding of CAML:Central Asia Metals because I wanted to boost my cash pot for monthly investments. I have enough now to be able to buy shares in 2 companies a month for 8 months when you include the £250 per month I inject. I sold my 477 shares for 206.55p and made £70.81 (7.7%) profit. That liberated £980.24 for my cash balance, and I also added £62.50 tax refund.

I also wanted to take advantage of the surge in JLP:Jubilee Metals, so sold another 500 of my remaining CAML holding at 205.6158p making £191.05 (22.8%) profit. I know I'm not supposed to hold JLP in my SIPP, but this was a short term purchase in the hope of doubling my money in a relatively short period. I admit that every time I have attempted this with JLP I have failed, but this time it feels like we have some momentum. I bought 22,082 shares at 4.5744p costing £1,022.07. Not surprisingly the price did slip slightly just after I bought them, but lets see what next week brings.

Portfolio value soared £4,190 and potential profits went up a very impressive £2,104 and the sale finally moved my long term performance up from 4.5% to 4.6%. I need to cash in a gigantic profit to make that move any appreciable amount.

Well I thought I would never see this day! The value line has crossed the injection line for the first time in years. My portfolio is now just as good as sticking it under the mattress. It's a hell of a long way to the cost line, but I feel this is a significant milestone. The big question is how long will it last?

We're better off than 12 months ago, but this does reveal how far there is to go to break-even.

Somehow staying above the trend line.

I'm getting excited that we've nearly reached February and I can soon re-calculate my magic formula rankings. Which companies will have dropped out of the top 50 so I can sell them, which new companies will pop up in the top 30 so I can buy them?

There are 3 companies in the current top 30 that I still don't own. MONY:MONY Group is 26th, but I avoided buying them because the share price had been on a downward trend for about 7 months. However, they are up over the last 7 weeks and the p/e ratio is only 12.4, so it may soon be time for a dabble.

The next one is ASY:Andrews Sykes Group, which I've invested in before. They are an odd share because they have very low liquidity due to nearly all the shares being in the hands of the owners. Apart from a blip upwards in September, they are on a long term decline for 2.5 years, and although their p/e ratio is only 12.2, I'm not planning to invest unless there's a clear upwards momentum.

Finally there is BAG:A G Barr. That was on a fairly long term rise from 2021 to the middle of last year, but has been dropping since September. The p/e ratio is 14.82 so they are not over-priced, but this is another I will avoid until there's a change in direction for the share price.

I'm still re-investing in III:3i Group as my main monthly investment, and have switched from RAT:Rathbones to BPM:B P Marsh & Partners for the next 2 months as they are paying a special dividend in March and 2 more months will get me up to £2,000 invested. If MONY are still heading higher after that, then I'll switch to investing in that. Having said that, who knows what the February re-ranking will promote to the top 30?

Week 545 Review - Best week for ages with decent rises across the portfolio.

What a week! Big rises across much of the portfolio meant the deficit between cost and value narrowed by £4,636 to £133,609 and the deficit between injection and value dropped to £50,073. Total portfolio value increased to £132,445.

Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, which dropped 10% after a massive rise last week. I think it was just a bit of profit taking, so hopefully it will recover next week.

The only other big loser was PAGE:Pagegroup after another lackluster trading statement sent the price down 8% and my holding is now 59% down. I won't be averaging down any time soon, but I will hold and average down if it starts creeping up for any length of time.

RIO:Rio Tinto went up 5%. I think it would have been more given the rises in other miners, but investors are spooked by the proposed merger with GLEN:Glencore. I did buy some more this week and it is now one of my larger holdings.

FDM:FDM Group is another of my poor performing magic formula shares, but went up 6% this week. My holding is 58% down and making a potential loss of £644, but they are suffering exactly the same malaise as PAGE:Pagegroup, as people are not hiring staff. I will keep an eye on these as a potential opportunity to average down if they continue to creep upwards.

AFC:AFC Energy have had a storming few weeks and went up another 7% this week. My holding is only down by 19% and making a potential loss of £390 but I have high hopes for a turnaround and significant re-rate.

FOUR:4imprint collapsed last year after a back-hand remark about the uncertainty of tariffs, so I doubled my holding and reduced my average price from around 5400p to 4084p. I'm glad I did, because they went up another 7% this week and my enlarged holding went 7% into profit with a potential £149, but I will be holding for a long time.

I recently bought back into III:3i Group after a significant drop in share price as investors were spooked that they couldn't continue their rate of growth. The 7% increase this week means my shares are 5% in profit. The profit is only £21 because I've only added £443 of shares so far in my monthly investments.

OPTI:Optibiotix finally had an up week, climbing 7%. Although I desperately hope last week was the lowest point, there's no sign of anything that will trigger sustained growth, with SweetBiotix product launch nowhere in sight. My paper loss is £101,374 on this share alone. I bet on the wrong pony and if it doesn't turn around then I've wasted most of what I've done for the last 10 years. It's been a harsh lesson in avoiding going big on a startup company with breakthrough but unproven products.

My other huge holding JLP:Jubilee Metals also had a good week, climbing 8%. My paper losses are still £14,371 but at least this one has real prospects of large profits in the next 12 months, so I am hopeful for recovery. I won't be buying any more though.

N91:Ninety One went up another 8% this week after a positive assets under management statement. My holding is up 25% and making £255 potential profit.

IPX:Impax Asset Management have had an utterly miserable time of late, but may have bounced off the bottom now, as they climbed 9% this week. My holdings are down 64% and 16% and making a combined paper loss of £1,465 but if they continue to rise I'll average down.

GGP:Greatland Resources is unstoppable. I bought more this week and they went up 10%. The purchase reduced my gains from over 100% to 69%, with potential profit at £1,619.

RAT:Rathbones soared 11% after a positive assets under management update, and happily just after my last monthly investment had gone through. My holding is now up by 19% and making £230 potential profit. I won't be buying any more for the time being.

POLR:Polar Capital also gave a very positive assets under management update and zoomed up 12% to take my holdings up 25% and 29% and making £936 potential profit, along with having received £293 in dividends.

CORE:Solidcore Resources has been creeping up at around 1% per week throughout the gold bull run, but this week they took off with a 13% rise. My holdings are still down 70% with a paper loss of £1,341 and I can't trade the shares unless they re-list in UK.

I was nervous about sacrificing my BOKU:Boku shares to buy back into CWR:Ceres Power following their 50% drop in share price, but I needn't have been. They went up another 25% this week to take my holding to 49% up with a £549 potential profit. That's much better than BOKU, although they are rising and I'd like to get back in if I get some cash.

Share of the Week is ASHM:Ashmore Group, which has languished in misery for years in my AJ Bell dealing account. A very positive assets under management update sent them up 26% this week. My holding is only 16% down and I plan to sell as soon as it gets to breakeven and take out the money to put towards my holiday. I've had £184 in dividends, so at breakeven I'll have made 13%.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 25 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£91.44		-£4.10
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,871.56	(-64.2%)	+£2,071.10
Potential profits	£1,059.59		+£405.25
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.76		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£95.34	(1.3%)	-£4.71
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.33		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£238.86	(3.3%)	-£0.47
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped due to monthly fees, a big leap in value, and potential profits up £405 mainly thanks to CWR:Ceres Power, but AMRQ:Amaroq went up 4% and TRU:Trufin 1% so they all contributed. 

Still an epic gap, but nice to see a tick up.

Well above the trend line now, but I've had blips like this in the past and they didn't last.

The SIPP looks like this after week 529 overall and week 9 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£558.23		-£558.63
Portfolio cost	£148,529.18		+£1,331.86
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£89,924.00	(-39.5%)	+£2,565.24
Potential profits	£13,721.09		+£1,561.10
Yr 11 Dividends	£429.74		+£21.89
Yr 11 Interest	£6.07		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£2,298.10		+£754.08
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£1,296.84	(16.3%)	+£256.22
Total Dividends	£18,649.94		+£21.89
Total Interest	£26.77		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£26,964.61		+£754.08
Average monthly cash profit	£360.26	(4.5%)	+£5.65

It's been a very busy week.

The main takeaway is that value is up by £2,565 and potential profits up £1,561 despite banking £754 in actual profits.

I had a £21 dividend from FSV:Fidelity Special Values.

First of all I had my regular monthly investments. They were 7 shares in III:3i Group at 3103p costing £219.80. They went up to 3359p by the end of the week. The other was 12 shares in RAT:Rathbones Group at 1996.7746p costing £242.31. Those were 2240p by the end of the week. That doesn't usually happen to me!

I wrote last week that I was concerned I had too many shares in CAML:Central Asia Metals, so I went through with my plan and sold 2,663 and kept 2,000. I sold them at 191.84p and made £754.08 (17.3%) profit, but liberated £5,096.

I wanted to keep as much of it in copper as possible, but if not copper then other metals.

First I bought 108 shares in ATYM:Atalaya Mining at 924.34p costing £1,010.24. That took my total holding to 224 shares at an average price of 895.52p costing £2,029.88 and making just £21 (1%) potential profit.

Next I bought another 25 shares in EDV:Endeavour Mining at 3994.8449p costing £1,015.65. That took my holding to 112 shares at an average price of 3757.13p costing £4,259.87. They are up by 5% and making £210.42 potential profit.

Next I increased my holding in RIO:Rio Tinto, buying 16 shares at 6174.199p costing £1,004.76. My total holding is now 132 shares at an average price of 5376.24p costing £7,203.82 and making £1,149.07 (16%) potential profit.

Next I bought another 176 shares in GGP:Greatland Resources at 621.08p costing £1,105.05. That takes my holding to 631 shares at an average price of 365.54p costing £2,330.49. They are making £1,619.61 (69%) potential profit.

My final purchase wasn't a metals company. I figured as this was mostly the profits from the CAML sale, I would get a new magic formula share. I bought 299 shares in SOI:Schroder Oriental Income at 357.78p costing £1,081.71. They had risen to 361.5p by the end of the week so are just £12.78 down due to commission.

The sale took my year 11 performance up to an impressive 16.3%, but this is only week 9, so if I sold nothing else this year it would only be 2.8%. I doubt I can keep up this momentum unless JLP:Jubilee Metals takes off. My long term performance remains at 4.5%.

This week the injection line stayed flat and the green line is getting very close. It's certainly much closer than it has been for several years.

A wonderful sight. Not far off getting back to where we were a year ago. This is most impressive given how low OPTI:Optibiotix is still.

I didn't think I could keep it above the trend line, but we're safe for a few more weeks.

A very busy week. I think I need a nice quiet one next week where nothing happens.

I've decided to refresh my magic formula rankings every 6 months, so I will do a complete refresh in February. My rule is that if something falls out of the top 50 and is in profit, I will sell it. Anything not in profit will be kept until it gets to break even and then sold. PSN:Persimmon is an example of that, sitting 79th in the ranking and only 3% down. In actual fact I've had £140 dividends so it's sort of 11% up, but I'll wait until it registers a true profit. I hope to sell that in the next few weeks.

Anything in the top 50 will be kept, but I will only purchase new shares if they are in the top 30. It will be interesting to see which companies get promoted into the top 30 in February. It usually takes me about 6 hours to enter all the data manually to re-calculate the ranking. I'll refresh the AIM one in February too. That takes a lot longer and will be done over a few weeks.

Week 544 Review - A superb week slightly spoiled by you guessed it - Optibiotix.

An excellent week thanks to JLP:Jubilee Metals having a bit of a spurt and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics going ballistic. The deficit between cost and value narrowed by £2,696 to £138,245 and the deficit between injection and value dropped to £55,474. Total portfolio value increased to £127,045 aided by a pension transfer injection.

The only big loser this week was OPTI:Optibiotix which fell 11% and reduced the week's gains by around £1,500. It seems odd that in a week it's shareholding in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics increased by almost £1 million, it still lost significant value. It's not surprising that despite having a vast amount of money to spend this week, not a penny of it went on OPTI.

ASHM:Ashmore Group went up 5% as my holding is now 33% down making loss of £333.

AMRQ:Amaroq went up 7% despite concerns that Trump might invade Greenland. Those concerns caused me to sell my SIPP holding, which I'm very annoyed about, but AMRQ is not a company that qualifies for my new SIPP rules so I should only hold it in my ISA.

EDV:Endeavour Mining ended up gaining by 6% but was up by double that until a pull-back on Friday. My holding is still up 4% and making £123 potential profit.

RAT:Rathbones rather frustratingly climbed 6% as I am buying my last tranche on Monday. My holding is up by 10% and making £92 potential profit.

SCT:Softcat has been sliding recently but staged an 8% recovery this week. My holding is still down by 8% and making a £102 loss.

TLOU:Tlou Energy went up 8%, but I think I will stop reporting on their movements. Although they are only 38% down, there are wild swings every week so I end up reporting on them every week. From now on I will only mention very significant moves.

JLP:Jubilee Metals continued a gradual improvement and went up 9%. Given my holding is very big, that accounted for a lot of the gains this week. I'm still around 50% down altogether, but some of my SIPP holdings that I intend to sell are now only 19% down.

CKN:Clarkson gave a positive trading statement and went up 10%, so my holding is now up 15% and making £180 potential profit.

FOUR:4imprint have had a huge turnaround and went up by 11% this week. I'm very glad I doubled my holding when their price crashed, as I reduced my average price from 5200p to 4084p and am now within £3 of going into profit.

GGP:Greatland Resources had yet another great week, increasing by 11% to go 110% up and making £1,349 potential profit.

AFC:AFC Energy seem to be popular again, and went up 12% this week. My holding is still 24% down and losing £501, but that's a much better place than before. 

CWR:Ceres Power is one of my very recent purchases after sacrificing BOKU:Boku last week to buy back in. It appears to have been well timed, as they went up by 17% this week, with my holding up by 19% and making £215 potential profit.

Share of the Week was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, which zoomed up a massive 27%. My largest holding is now only 5% down making a £274 loss. I still hold some in my SIPP that I want to sell, but they are down by 40% so I need them to almost double before I can sell.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 24 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£95.54		-£3.49
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£39,800.46	(-65.9%)	+£2,252.70
Potential profits	£654.34		+£264.11
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.76		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£100.05	(1.4%)	-£5.01
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.33		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£239.33	(3.3%)	-£0.47
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Nothing much happened, other than a big jump in value and an increase in potential profits of £264 as AMRQ:Amaroq and CWR:Ceres Power both went up significantly. Unfortunately TRU:Trufin dropped 3% else it would have been even better.

Nice, although the gap between injection and value is still vast and bigger than it was 12 months ago.

This might be the highest we've been above the trend line for a long while.

The SIPP looks like this after week 528 overall and week 8 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,116.86		+£82.04
Portfolio cost	£147,197.32		+£3,393.27
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£86,026.90	(-41.6%)	+£443.37
Potential profits	£12,159.99		+£290.23
Yr 11 Dividends	£407.85		+£98.70
Yr 11 Interest	£6.07		+£5.93
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£1,544.02		+£743.28
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£1,040.62	(13.1%)	+£365.92
Total Dividends	£18,628.05		+£98.70
Total Interest	£26.77		+£5.93
Total Profit from sales	£26,210.53		+£743.28
Average monthly cash profit	£354.61	(4.5%)	+£6.17

A lot happened this week.

First of all I sold my SIPP holding in AMRQ:Amaroq of 1,814 shares at 110.2p making £347.04 (21%) profit. I didn't really want to sell, but remember what happened to FXPO:Ferrexpo when Russia invaded Ukraine. I am keeping my ISA holding though. I wanted to stay in gold, and so invested in the biggest FTSE gold company EDV:Endeavour Mining. I added 52 shares at 3812.436p costing £2,004.33. That took my total holding to 87 shares at an average of 3688.82p costing £3,249 and making £123 potential profit.

Next I received my pension transfer, and as I had already planned what to do with it last week, I was able to invest it straight away. First I bought 75 shares in HSX:Hiscox at 1409.8872p costing £1,069.37. They dropped 1% from my purchase price by the end of the week.

I then bought 22 shares in MGNS:Morgan Sindall Group at 4724p costing £1,056.43. They climbed 4% by the end of the week and are already making £15 potential profit.

Lastly I bought 79 more shares in BPM:BP Marsh & Partners at 685.2p costing £553.26. That takes my holding to 228 shares at an average price of 692.39p which are 4% down and making a £64 loss.

CAML:Central Asia Metals has always been one of my favourite companies, and I bought big over the last year to make it one of my largest holdings. I am however becoming less enamoured with the current leadership. Their SASA zinc/lead mine is losing money, and their copper leaching at Kounrad only has about 4 more years to run. They got caught in a bidding war for an American copper company way outside their jurisdiction, halved the dividend, and are spending cash exploring for copper in Aberdeen. All of these are red flags, so I decided to significantly reduce my holding. 

First I sold 550 shares at 188.128p making £116.36 (12.6%) profit. I want to stick with copper so bought 116 shares in ATYM:Atalya Mining because they had recently dropped by 15% from an all-time high, and I've owned them before despite being 177th in my magic formula ranking. Copper is soaring so their profits should too. I bought them at 868.702p costing £1,019.64 and they went up 2% by the end of the week and are almost in profit.

The next day RIO:Rio Tinto announced they were merging with GLEN:Glencore and the price dropped. I've recently increased my holding in RIO and saw this as an opportunity, so sold another 1,100 CAML shares at 190.2413p making £279.87 (15.4%) profit. I bought 33 shares in RIO at 6107.4985p costing £2,037.50. That takes my RIO holding to 116 shares at an average price of 5266.18p costing £6,199. They are up by 12% making £761 potential profit and have paid £185 dividends.

As a result of taking £743 profit, the increase in value was only £443, and I have far less JLP:Jubilee Metals and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics in my SIPP. The sales did push Year 11 projected profits to 13%, but we are only on week 8 so I doubt I'll keep it up. Long term profit didn't budge at 4.5%, but that's based on percentage of portfolio injection amount, which went up £2,400 this week.

I got £5 interest from AJ Bell and £98 dividend from POLR:Polar Capital.

The green line is definitely chasing the orange, even though orange is trying to run away. Crossing that line would be a huge morale boost.

Less impressive as we're not much higher than last week, but still well above the trend line.

Enough profit to keep us above the trend line, but how long can I keep that up?

So, I still have 5,140 shares in CAML:Central Asia Metals in my SIPP costing £8,528 and I reckon I want to get it down to only holding £3,000 worth of shares. That gives my £5,500 to play with over the next few weeks. My AJ Bell holding is only 2% down and will liberate around £900 if I sell them when they get to break even. I need that to allow myself another 4 months of regular investments. The rest are in my Hargreaves Lansdown account where I can't use the proceeds for regular investments so need to re-invest.

I should definitely keep it in copper, but have already bought as much RIO:Rio Tinto as I want. However I may buy some more if the price drops again. I may buy some more ATYM:Atalya Mining, but should I consider ANTO:Antofagasta given they are ranked 224 on my magic formula list and are at what appears to be a very high valuation. I think not. The other option is to move it to gold.

I think I'll retain it in CAML until I get an opportunity to buy something cheap. That strategy does rely on CAML continuing to rise, but I don't see copper dropping any time soon.

Week 543 Review - Jubilee Metals gives a very happy end to 2025 and start of 2026.

It was looking like a brilliant week, with nearly everything in the black, until Friday when nearly everything went into the red. However, a socking great rise in JLP:Jubilee Metals meant the deficit between cost and value narrowed by £4,225 to £140,941 and the deficit between injection and value reduced to £58,997, with total portfolio value increasing to £120,871.

Worst performer was EDV:Endeavour Mining which dropped 7% despite gold hardly dropping at all. These are barely in profit, which is a worry if gold has peaked. I'm hoping they will announce big profits and start paying a dividend, which should lead to a re-rate.

TLOU:Tlou Energy dropped 6% but there's nothing unusual in that.

ALU:Alumasc Group has been dropping quite badly over the last few months, but recovered 6% this week to go 25% up.

YU.:Yu Group also rose 6% and are almost in profit.

IES:Invinity Energy announced some new contracts and went up 8%, so my recent purchase is only 10% down but my main holding is 89% down.

AMRQ:Amaroq went up a healthy 10% to go 27% up, but I'm getting increasingly nervous about the intentions of America towards Greenland, and I'm not sure I'm prepared to risk the same fate as POLY:Polymetal and FXP:Ferrexpo which lost almost everything when Putin invaded Ukraine, as I can see similar happening to AMRQ. I might sell the ones in my SIPP but keep the ones in my ISA because they have massive potential if Greenland is left alone.

JLP:Jubilee Metals announced the completion of the sale of South African assets, which was a relief as I was concerned something would mess that up. However now they are certain of the cash, I'm hoping it won't be long before announcements of new tailings purchases. My holdings are still around 50% down, so a long way to break even.

Share of the week is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which went up 18%. I think the recent drops were caused by some big sellers, so hopefully now they have gone, potential investors are considering the potential of the new compound going into products and revenue coming in.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 23 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£99.03		-£78.09
Portfolio cost	£116,875.69		+£117.60
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£37,547.76	(-67.9%)	+£2,991.04
Potential profits	£390.23		+£150.78
Yr 11 Dividends	£69.36		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.76		+£0.01
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£527.06		+£39.50
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£105.06	(1.4%)	+£3.01
Total Dividends	£12,557.43		+£0
Total Interest	£9.33		+£0.01
Total Profit from sales	£18,087.33		+£39.50
Average monthly cash profit	£239.80	(3.3%)	-£0.12
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I looked at the price of CWR:Ceres Power and noticed it had dropped back below the price I bought it before selling for a profit. It appears to have been the victim of a bear attack from someone presumably shorting the shares. They've engineered a 50% drop in price, so I think now would be a good time to buy back. 

I sacrificed my holding in BOKU:Boku as it wasn't really going anywhere. I may buy back if I make any profits elsewhere, but I thought there was a better potential in CWR. I sold my 495 shares in BOKU at 212p making £39.50 (3.9%) profit. Not a lot, but still a profit. I bought 538 shares in CWR at 206.681p costing £1,122.50. Happy to say they were up 3% on my purchase price and £19 in profit by the end of the week.

Value was up by almost £3,000 thanks to the big rises in JLP:Jubilee Metals and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, and potential profits rose £150 mainly thanks to AMRQ:Amaroq.

The first time in a very, very long time we've had a good size tick upwards in one week.

Soaring above the trend line

Too small a profit to make any difference.

The SIPP looks like this after week 527 overall and week 7 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,034.82		+£36.19
Portfolio cost	£143,804.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£82,190.26	(-42.8%)	+£1,234.65
Potential profits	£11,869.76		+£218.91
Yr 11 Dividends	£309.15		+£36.05
Yr 11 Interest	£0.14		+£0.14
Yr 11 Profit from sales	£800.74		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	£674.70	(8.7%)	-£86.31
Total Dividends	£18,529.35		+£36.05
Total Interest	£20.84		+£0.14
Total Profit from sales	£25,467.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£348.44	(4.5%)	-£0.37

I had a £36 dividend from INVP:Investec, a more modest increase in value due to smaller holdings in JLP:Jubilee Metals and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, and a decent increase in potential profits of £218 mainly thanks to ALU:Alumasc Group and AMRQ:Amaroq.

I like that graceful glide up towards the injection line.

Nicely above the trend line, but is it just a short-lived Santa Rally?

We're on the trend line. Selling my SIPP AMRQ:Amaroq should keep me above it next week.

I think I'm pretty much decided on selling my SIPP holding in AMRQ:Amaroq. It doesn't qualify as a SIPP holding because it doesn't pay dividends and isn't on my magic formula ranking. Selling at Friday's close price will get me £288 (17%) profit and liberate £1,929. It's in my Hargreaves Lansdown account, which is about to get £2,400 transfer from my pension and has £300 cash, so I'll have around £4,700 to invest in one go.

It's a shame HL doesn't allow regular investments from cash balance - it only allows them via direct debit, with the new injection invested each month. AJ Bell is much better as you can set up regular investments on the cash balance. When I sell an AJ Bell share, I leave it as cash so the regular investments have a pot to use.

I should really re-invest at least some of the proceeds in gold stocks, but there are few suitable candidates. CMCL:Caledonia Mining are 115th in my magic formula ranking and have always done badly for me. They are racking up big debt for a new mine and having to sell a load of gold using Zimbabwe currency so there are too many red flags. EDV:Endeavour Mining are 138th in my magic formula ranking, but they are massively increasing both production and free cash flow, reducing debt rapidly and paying dividends, so given my holding is only up 2% due to a recent pull-back, maybe I should put all AMRQ:Amaroq proceeds there.

Meanwhile I'll continue with my original plan to invest £1,100 in both HSX:Hiscox and MGNS:Morgan Sindall, and use the rest to increase my holding in BPM:BP Marsh & Partners. It's nice to have a plan!