Week 33 Review

A short week this week, and not a great one for the FTSE 100 so no doubt not great for my portfolio either. Biggest losers were TSG:Trans Siberian Gold down 16% and JLP:Jubilee Platinum down by 12%. CWR:Ceres Power Holdings was the biggest gainer, climbing 31% and FXI:Fusionex was up by 13%.

Here's the effect on the main portfolio

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£34,806.25		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£33,668.81	(-2.8%)	-£233.40
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,468.37	(-6.7%)	-£170.91
Potential profits	£2,035.90		+£147.52
Dividends	£366.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£1,988.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£303.79		-£9.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.5%

It could have been a lot worse. Relatively small drop in portfolio value and even an increase in potential profits, in fact the first time they have been over £2,000. No dividends or sales, but next week should be interesting as I try and fathom out what the hell has happened with WRG:Wireless Group. I now have fewer shares, but appear to be getting cash for the original 250, but my share allocation has dropped to 178, with the share price just the same. I'm sure all will become clear on 1st April when the new shares kick in.

The SIPP looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£10,288.52		+£202.53
Portfolio value (share price)	£11,273.24	(+9.6%)	+£301.11
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£10,970.81	(+6.6%)	+£245.61
Potential profits	£807.67		+£260.47
Dividends	£2.64		+£0
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£126.55		-£7.91
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.8%

Well, that's a lot more pleasing than the rest of the portfolio. The latest batch of tax rebate arrived the other day, giving me £200 to spend. I couldn't afford to add any more from my bank account, so settled on sacrificing the huge commission percentage by buying 38,735 shares in WRES: W Resources. These cost 0.492p each so it feels ok spending a small amount of money for so many shares. These add to the 60,000 I bought in my standard share account for 0.698p which are not doing very well. However, I have high hopes for them in the future.

So, that explains the increase in portfolio cost - but wait - surely not - it takes the overall portfolio cost past £45,000 and warrants another "Woohoo!". I'm really quite surprised - and happy - just how rapidly each £1,000 seems to be added to the cost. OK it's not the same as it adding to the value, but it's more money injected into the process.

Despite a crappy week for the FTSE 100, the SIPP portfolio value has gone up, as have potential profits. Eight of the eleven shares are in profit, but some are different. JLP:Jubilee Platinum have had a dreadful few weeks despite releasing really positive news, so they have gone from profit to £79 loss. TRX:Tissue Regenix were doing really well but have dropped to a £10 loss. Finally, my purchase of WRES:W Resources is down by £36 for spread and commission.

Happy stories this week are CWR:Ceres Power Holdings soaring 27% above what I paid and making £334 profit - and I assure you this is just the start for the most exciting share I own. The other turn-around is CAML:Central Asia Metals which was languishing for no good reason and is now wizzing up and making £124 profit

Another short week next week to hopefully get my main portfolio back on track towards being in profit.

Week 32 Review

A week of many ups and downs, but only the one big down. AFG:Aquatic Food dropped another 10%, but that was more than made up for by a whopping gain of 32% for TRX:Tissue Regenix, 20% for RCI:Rapidcloud, 15% for FXI:Fusionex and 10% for ASHM:Ashmore Group. Biggest disappointment was SXX:Sirrius Minerals which soared on the promise of a DFS but then crashed below what it was in the first place after the document was published. Drat!

This week I looked at the interest rate on premium bonds and decided it was too pitiful to bother with, so withdrew £500 and left just £100 in my account, moving the £500 into my SIPP.

I also cancelled the standing order that tops up the premium bonds by £100 a month and instead increased my pension top-up to £160 a month which gives £40 tax rebate making £200. I took advantage of the Hargreaves Lansdown service that automatically invests the monthly amount with only a £1.50 charge. It's been a bit annoying that I have these small monthly contributions, and feel I have to add money from elsewhere to make the £11.95 commission worth paying.

I chose to automatically invest in PRU:Prudential. These are too expensive for me to buy normally, as they are around £13.70 a share, so it would take a lot of money to get a reasonable number. By gradually topping up each month, within a few years I should have a good amount. They are a good solid dividend payer with great growth potential in Asia, so I'm excited about starting to build up a holding.

Meanwhile, the £500 from premium bonds went towards my new favourite share TRX:Tissue Regenix. This has so much potential it makes me feel faint, so I bought another 2,513 at 19.425p costing £500.10. They have already climbed 8% and are £15 in profit.

Let's see how the week went

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£34,806.25		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£33,902.21	(-2.1%)	+£690.32
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,639.28	(-6.2%)	+£697.49
Potential profits	£1,888.38		+£387.54
Dividends	£366.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£1,988.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£313.28		-£10.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.8%

No extra cash or sales this week so quite straightforward to see that profits rose by £387 and paper losses reduced by about £300 resulting in a £697 improvement. Quite a good week and only a little drop in monthly performance thanks to a complete lack of dividends. The next few months should see the dividend figure rise nicely.

Here's the effect on the SIPP, which will be much more volatile

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£10,085.99		+£500.10
Portfolio value (share price)	£10,769.60	(+6.8%)	+£198.92
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£10,522.67	(+4.3%)	+£222.52
Potential profits	£547.20		+£236.47
Dividends	£2.64		+£0
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£134.46		-£8.96
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	16%

The extra money fulfilled my first target which was to get the SIPP up to £10,000. I can now rely on the monthly contributions rather than feeding more from my other share account. Once my mortgage is paid off in 4 years I'll also start paying that amount into my SIPP.

A good week, with small increases in the portfolio taking the overall profit up to 4.3%. The fact the potential profits went up more than the overall value shows some shares didn't do too well. CWR:Ceres Power Holdings is the only one in the portfolio below the price I paid for it.

No sales or dividends, so just the usual slippage in monthly performance when nothing is sold. Still averaging 16% return after 16 weeks so still no impulse to sell anything.

Looking forward to April when the new ISA year starts and I can start working out a strategy for getting shares into my ISA to shield them from tax. I've decided against using the bedding service, as you get no say as to when the shares are re-bought, so the £11.95 saving on one commission could be wiped out by bad timing. Instead I'll aim to focus on the shares I'm not so keen on, and maybe consolidate a little by buying more of my favourites. All that to look forward to in a few weeks.

Week 31 Review

The week started wonderfully well, then went a bit wrong in the middle before rebounding a bit today. Biggest disaster this week was TND:Tandem Group which dropped 32% and is making a £462 loss. RCI:Rapidcloud was best performer last week, but this week dropped 12% presumably as people took profits. Thankfully they were the only big losers, but quite a lot of little drops.

Best performer was a statistical anomaly with NTBR:Northern Bear climbing 14%. However the share price hardly moved, I just bought more shares at a much lower price and it reduced the loss percentage. APC:APC Technology climbed by 12% and is almost in profit, and MSLH:Marshalls zoomed up 12% today after a fantastic set of results, but is still down 5% from my purchase price and losing £60.

It's a complex picture this week, as there were sales and transfers of cash to muddy the waters

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£34,806.25		+£378.85
Portfolio value (share price)	£33,211.89	(-4.1%)	-£978.99
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£31,941.89	(-8.2%)	-£997.99
Potential profits	£1,500.84		-£902.28
Dividends	£366.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£1,988.25		+£810.81
Average monthly cash profit	£323.39		+£106.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.1%

The portfolio cost went up a bit thanks to the sale of GLEN:Glencore and half my holdings in TSG:Trans Siberian Gold. The portfolio value crashed down partly because of cashing in £810 worth of profit and re-investing in shares that at best stood still, as well as transferring £474.52 out of the account into my SIPP. With all that going on, it's not too bad.

No dividends this week, but a spectacular increase in average monthly profit to over £300 and a projected annual return of 11.1%. That makes me very happy - thanks Glencore!

Here's the SIPP details

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£9,585.89		+£633.95
Portfolio value (share price)	£10,070.58	(+5.1%)	-£66.55
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£9,800.05	(+2.2%)	-£118.93
Potential profits	£310.73		-£160.59
Dividends	£2.64		+£0
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£143.42		-£10.24
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	18%

A combination of profits from sales from the share account, the £100 standing order from my bank account and a little top up from my bank account increased the portfolio cost by £633 and allowed me to buy more shares in CWR:Ceres Power Holdings. They are down by 4% which explains some of the decline in portfolio value, but at least the portfolio is still in profit. Potential profits dropping by £160 reveal that it's not been a great week, and although 7 of the 9 shares are in profit, they are only just.

No sales or dividends so the average profit sneaks down a bit more and will continue to do so unless a juicy dividend arrives, as I don't plan to sell anything

A mixed week. Partly happy I ticked up another £1,000 and got out of Glencore just before it tanked, and partly disappointed that the great run of the last three weeks came to an end and I'm back to needing £3,000 for my main accounts to break even. Still well chuffed with the average of £300 a month sale and dividend profit though. Let's see what next week holds...

Addition to SIPP and a new Woohoo!

This morning I topped up my SIPP shares in CWR:Ceres Power Holdings purchasing 11,456 at 5.4295p costing £633.95. These added to my existing shares leaving me with a total of 24,927 at an average of 5.52p costing £1,398.93. Naturally they dropped 2.3% and are losing me £114.

I'm very excited about this company's product. Imagine every gas boiler including a Ceres power pack, generating electricity as it generates heat. Imagine multiple power packs powering office blocks with their own gas generators, or as part of the heating system. Imagine hydrogen-fueled electric cars without the need for huge batteries. Imagine small, clean local power stations producing efficient electricity from gas without the need for cooling towers and excess water consumption.

Of course I could be completely wrong and it may never get anywhere, but collaborating with the likes of British Gas and Honda could make some of this a reality, so I want to be along for the ride.

This purchase took the combined portfolio cost past £44K, so it's time for another "Woohoo!!"

Is it my imagination, or do the Woohoos seem to be getting more frequent?

It wasn't a great day for the portfolio. Things were looking like they were heading for a break-even, but TND:Tandem Group posted a pretty luke-warm trading statement which caused the share price to plunge 26.8% to a thumping great loss of £407.53. Very disappointing given that they still turned in a profit. The Star Wars franchise did make them money, but the bike department did rubbish.

Meanwhile LOOK:Lookers published a great set of accounts, but still dropped by a penny a share.

Yesterday's gains were all undone, so after 3 of the 5 days this week things are a bit flat. At least there were some teensy gains for the house builders rather than the usual drop and TRX:Tissue Regenix woke up to climb 4.7% after being asleep for ages.

No more money to spend now - boo hiss...

Shopping spree

Today was a torrid day for most of the portfolio, but despite losses for 60% of the shares, I ended up better off by £300. "How on earth?" I hear you cry. Well, the mystery of the RCI:Rapidcloud inexplicable price rise was revealed as they posted news that they have teamed up with Alibaba Cloud Computing. This news has clearly been leaking from somewhere over the last few weeks to cause the rise in price, although there was a big drop yesterday. The formal release of the news caused the share price to rise another 29.7% today, which sent it to £472.50 profit and obliterated the poor performance of the rest of the portfolio.

I ran out of time yesterday to say where all the cash had gone from selling GLEN:Glencore and half of my TSG:Trans Siberian Gold shares, so here's the low-down.

1,000 of the Glencore shares were in my ISA, so I wanted to get some shares that had potential for big growth in this account as any profits would be tax free.

The fist purchase was a top-up of KIBO:Kibo Mining. I'm excited about the prospects of their coal to power project and the shares have dipped lately, so buying 15,000 at 3.725p plus £5.59 stamp duty cost just £576.29. Added to my existing 8,500 that I purchased for 4.5p takes my total holding to 23,500 costing £975.12. They are currently losing £235.27 between them, but a great big chunk of that is the despicable 13% spread. It may take a few years, but one day these will do great things.

The next purchase was topping up my holdings in UCG:United Carpets. These have been a really steady share, hardly moving during the crash. Granted they hardly moved during the good periods either, but have paid a healthy £22.50 dividend. My original holding was 6,000 shares bought at 11.388p for £707.73. I added another 4,000 for 11.725p costing £492.90 to take the total holding to 10,000 costing £1,200.63. Between them they are currently losing £74.53 which is a fraction over the spread and commission. I'm confident these will be in profit following the next results.

That spent the capital from the Glencore sale and left the profits to spend, which I thought would be appropriately invested in a miner. A new miner for me - EMH:European Metals. They are active in the Czech Republic and have a project to mine lithium and tin. There's a lot of interest in this share, and I thought I'd missed my chance when they climbed 20% a few days before my purchase. I decided to buy them anyway, so used up the remaining capital in my ISA to buy 5,784 at 9.75p costing £575.89. It was a good move as they have risen 8% since yesterday and are already £19 in profit. Given that Glencore tanked by 18% today, I'm more than a little relieved I jumped ship.

That sorted out the ISA - now it was time to re-invest the cash in the normal share account.

I purchased 2,000 shares of NTBR:Northern Bear at 41p costing £831.95. These were added to my existing holding of 999 shares that were 55.8p, taking the total holding to 2,999 at an average of 45.93p costing £1,401.89. I bought these for several reasons. For one, I really like the company. They are good, solid, paying off debt, pay a dividend, and seem to be very well run. On my analysis spreadsheet they tick every box except ROCE of 7.22 when I prefer 10 (but it's still not bad) and debt 7.5 times earnings when I prefer less than 3 (but they are actively paying off debt). The other thing you notice when studying the charts, is that for the last few years the price tends to leap around the time they submit their results - in March. Will we see a repeat this year?

My final purchase yesterday was another existing share that's fallen on hard times, but where I can't see a reason and consider them to be cheap. I already held 225 shares of SGRO:Segro in my ISA that I bought at 451.26p plus £5.08 stamp duty costing £1,032.37. I added another 150 in my share account costing 412.956p plus £3.10 stamp duty, making £634.48 with commission. That leaves me with 375 costing £1,666.85. This is light purple in my analysis spreadsheet, failing only on lack of free cash flow. This appears to be because they are aggressively re-investing it to achieve growth. Their recent focus on big box logistics is a good move too, with ever increasing internet sales fueling the demand for these premises. Add to that the fact that the dividend ex-date is only 16 days away paying 10.6p a share, and the resulting £39.75 will be most welcome. The share is being hit by the crappy market at the moment, with my combined holding losing £184, but at some point this will do much better.

This still leaves me with £474.52 in the account. I've decided to wait until tomorrow when the settlement date passes, which will allow me to transfer it to my SIPP to join the £100 monthly standing order from my bank account. This will give me enough to top up one of my existing pension shares, but which one? All will be revealed tomorrow...

Goodbye Glencore

I spent the weekend fretting over GLEN:Glencore. The shares were in profit, but surely something horrible was due to happen - it has every time I thought things were turning round over the last six months. So with some regret, but also heaps of relief, I sold all my shares this morning.

I got 163.9216p for my more recent batch, making £696.50 (73.8%) profit, and my original batch sold for 164.1743p, making a loss of £126.76 (-8%), so altogether I made a profit of £569.74 (22.6%). Although the price went up a bit more during the day, and may do so again this week, I don't care. A few weeks ago I thought I was set for a big loss, and I got £2,500 to do some shopping this morning.

I also decided to try a new tactic over the weekend.

I have some shares that I'm loathe to let go of. They may have run their course, but they may not, so is there a way I can have my cake and eat it?
I read something on a bulletin board where somebody had sold a share to get back their initial investment. The shares left over were in effect "free shares". It means I don't get an instant increase in my portfolio cost, which is one of my key measures of progress, but it allows me to switch my capital to a potential growth share without losing out on any future gains on the original stock.

I thought I would try this concept.

TSG:Trans Siberian Gold have increased by 123% since I bought them. According to my analysis spreadsheet a "fair price" based on their 2014 financial returns is 40p, but they are now trading at 42p. I believe their 2015 report could be worse, as the price of gold has been so low, although they have increased production so may have made a profit. They do not currently pay a dividend, unlike most of the other gold miners, so any profits will need to come from increases in share price.

I decided to sell 1,152 of my shares, keeping 1,000. This gets me back my initial investment but still leaves me with a decent chunk of free shares to ride any further benefits from the surge in gold. I'm happy to hold these forever, as they didn't cost me anything. The ones I sold gave me a £241.05 profit (105%)

So about £3,000 to spend this morning, and a plan hatched over the weekend to shore up some of my favourite existing shares, plus one newcomer that I couldn't resist. No time to write about them today, so all the details tomorrow.

Week 30 Review

What a week! I kept waiting for it to go horribly wrong but it just kept giving right up to the end. The only double-digit loser was KIBO:Kibo Mining which dropped by 19% after a share placing.

The winner for most outrageous rise was RCI:Rapidcloud, climbing 61% and going into profit for the first time. Next best was GLEN:Glencore rising 22% and also going into profit for the first time. SXX:Sirrius Minerals climbed 20%, ASHM:Ashmore Group 18%, APC:APC Technology 17%, TSG:Trans Siberian Gold 13% and AA:Alcoa 10%. I won't get many weeks like that again.

Here's the dramatic effect on the main portfolio

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£34,427.40		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£33,812.03	(-1.2%)	+£1,093.43
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,560.93	(-5.4%)	+£1,014.91
Potential profits	£2,403.12		+£517.10
Dividends	£366.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£1,177.44		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£217.05		-£8.04
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	7.6%

No changes to portfolio cost to confuse things this week, just a nice increase in value of £1,000 making it nearly £3,000 in three weeks. Potential profits have also gone up by over £500 this week. I think in the past I would have sold something to bank some of the gains and add more to the portfolio cost, but I couldn't bring myself to sell any of my in-profit shares. It's particularly difficult, as I have so many potential buys, one of which went up 20% today so I may have missed my chance.

I've changed one of the measures. The figures in brackets next to the portfolio value and sell value used to show the difference between the cost and the current value. I decided you could work that out easily enough just by looking, so have changed it to show the difference as a percentage up or down from the cost price. Based on share price I'm perilously close to break-even, but 41 lots of commission hammers the sell price and leaves it 5.4% down on the original cost.

No sales or dividends means the average monthly profit is down by £8 but still above £200, and the average annual return drops to 7.6% but is still above my 6% target

The SIPP looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£8,951.94		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£9,503.18	(+6.2%)	+£515.68
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£9,285.03	(+3.7%)	+£475.56
Potential profits	£471.32		+£240.73
Dividends	£2.64		+£2.64
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£153.66		-£12.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	20.6%

Wonderful to see the portfolio value higher than the cost, with a satisfying 3.7% increase on the sell value. Potential profits have increased by £240 and 6 of the 9 shares are showing a profit. There was also my first dividend on this account - a huge £2.64 from AA:Alcoa. That wasn't enough to prevent my average monthly sale/dividend profits slipping but the average return is still over 20%.

Only real downer for the week was the dreadful performance of the house builders. I checked the trades again for today, and they all had significantly more buys than sells. The price drop doesn't make any sense. I wish I had spare capital to pile in there before the dividend cutoff dates. [Edit 5th March - done some research and for the number of shares I have the dividends are quite puny, so think I'll just hold what I have and hope the prices go up]

Not sure what next week will bring. JLP:Jubilee Platinum would seem to be close to starting production, and I keep waiting on news as I have 67,781 shares in this one and am pinning lots of hopes on it. With platinum prices increasing steadily, there's heaps of potential if they could just deliver a product. I need a couple more brilliant weeks for the main portfolio to break even. That would be a red letter day, especially after being nearly £5,000 in the red a few weeks ago. I'm glad that my nerve held strong, especially with the likes of GLEN:Glencore and RCI:Rapidcloud where I just couldn't see the extreme price drops were justified. They've both gone from my worst shares to some of my best shares in a few weeks. Where to next?

Pension portfolio goes into profit

The great week continues, despite a small dip in the FTSE 100 today

The pension portfolio returned to profit for the first time since a few weeks after I opened the account, so a very good reason to celebrate.

Although a few of the shares dropped slightly, a whopping 7.2% increase in ASHM:Ashmore Group took that share within £3 of being in profit and cancelled out the other dips.

The portfolio is now £108.86 in profit based on the bid price and commission, which is the most pessimistic measure.

Meanwhile my former nemesis shares are still going mad.

GLEN:Glencore is up another 5.6% and is £168 in profit, so my joy yesterday at being £19 in profit has now been compounded.

RCI:Rapidcloud is on steroids, gaining another 14.3% and standing at £183 in profit. I really wish I knew why this has climbed by about 200% in a week. Actually - I don't really care. Just extraordinarily happy it has!

It would have been an almost perfect day if not for the plight of the house builders, which are all dropping by a couple of percent a day and widening my losses. I'm suspicious though. BDEV:Barratt Developments is showing more buys than sells during normal trading hours, but has dropped by 2.4%. TW.:Taylor Wimpey have had 1,000,000 more buys than sells and have dropped 2.2%. RDW:Redrow on the other hand have had 3 times as many sells as buys and have dropped 3%. So it appears there's no relationship between the price of the share and the supply and demand of the shares. I just wish I had some spare cash to top up, as there are big juicy dividends coming from all of them in a few months.

KIBO:Kibo Mining dropped 10% today following a share issue, which was somewhat disappointing. WRES:W Resources also dropped 10% after a good day yesterday. SXX:Sirius Minerals climbed 14% which helped redress the balance, but my investment is so small it didn't make much difference.

After it all settles down the portfolio in the main accounts is up by about £200 today, which is the 4th consecutive rise. Just one more good day and I'll truly look forward to writing the weekly review.

Time to go to the pub...

Break out the beer - Glencore is making a profit!

It's happened at last. Despite yesterday's annual returns showing a thumping great loss, the GLEN:Glencore share price has bounced back 3.8% today, which is enough to take my combined holdings to £19.71 profit!

I never thought I would see the day. From the moment I bought them they have plummeted, until just a few weeks ago when the meteoric rise began. £1,100 loss to £19.71 profit in 3 weeks.

I'm a bit torn now. If I sell the lot I'll have £2,500 to invest in something less traumatic. However, there seems to be a positive sentiment towards Glencore that I've not seen before. There's a chance this ride has yet more excitement to offer. Every 1p increase in the share price is worth £20.

If the turnaround of Glencore wasn't enough to make my day, imagine my surprise to find another phenomenal turnaround share also going into profit. On 17th February I declared that Glencore was no longer my nemesis share, and I had three contenders for the title. AFG:Aquatic Food, FXI:Fusionex and RCI:Rapidcloud.

AFG:Aquatic Food won the title, and since then luke-warm annual returns have caused the share to fall even further, now down 69% and making a £863.90 loss. By far my nemesis share, so that's not the turn-around.

FXI:Fusionex continued to drop, until today when they issued a statement that they are partnering with American company Cloudera. This caused a 7.1% gain in the share price, but they are still 12% down and losing £186.40. This does remove them from contention as a nemesis share, but is still not the great turn-around.

That leaves RCI:Rapidcloud. Their share price climbed another 21.1% today. From 17th February when they were 65% down on my purchase price and losing £734, they are now up by 9% and making £13.50 profit (there's a massive spread on this one). There is still no news as to why the price has risen so much this week. I don't really care - it's had a superb effect on my portfolio performance, with the paper losses from January more than halved. This is despite some of my "safe" shares doing really badly.

LOOK:Lookers is down 8% and losing £227, MSLH:Marshalls is down 17% and losing £151, TW.:Taylor Wimpey is down 9% and losing £138, SGRO:Segro is down 9% and losing £115, and BDEV:Barratt Developments is down 12% and losing £108. None of these were risky shares - they are the mainstream yet doing really badly and not bouncing back.

Meanwhile, in the SIPP I was almost celebrating the whole portfolio going into profit. AA:Alcoa is going bonkers, and went in to profit today, up 8% since I purchased and making £36.80. Five out of nine of my SIPP shares are now in profit, but a drop in HGM:Highland Gold today was enough to prevent the portfolio going into profit. However, the loss is only £20.89 so if nothing horrible happens, there's a chance of good news soon.

So far this is the best week since I started investing, despite the FTSE 100 not doing a lot over the last few days. I've learned that things rarely keep going well for a whole week, so I will steel myself for something nasty happening tomorrow, but it would be so nice if there were just two more days of stability.

Now where's that beer...