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.