Week 38 Review

Yet another week that started off quite well and then fell apart on Friday. A rather irritating trend! Biggest loser this week was BLUR:Blur Group which fell 13% after fairly dire results. So happy that I bought such a small holding as these don't show any signs of improving. The other double-digit loser was MMX:Minds + Machines which fell 11% after spectacularly disappointing results. All had been quite upbeat recently, so I wasn't expecting a thumping great loss for the year. This threatens to be a value trap for some time now, although I still believe they will eventually return a profit. Just relieved I sold a batch for £20 profit a few weeks ago and liberated £500 that would have been trapped.

There were a few good performers this week. SXX:Sirrius Minerals climbed 12% and are almost in profit, and share of the week KIBO:Kibo Mining are finally starting to show their true quality, with an amazing 31% rise taking them to £234 profit. I'm confident this is just the start for Kibo, which has enormous long term potential.

Here's the effect of the week on the main portfolio

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£36,372.15		+£178.91
Portfolio value (share price)	£35,104.78	(-3%)	+£28.65
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£34,031.20	(-6.4%)	+£134.46
Potential profits	£2,421.22		+£34.30
Dividends	£437.17		+£14.40
Profit from sales	£2,809.51		+£178.95
Average monthly cash profit	£365.07		+£12.78
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12%

The £178.95 profit was from selling 1,000 of my TON:Titon Holdings shares to buy a load more AMYT:Amryt Pharma shares. That also explains the increase in portfolio cost of £178.91 as the profits were re-invested. Fat lot of good it did, with the Amryt shares dropping 10%. I still think the quality of the people involved in this company will see it come good in time.

Rare to see the increase in bid price substantially better than the rise in share price, suggesting a narrowing of the spread. One dividend this week from CMCL:Caledonia Mining of £14.24, and there was 16p back from AMYT:Amryt Pharma for the fractional difference when shares were consolidated, which I counted as a dividend.

The effect of all that was a slight increase in portfolio value and an increase of £12.78 in the average monthly profit. When I started out, I really didn't think that I'd be looking at £365 a month profit compared to the £40 a month interest I was earning. It's very encouraging.

The pension fund now looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£11,318.28		+£6.61
Portfolio value (share price)	£13,095.39	(+15.7%)	-£19.61
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£12,807.72	(+13.2%)	-£57.71
Potential profits	£1,756.74		-£14.29
Dividends	£21.14		+£0
Profit from sales	£699.89		+£8.03
Average monthly cash profit	£139.89		-£5.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.8%

A massive profit of £8.03 from baling out of LLOY:Lloyds Bank enabled me to increase my holding in CAML:Central Asia Metals before the dividend ex-date. The Lloyds share price did drop following their results, but not as much as I had feared. Unfortunately Central Asia Metals dropped 3% this week so I'm no better off, but I will be when the 4.3% dividend appears.

The first week in a while that the SIPP has performed worse than the other portfolio. The main issue was shares slipping to loss, with ALM:Allied Minds, ARL:Atlantis Resources, JLG:John Laing Group and TRX:Tissue Regenix all increasing losses. AA:Alcoa have risen 7% and HGM:Highlind Gold 5% to help offset these losses. I'm hoping the dodgy performances are just a blip.

What does next week hold? The big hope next week is OPTI:Optibiotix Healthcare. There has been oodles of coverage in the national press this week, and there's an investor meeting today that could see the launch of important news. They are already up 4% making £23 profit, but next week could see the shares take off in a big way. I really wish I had spare cash to get some more. I've already come close to taking a loss in order to buy some, but can't bring myself to do it. I've also toyed with selling some GVC:GVC Holdings shares to take some profit, but with them about to enter the premium market and get picked up by FTSE 250 tracker funds, I daren't sell any yet. Maybe I'll take a close look at some of my in-profit shares to see if they are likely to outperform Optibiotix...

Time to bail out of banks

I decided to bail out of the banking sector today. LLOY:Lloyds are due to give a trading update on Thursday so I figure there's a risk the share price will drop, and although by selling them this morning I only made a profit of £8 (1.1%) I wanted to get out of a risky sector. I don't see any great reason for optimism in banks, especially with PPI being around for another 2 years, and the final straw was reading an blog from Woodford Investment Trust about why they are avoiding the banking sector.

I wanted to consolidate my holdings in CAML:Central Asia Metals. I am so impressed with this company I want to increase my position, and the dividend ex-date is approaching, which is worth 8p a share (4.36%). Their total dividend for the year is 12.5p which is a fantastic 6.8% yield. Since listing in 2012 they have now returned more in dividends than their original listing revenue, and have heaps of cash left over. They can produce copper way cheaper than the selling price, and so are continuing to make big profits despite the crash in copper prices. They are also about to significantly step up the amount they produce.

I bought 436 more shares at 182.9074p costing £806.43. That takes my total holding to 1,787 shares costing a weighted average of 156.76p. They are £377 in profit and the dividend payout should be worth £142. The share price went up 3.4% after the purchase, as opposed to Lloyds which dropped 0.6%. I'm happy at the moment - but I may be howling on Thursday if Lloyds deliver a positive update and their shares soar!

I also decided to increase my holding in AMYT:Amryt Pharma. The main reason is the strength of their board of directors. They have plucked some of the leading lights from SHP:Shire, and already have a licensed product so should be bringing in revenue from the start. I purchased another 5,020 shares at 19.8p costing £1,002.91, taking my total holding to 10,606 shares costing £2,301.86. It's tricky to know what the average price was, as they were consolidated from FAST:Fastnet Equity and are split across 2 accounts, but it would have been about 21.6p so I am currently £257 down. However, I want to be in at the beginning for this one, as it could go far.

In order to raise the cash for this purchase, I reluctantly sold 1,000 of my 2,400 shares in TON:Titon Holdings making a profit of £178.95 (19.6%). Regrettable that these went on to climb 4.8% today, so my timing could have been a bit better. However I still have 1,400 left which are at £282 profit. Amryt didn't move today, so at least I didn't lose any more, but if I'd waited until tomorrow I could have made more in a day than I did holding Lloyds for the last few months. I still think it will be worth the hit now for the potential growth of Amryt.

Meanwhile it was a great day for GVC:GVC Holdings climbing 4.6% after their trading update. These are now in profit by a stunning £925 and by far my most profitable ever share. That's mainly because I spent £3,000 buying them in the first place, far more than any other share.

If the rest of the week goes as well as today, I'll be very happy - but that doesn't seem to happen very often...

Week 37 Review

The week started off really well and then turned bad towards the end - really bad for some shares. This seems to be a familiar story over the last few weeks. It would be nice to have a more up-beat Friday.

Biggest disaster was AFPO:African Potash which plunged 22% and is now losing 59%. This is a paper loss of £510 leaving the shares only worth £197. I fear they are incapable of achieving anything other than hollow deals and will almost certainly go bust. I should probably sell to get my £197 back, but it's a fairly small amount so I'll keep the shares on the off-chance they do stay in business.

The other poor performer was TRK:Torotrak which announced abandonment of its attempts to get a KERS system into buses. It appears fuel is so cheap that the incentive to improve efficiency has removed demand for their product. The shares dropped by 13% but I bought such a tiny amount my paper loss is less than £50.

Two of my favourite tiny shares had a really good week. CRL:Creightons rose by 13% and is only losing commission, and UCG:United Carpets also climbed 13% after announcing performance ahead of expectations to give me a profit of £49. Things are looking promising at KIBO:Kibo Mining after some recent jitters, seeing a rise of 18% in the share price this week. It was enough to take me within £60 of profit. The share of the week is HGM:Highland Gold, climbing 26% this is now 76% up on my purchase price and making £759 profit for my pension. They also pay gigantic dividends and the price of gold shows no sign of falling.

It's going to be tricky making out what's going on this week, as there have been so many sales and transfers, everything is a bit in the air.

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£36,193.24		+£687.62
Portfolio value (share price)	£34,897.22	(-3.1%)	-£251.12
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£33,717.83	(-6.8%)	-£239.15
Potential profits	£2,386.92		-£55.98
Dividends	£422.77		+£13.98
Profit from sales	£2,630.56		-£10.30
Average monthly cash profit	£352.29		-£9.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.7%

The portfolio cost wasn't meant to go up, as I was meant to sell enough shares to cover the new ones I bought in my ISA. Although I sold RNK:Rank Group for a £10.30 loss and transferred the money out to my current account, I didn't sell one of the other shares to repay the holiday money I borrowed. I need a share to recover to profit before I replenish that.

If you take off the extra capital injected, the shares dropped in value by £240 so the end of week dip zapped any gains over the first few days. Potential profits only dipped by £55, so it was the loss-making shares that did the damage - in fact it was AFPO:African Potash that did the damage all by itself!

One dividend of £13.98 from FXI:Fusionex was welcome, particularly as that share is also standing at a £73 profit. Overall monthly performance just dropped by £9 and is still comfortably over 10%. Still a long way from the portfolio being in profit though.

The SIPP looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£11,311.67		+£865.13
Portfolio value (share price)	£13,108.39	(+15.9%)	+£157.71
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£12,858.82	(+13.7%)	+£186.75
Potential profits	£1,771.03		+£258.16
Dividends	£21.14		+£0
Profit from sales	£691.86		+£191.61
Average monthly cash profit	£144.90		+£34.27
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	15.4%

Increase in cost was from £500 tax rebate, £150 added from my current account and £191 profits from selling UTW:Utilitywise and ASHM:Ashmore Group. I mentioned the purchase of ALM:Allied Minds the other day, and they are doing OK with a £29 profit already.

With the tax rebate and current account contribution I bought 1020 shares in ARL:Atlantis Resources at 63.79p costing £659.61. These were next on my list the other week, but I thought I'd missed my chance as they had shot so high. However, the price dropped following a placing, and news emerged about setting up in Indonesia which has incredible potential for tidal power. When the tax rebate appeared I couldn't resist my chance to get involved with this exciting company.

Things are looking much better for the pension than the other accounts, with an increase of about £186 and another £258 potential profit. JLP:Jubilee Platinum and WRES:W Resources have rather let the side down, extending their losses, but hopefully not for long as these are very promising companies.

The sales also helped the sales/dividend profit, up to a healthy 15.4% of the portfolio value, and with the portfolio itself up 13.7% on cost, things are looking very good.

No prospect of anything interesting happening next week, other than renewing my attempts to get my holiday money back. I think I am allowed an official "Woohoo!" today though, as the combined portfolio cost is £47,504.91 which means even if I sell £800 worth of shares for my holiday fund, I've still easily passed £46,000 which is when my next one was due. Not too long before the big £50,000 milestone. I never dreamed I would reach that in the first 12 months.

All Change

I did a bit of a re-shuffle this morning after my ability to resist two of my favourite potential shares crumbled and I had to find a way to buy them. Monday also saw a major purchase as I topped up an existing share.

I've been waiting for the right time to sell my shares in RNK:Rank Group. The right time was actually about four months ago when they were making a decent profit, but after the crash they've been crawling back up like a snail and I really wanted to invest in something else. I sold them this morning for 252.5775p after buying them for 249.1023p about nine months ago. This made a loss of £10.30, but as I've had £29 dividends, I see it as a gain of £18.70. A bit puny, but I was desperate to get my hands on OPTI:Optibiotix.

As it was pay day on Friday, I had enough cash to prime my ISA now, and will withdraw the £1,200 from selling Rank back into my bank account to replace it after the settlement date. I purchased 1,350 shares of OPTI:Optibiotix at 77.7p costing £1,057.90. They are an exceptionally exciting company, developing a suite of food additives that help treat various conditions like diabetes and obesity. The additives modify the human biome to influence the body's metabolism and physiology, helping manage cholesterol, suppress appetite and change metabolic rate. Optibiotix are in partnership with several food producers and have enough cash for several years until profits are generated. The potential market is utterly massive, so this is up there with CWR:Ceres Power Holdings and TRX:Tissue Regenix as one of my potential global game-changer shares. They stayed flat today so I'm just losing commission and spread.

In anticipation of selling some more shares (which I've not quite got round to doing yet) I also added another £1,000 to my ISA after borrowing from my holiday account in order to buy more FAST:Fastnet Equity shares.  I bought 30,000 at 2.95p costing £893.95. The next day these and my existing shares were consolidated by 8 and became AMYT:Amryt Pharma, so I now have a total of 5,586 shares at around 23p each costing £1,298.95. I was really excited these would take off, but today they dropped 10.5% and I'm losing £177. Bugger! However, I am undaunted due to the prowess of the Board of the new company. It includes some incredibly experienced individuals so despite the disappointing start, I have great confidence in the future of this share.

Meanwhile, I wanted to add a new share to my SIPP. I've been looking at ALM:Allied Minds for a long time. They are not making profit, but have invested in startup companies using new technology developed in universities. They have loads of them, but all are at startup so not bringing in profits. The long term potential is terrific, and they have the backing of the great fund manager Neil Woodford, who is still adding more and considers them undervalued.

I had been concerned with the long-term value of two of my SIPP shares, so sold them this morning to free up the capital to buy ALM:Allied Minds. I bought 429 at 383.88p plus £8.23 stamp duty costing £1,664.03. I'm very happy to say they increased by 8.5% today and are already showing £64 profit - clawing back half of what I lost today on AMYT:Amryt Pharma. I like to think these could go sky high over the next few years as their companies start to deliver profit.

The first share I sold to pay for these was UTW:Utilitywise. This was the second time I had owned the shares, after making £366 (25.5%) profit the first time on a much bigger holding. this time I only made £41.69 (7.4%). I sold following their recent half-year results which I thought were OK, but debt is up and cash is down, so a worthy sacrifice to switch to Allied Minds, providing £552 of the capital I needed.

The second share I sold was ASHM:Ashmore. These have been really good, but I've been jittery for a while due to their reliance on emerging markets, which  ironically is the main driver for the recent upswing. I decided that a 15.8% profit of £149.92 plus £16.84 dividend was enough for me, and the sale provided another £1,097 towards Allied Minds. Given the resulting £64 profit in one day, I'm pretty happy - if I forget about the Amryt Pharma annoyance.

In theory I should do another "Woohoo!" as the result of all this is the portfolio cost going well over £46,000. However, I need to return another £700 back to my current account to re-stock my holiday fund, and the sale I have in mind will take me back under £46,000, so I'll hold fire on any celebration until the deal is done. I don't have to pay for my holiday for a few months, so I guess it's better off in here for now. However I'd rather have it ultra-liquid rather than risk having to take a loss to get at it - and the 3-day settlement period means it's not available instantly if required.

The pension fund is going bonkers now. £152 per month profit from sales and dividends gives a projected 17% return, and the sell value of the portfolio is up by £1,752 on cost which is 16.4%. That's in just under 5 months when the stock market has been a complete nightmare. It's certainly better than my main portfolio, which although making a projected 12% profit on sales and dividends, is making a paper loss of £2,376 which is -6.6%. A big chunk of that is down to house builders and my nemesis share AFG:Aquatic Food. However, nemesis shares have turned around before, and even the seemingly hopeless RDT:Rosslyn Data is on a bit of a surge this week after rumours Microsoft want to buy them out. Just need the share price to recover the remaining 40% loss before that happens!

Week 36 Review

The week started off brilliantly, but rather tailed off at the end. Only one double-digit loser and that was symptomatic of the house builder malaise, as BDEV:Barratt Developments dropped 10% and is now down by 23% and making a £176 loss.

Some great performers this week with RCI:Rapidcloud climbing 10% and showing £421 profit, CWR:Ceres Power Holdings climbing 13% with £520 profit, HGM:Highland Gold climbing 18% with £474 profit and share of the week for the 2nd week in a row is EMH:European Metals climbing 26% to a £221.

Here's the main portfolio performance

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£35,505.62		-£23.90
Portfolio value (share price)	£34,460.72	(-2.5%)	+£413.48
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£33,269.36	(-6.3%)	+£364.20
Potential profits	£2,442.90		+£554.26
Dividends	£408.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£2,640.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£361.63		-£10.33
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.2%

No injections this week, but cost is reduced by £23.90 after discovering an admin error. I had added £11.95 commission onto an existing line in my spreadsheet for UCG:United Carpets when I topped up, but then realised I had them in different accounts so instead added it as a new line by copying the original line - along with it's 2 commissions. Now this has been corrected the cost sneaks down.

A good week in the end, with potential profits up by over £550, but losses deepened as overall the sell value increased by less. That was mainly down to house builders which have dropped all week.

Average monthly profit is still well over 10% but I'm getting really twitchy about the shares I want to sell when they get into profit, if only they would just sneak up a few more percent.

The SIPP looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£10,446.54		+£158.02
Portfolio value (share price)	£12,085.55	(+15.9%)	+£628.64
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£11,806.94	(+13%)	+£550.38
Potential profits	£1,512.87		+£554.10
Dividends	£21.14		+£0
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£110.63		-£5.82
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.7%

The share cost went up thanks to my monthly auto investment in JLG:John Laing Group. I purchased 68 shares at 229.032p with 78p stamp duty and £1.50 commission. I do like this way of trickle buying shares each month. I'll probably keep it going until I have 1,000 then switch to another company.

Great increases in price this week, with 7 shares in profit, 3 only losing commission and 2 making full loss. With the sell value 13% higher than cost and 12.7% profit on sales, I wish my other accounts were as healthy as this. Best performer is HGM:Highland Gold which is up 47% from when I bought it. Biggest cash profit is CWR:Ceres Power Holdings which is up by £520 and 40% higher than purchase price.

So a generally positive week all round. Lets hope I can finally ditch my under achievers next week and get my hands on the shares I'm itching to buy...

Week 35 Review

It was looking like a pretty poor week until Friday when things perked up a bit. Biggest loser was UTW:Utilitywise. This has always been volatile, but a drop of 13% this week sent it from profit to loss. RCI:Rapidcloud was the other double-digit loser, dropping 10% but this is still 35% up and making £319 profit. Not a double-digit drop, but AFG:Aquatic Food Group dropped another 9% and is losing £923, with the shares only worth £138 now. I still believe this is a sound company, but it's crippling my portfolio performance statistics

On a lighter note, TRK:Torotrak gained 10% and broke through the psycological 5p barrier. Still no sign of selling anything though. SXX:Sirius Minerals climbed 14% but this just made up for the crazy drop following the results of the DFS. At least these are only 2% down overall. Very happy to say that the recent purchase with my GLEN:Glencore profits, EMH:European Metals has climbed 33% this week and is up 18% since the purchase, with £77 profit and wins the share of the week award.

The main portfolio has undergone lots of change this week, with the sell-off on Monday and transfer to ISA on Wednesday. Between them the new purchases are already up by £76.25 so I'm happy with that. Let's see what the stats say

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£35,529.52		+£861.94
Portfolio value (share price)	£34,071.14	(-3.6%)	-£787.34
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,929.06	(-7.3%)	-£558.52
Potential profits	£1,888.64		-£490.75
Dividends	£408.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£2,640.86		+£652.61
Average monthly cash profit	£371.96		+£71.75
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.6%

Portfolio cost went up quite a bit thanks to Monday's sales and the cash back from WLG:Wireless Group that caused a drop in cost last week, but not quite enough for a new "Woohoo". That will come next week I hope.

How to decipher whether it's been a good week? The profit from sales was £652 and the sell price has fallen less than that. Also the potential profits have dropped by less than the £652, so it suggests the week has seen a gain of around £100.

Performance on sales and dividends looks great, with the average monthly profit climbing by £71. This is encouraging given it's over a nearly 9 month period. The portfolio value is down 7.3% on purchase price, but profits and dividends exceed that loss, so things are better than they were when I started even with the paper losses.

There was a return of £1.05 from WLG:Wireless Group, which was the fractional difference when consolidating the shares. I've treated this the same as the return of cash and just ignored it, as it doesn't seem right to treat it as a dividend when my share allocation dropped as a result. It appears the subsequent re-rating of the shares putting them at £15 profit so far is where the real benefit has come from in this deal.

The SIPP looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£10,288.52		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£11,298.89	(+10%)	-£144.24
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£11,098.54	(+7.8%)	-£72.87
Potential profits	£958.77		-£18.97
Dividends	£21.14		+£0
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£116.45		-£7.52
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	13.6%

Not a great week for the pension fund, with a slight loss in portfolio value. The shares that are in profit didn't do too bad, but the ones hovering on the verge of profit dropped into loss, especially UTW:Utilitywise which dragged everything down.

Percentage return still holds above 10%. I may get a bit twitchy when that drops below, as although the portfolio is in profit, I like to think the profit from sales are a key to growth. Having said that, the investment gurus say you should aim to hold a share forever, so maybe I should adopt that tactic for the SIPP, where I'm already building a bias towards high yield dividends.

The £160 order for my automatic monthly investment appeared in the account on Thursday, but it's showing as a pending order for Monday, so I'll get back into JLG:John Laing Group then, and start to build a holding gradually over the months

ISA Additions

This morning saw three new additions to my ISA, purchased with the cash transferred from my share account following Monday's selling spree.

The first thing I did was get back into CMCL:Caledonia Mining, albeit at a lower level than I was before. I purchased 1,800 shares at 55.95p which isn't bad, as I received 55.5p when I sold them on Monday and I was expecting a bigger spread. That came to £1,016.05 with commission, which is now down to £8.95. I'm happy to say they went up by 6.2% today so are already making £16 profit.

The next purchase was one I've been twitching about for a long time, particularly when I found out they were about to merge with SKP:Skyepharma to create a pharmaceutical giant. I bought 700 shares in VEC:Vectura for 161.554p plus £5.65 stamp duty costing £1,145.48. These sneaked a little higher on the day, but not enough to make up the spread and commission so I'm down £23. I feel a huge sense of relief now I have these safely in my ISA, as although there may still be a hit as a result of the merger, the opportunity for growth seems immense.

The final share purchase was the most contrarian I've made for a while. I bought 278 shares of SPD:Sports Direct at 379.53p costing £1,064.04. These were sailing at 800p in autumn before crashing down on news of a slow winter caused by the mild weather. Mike Ashley didn't help by saying the profits were going to be at the low end of their expectations and "in trouble". However, Sports Direct are still huge, have a massive presence on the Internet, and with Euro 2016 and the Olympics coming up in a few months, their business should go back to normal, at which time I can't see any reason for the share price not to return to 800p. They are pale purple on my research spreadsheet, which means only one criteria doesn't light up green and that's price to NTA ratio of 2.45 when I prefer 1.2 or less. Their free cash flow ratio is 58% when I look for over 50%, ROCE 22.53% when I look for over 10%, 22.5 rule only 17.45, PE ratio 9.14 when anything under 15 is cheap, and very little debt. With fundamentals like that I'm confident in a recovery.

I still have some shares in my standard account I want to get rid of, but they steadfastly refuse to return to profit. They are only down by £36.69, £28.23 and £53.23 and would liberate £2,700. I just hate the idea of making a loss on shares that I know are lower than they should be, so will hang on a bit longer for a turnaround. I can't wait forever though, as the replacement shares I have my eye on could take off any day. Actually, one already has. ARL:Atlantis Resources is next on my list and has climbed 12% today while Sports Direct was dropping - bugger! I may have missed the boat on this one as by the time I free up capital, the re-rating will have finished and I'll be too late.

My first monthly auto-purchase of SIPP shares should trigger tomorrow, with £160 of JLG:John Laing Group shares. It will take my overall portfolio cost up to £45,978, just £22 away from another "Woohoo!". I could have added that to my ISA this morning if I'd thought. That's more incentive to allow one of my "to be sold" shares to get to at least £22 profit before selling.

Pre-ISA Sell-off

Yesterday saw a bit of a sell-off. I disposed of some shares that were either not performing terribly well or where I'd rather have them in my ISA and happy to take some profit and reduce my holding a bit.

First to go was the rest of my TSG:Trans Siberian Gold shares. I held onto 1,000 when I sold the rest, with the aim of getting my initial investment back and keeping the profits as "free" shares. However, they've been dropping like a stone and I need the money for something else. The 1,000 sold at 32.55 making a profit of £132.55 (66.1%), but based on these being the leftovers from the original purchase, the overall profit was £316.55.

Next I off-loaded APC:APC Technology. I'm still intrigued by their "Minimise" subsidiary, but they don't really meet my investment criteria, so I got rid of my 5,700 for 9.15p making £25.41 (4.4%) profit and liberated the capital.

My next luke-warm share to off-load was MMX:Minds + Machines. I had high hopes for these but they seem stuck in a rut. I still hold 12,000 in my ISA but decided to get rid of the 6,000 in my main account for 9p, making a tiny profit of £20.55 (3.2%), but again liberating cash for better things.

The last share I don't want to get rid of, and plan to buy back in as soon as the money is transferred. Unfortunately there's a big spread so I won't buy back as many as I sold, and I want to put some of the profit towards something with better growth potential. I sold 3,000 shares in CMCL:Caledonia Mining for 55.5p making a profit of £474.10 (39.4%). I'll only be able to buy back 1,700, but I'm hoping the share the rest goes towards will do something fairly spectacular.

So, the upshot is that I have £3,200 in my standard share account that I can transfer to my ISA in the morning as I start using up my 2016/17 allowance.

I've already planned what to buy, so watch this space to find out...

Week 34 Review

Given this has been a short week, there's been a lot happening.

Biggest faller this week was TSG:Trans Siberian Gold which dropped 27%. It's still up 74% and these are my "free" shares anyway, so I'll just hold on and see what happens. The other double-digit faller was AFPO:African Potash which dropped 10% and is now 45% down on what I paid. I'm getting increasingly concerned about this one, as they have failed miserably to secure payment for their initial fertiliser trades and their mining exploration licence has expired. I think we can see why the share price is dropping.

Double digit risers this week were CMCL:Caledonia Mining and FAST:Fastnet Equity both up 15%. Fastnet had been suspended pending a reverse takeover, so it's not surprising they have done well on re-admission to the market. I only have a token holding, but hoping these have a long way to go yet. The other double digit riser was WLG:Wireless Group, climbing by 13% after their "payout" to shareholders, of which more below.

The payout appeared from WLG:Wireless Group following their sale of UTV, but I'm not exactly sure how I get to benefit from it. They have reduced my share holding from 250 to 178 and effectively paid me back the difference from what I paid originally. It's almost as if they forced me to sell some of my shares for no loss. Granted, there has now been a dramatic reduction in the shares issued, but I don't feel materially better off as a result of the transaction. However, the share price has increased by 13% and they are now in profit a tiny amount, so maybe the gains will come over the next few weeks. I also have the £138 to put in my ISA in a few days.

Meanwhile a quick check of my StockTrade account revealed that PUR:Pure Wafer have dished out another £24 as part of their liquidation. I wasn't expecting anything until September so it's a bit of a bonus. In theory there should be about £50 more to come at some point.


The effect on the main portfolio looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£34,667.58		-£138.67
Portfolio value (share price)	£33,996.54	(-1.4%)	+£466.40
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,625.64	(-5.9%)	+£295.94
Potential profits	£2,379.39		+£343.49
Dividends	£408.79		+£42
Profit from sales	£1,988.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£300.21		-£3.58
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.4%

Portfolio cost came down thanks to the WLG:Wireless Group faffing about and dips me below £45K until I can re-invest the proceeds. Spread must have widened significantly as the share price value went up a lot more than the sell value. A healthy £42 of dividends consisted of £9 from RNK:Rank Group and £24 from PUR:Pure Wafer as their liquidation spits out a bit more cash. There was another £9 from RDW:Redrow.

The dividends weren't quite enough to keep the average monthly profit from dropping, but we are still above 10%

Next week I can start working out what to sell in order to feed my ISA. I have some lacklustre shares I've earmarked for sale but they are currently making a small loss. Big decision whether to take the loss to free up the capital or hang on for them to get back into profit. I have two shares that I'm really keen to buy before they shoot upwards, which I firmly believe they both will. It will be gutting if I miss out on them because I dithered over losing a few quid. 6th April is ISA day, and it usually takes 3 days to settle the sales, so I should really aim to sell on Monday - or should I hang on?

Here's the SIPP performance

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£10,288.52		+£0
Portfolio value (share price)	£11,443.13	(+11.4%)	+£169.89
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£11,171.41	(+8.6%)	+£200.60
Potential profits	£977.74		+£170.07
Dividends	£21.14		+£18.50
Profit from sales	£500.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£123.97		-£2.58
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.5%

I'm starting to enjoy reporting on the SIPP. Great profits on CWR:Ceres Power Holdings, HGM:Highland Gold and CAML:Central Asia Metals all powering the performance upwards. At last some proper dividends, with £1.66 from SLI:Standard Life Property Investments and £16.84 from ASHM:Ashmore. As with the other portfolio, the dividends weren't quite enough to prevent a small dip in average monthly profits. However, 14.5% on sales plus 8.6% paper profit is a healthy looking situation given the market volatility over the 18 weeks the pension has existed.

I changed my mind about the regular monthly pension top-up. It was going to be PRU:Prudential, but I really want to get back into JLG:John Laing Group, so have switched it, with the shares due to be purchased on 7th April, unless I change my mind again before then!

Roll on next week and lots of fun with my ISA...