Unmitigated Disaster and Week 46 Review

I woke up in my comfy chair at 4:30am and fumbled for the remote in my hung over state, having failed to remain awake in front of the referendum news after a night in the pub. I had only been awake long enough to see Gibraltar voting by 96% to stay in, so was dreaming of a stock market rally the following day and finally getting shot of those troublesome shares that just wouldn't quite get into profit.

So I wasn't really prepared for the shock that hit me when I saw the Brexit crowd were 52-48 up and we were on the way out of the EU. I staggered up to bed in a daze, hoping it was just a dream.

The Today programme stirred me from sleep at 7am and it soon became clear the nightmare was true. What on earth had just happened? How could 52% of a whole country be so bloody stupid!

As I started to ponder how long it would take for the SNP to declare another independence referendum (not very long at all as it turned out), and how long it would take for the realisation to sink in that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would become a nightmare, I braced myself for the inevitable collapse of my portfolio. Lo and behold, it was obliterated.

Not surprisingly the biggest faller this week was a house builder, with TW.:Taylor Wimpey dropping 18%. The fact they fell 29.3% today shows how well they had done in the run up to the referendum to limit the losses to 18%. 

Next biggest faller was CRL:Creightons by 13%. This was very disappointing as these have been very very slowly climbing into profit, but are now back at a loss. BDEV:Barratt Developments dropped 12%, as did WRES:W Resources. KIBO:Kibo Mining, WRL:Wentworth Resources and CWR:Ceres Power Holdings all dropped 11% and HMI:Harvest Minerals, IKA:Ilika and TND:Tandem Group dropped 10%.

Amazingly, amongst all that carnage there were two double-digit risers. PAF:Pan African Resources climbed 10%, and I was surprised the other gold mines didn't replicate this. However, share of the week is WLG:Wireless Group which climbed 14% for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever.

Here's the stats I just didn't want to see

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£38,126.03		+£1,098.05
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£31,636.40	(-17%)	-£1,800.09
Potential profits	£1,200.91		-£80.03
Dividends	£543.20		+£17.66
Profit from sales	£3,354.73		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£362.22		-£6.35
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.4%

The portfolio cost went up by £1,098 as I used up my war chest prematurely. With hindsight saving it for some house builders today would have been a better bet than my battery company and Botswanan gas company. Last week I lost £1,100 and this week I lost another £1,800 as the portfolio plunged to a total paper loss of £6,489.62

Great news was the potential profits only dropping £80. This was thanks to the gold mines, which increased their profits and helped negate some of the losses. A £17.50 dividend arrived from TON:Titon Holdings today, and 16p came from the fractional left-overs following the consolidation of AVM:Avocet Mining shares. That meant the average monthly profit only dropped by £6.35 this week.

The SIPP looks like this at Week 30

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£12,440.09		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£12,915.48	(+3.8%)	-£158.33
Potential profits	£1,526.17		-£24.48
Dividends	£258.55		+£0
Profit from sales	£706.12		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£136.35		-£4.70
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	13.2%

No new purchases, and much relief to see the value only drop by £158, with a tiny reduction in potential profits as most of them come from gold mines or shares that felt little impact. No sales or dividends, so average monthly profit drops a tiny bit. £70 arrived from the tax man, but I'm not sure it's worth doing anything with it if the commission would be more than 10% so will hold for later.

So, all in all a desperate week following on from a desperate week. The main portfolio is at its worst since I started, and far worse than the September and February crashes. I don't know what next week has in store. I hope the sense of panic dies down and we start the long haul back to recover all the losses. It's frustrating that I didn't build a better war chest for this eventuality, but I didn't think for a minute our public would fall for the rubbish spouted by the leave campaign. How wrong I was!!