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.