Week 60 Review - A Crappy Week

All the optimism, all the excitement that the share and ISA accounts might go into the black after the total combined portfolios made it into the black. Not only was that excitement dashed this week, but the combined portfolios have sunk into a deep black hole of misery as bad news after bad news came through relentlessly.

Biggest catastrophe of the whole week occurred today, when results from the Skipper oil sampling showed that rather than the expected free-flowing oil, the well is in fact full of tar. The share price had already dropped off on lack of news, but after a massive drop today, IOG:Independent Oil & Gas has fallen 76% this week, and my nearly 100% profits have been completely wiped out. I really thought this was a sound long term holding rather than a sell-quick share. I still believe it's good for the long term, but my confidence has taken a nasty hit. Fortunately this company isn't dependent on only this well, but I doubt the price will ever rocket again, as the board have seriously lost the trust of investors.

Next biggest disaster was AFG:Aquatic Food which dropped 14% over the week following lukewarm results, and with bulletin board posters and tabloid website posters declaring the whole company is a fraud. I don't believe it is, but my confidence has been rocked yet again. This share promptly fell into Nemesis Share territory, but is saved today as OPTI:Optibiotix drops yet again and regains the title.

The other double-digit loser this week was RED:RedT Energy. I suspect it's profit taking after last week's rises, as things are just getting interesting for this share.

Only one double-digit riser all week, so no competition for Share of the Week, with CRL:Creightons climbing 15% and taking to overall potential profit of 49%.

Here's a sad summary of the share and ISA portfolios

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£41,381.03		+£174.43
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,756.68	(-6.3%)	-£1,257.67
Potential profits	£3,436.89		-£570.56
Yr 2 Dividends	£117.18		+£11.70
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,396.54		+£92.37
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£1,359.43		-£129.78
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	39.4%
Total Dividends	£785.11		+£11.70
Total Profit from sales	£6,236.54		+£92.37
Average monthly cash profit	£502.49		-£0.87
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.6%

Portfolio cost rose a little when I re-invested my SLP:Sylvania Platinum profit and some dividends to buy more IQE:IQE, but the profit was only £92 as there was a small loss selling SGRO:Segro to buy CMCL:Caledonia Mining. The dividend was from Segro, so the combined dividends from that company took the overall performance from Segro to a tiny profit. Loss of potential profits was £570 so the other £700 deficit this month was deepening losses. The sale means average monthly profits just stay over £500, but that won't survive next week.

Ouch! So near to crossing the red line but then clobbered in one of the worst weeks since Brexit.

The SIPP looks like this after week 44

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£14,932.06		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£16,444.84	(+10.1%)	-£181.65
Potential profits	£2,163.97		-£152.89
Dividends	£290.79		+£0
Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£256.36		-£5.96
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	20.6%

No additions, sales or dividends, just a bit of a drop mostly from reduced profits rather than deepening loss.

The gap narrowed slightly, but it's still a comfortable gap.

The trading account looks like this after 10 weeks

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£499.95		+£0
Cash	£0.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£458.10	(-8.4%)	+£13.43
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%

I guess I can't complain. This was the only account to go up this week, but 10 weeks is no fun!

Go green line go!

So ends a truly rubbish week. Biggest disappointment was IOG:Independent Oil & Gas analysis results, as these had been bigged up scandalously. AFG:Aquatic Food have gone back to being a basket case with accusations of fraud, but I'm staying loyal as I don't think the new Finance Director would have gone there if they were dodgy. AMYT:Amryt Pharma have gone back into loss after trickling downwards all week. OPTI:Optibiotix are dropping relentlessly and there's no sign of news to reverse it. JLP:Jubilee Platinum have drifted back downwards after a breakout looked inevitable and RED:RedT Energy have dropped practically back to break-even despite lots of exciting news.

So what is there to be positive about? I'm back invested in CMCL:Caledonia Mining which along with PAF:Pan African Resources gives me a couple of quality dividend paying gold mines again. CRL:Creightons had a great week as the only double digit riser. TLOU:Tlou Energy is still at over 100% profit and KIBO:Kibo Mining seems to have consolidated in the 8p range rather than the 5p range, and has moved back past Tlou to 2nd in the Star Share competition. It's still behind CWR:Ceres Power, which held onto it's share price despite announcing a massive placing. PUR:Pure Wafer have returned another 4p a share to investors as part of their liquidation, which is another £12 with more to come - assuming Brewin Dolphin let me know, as the shares are in a mystery holding account. Last but not least, I doubled my holding in IQE:IQE which I really, really wanted to do.

Let's see what happens next week...

Cunning Plan Put Into Practice

I hatched a cunning plan last night and put it into practice first thing this morning.

I wanted more IQE:IQE because everything about this company sings to me of potential. When I wrote up my annual portfolio review, under SLP:Sylvania Platinum I asked the question "how on earth did I end up with that many?". They may very well go somewhere, but I figured they could go somewhere in my share account and trading account, but they'd already gone somewhere in my ISA.

I sold my 10,065 SLP:Sylvania Platinum ISA shares for £120 (15.9%) profit and liberated £846. There were some dividends lying around in the account, so I pooled them and bought 2,938 IQE:IQE shares at 31.3149p costing £928.98. That takes my total holding to 6,550 shares at a weighted average of 29.59029p costing £1,956.06 and making up 3.4% of my total portfolio. They are 3% up with £62 profit after falling a tiny bit today.

I also mentioned yesterday that I wanted to get back into gold mines, and specifically into CMCL:Caledonia Mining, so I did. SGRO:Segro were within £28 of profit, but with past and due dividends would be just about in profit. I sold my shares breaking even and liberated £1,004 and used it to buy 737 shares in CMCL:Caledonia Mining at 135p a share costing £1,003.90. These went up 3% today but with commission and a 4% spread, they start off £28 down.

The combined portfolios sank horribly into the red today, losing £560 to go to a £580 deficit. This was largely due to lukewarm results from AFG:Aquatic Foods Group causing their share price to plunge 28.6% and become my new Nemesis Share. How can just 50,000 sold shares cause a share price to drop that far? It's absolutely crazy. What's even more frustrating is the spread has increased to 33% so they're not even that cheap to buy - although 15p is very much cheaper then the 21.9p I paid.

Although profits were down, they were still profits, there's still an interim dividend, and they have increased the amount of free cash held. The P/E ratio of this company is an insane 0.87. At an average P/E ratio of 15 these would be worth 395p. There are many detractors claiming that the business is a fraud, but the recent appointment of a well respected Finance Director makes me believe they are legitimate. I'm more inclined to believe that the reason the share price is so low is that everyone is convinced it's a fraud thanks to the history of so many Chinese shares being exactly that.

Not many good news stories today. CRL:Creightons climbed 5.4% and are now up by £151 (37%). These just keep quietly doing the business and I wish I had bought much more at 7.95p. TLOU:Tlou Energy made a play for Star Share with a 3.5% climb taking them to a potential £1,113 (106%) profit, which is only £29 behind incumbent Star Share CWR:Ceres Power. Could Ceres lose the crown tomorrow?

Still In The Red

At one point it looked as if today was going to be a disaster, with a loss bigger than today, but by the end of entering the prices into my spreadsheet, the combined portfolios were £20 up and reduced the deficit to just £30.

The other notable event today was the demotion of KIBO:Kibo Mining from Star Share. It fell 3.1% and two places in a day. Down below 2nd place TLOU:Tlou Energy which climbed 3.6% today, and below re-instated Star Share CWR:Ceres Power, up 2.4% and making £1,140 profit.

The share that really saved the day today was RED:RedT Energy, which climbed 9.5% and at £700 profit is another contender for Star Share. Nemesis Share OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 1p today, which also helped out, IQE:IQE climbed 4.1% and I definitely want some more of these, and biggest disappointment was AFG:Aquatic Food Group whose share price climbed 6.1% but the bid price remained the same and the spread widened to 25%. Very naughty!

Everywhere else was a sea of red, which was unfortunate, as I was expecting a rally after the presidential debate. Oil prices and Deutsche Bank scuppered any chance, but I notice the American markets are all up, so maybe there's hope for tomorrow.

Meanwhile I have my eyes on both IQE:IQE and CMCL:Caledonia Mining. I've always regretted selling Caledonia. I sold them at 69p and made £640 profit, which was a lot at the time. They are now trading at 131p, and are still cheap given the forecast doubling of profits. Gold could have another rally soon, and I only have PAF:Pan African Resources left in my gold mine portfolio. Very tempted to take the plunge, but what to sell? IQE are also climbing steadily and I still believe can double based on current profits, but with so many developments in the pipeline, I want more of these.

I have a cunning plan - and may put it into practice tomorrow...

Back Into The Red

What a disastrous day - a sea of red and the combined portfolios slip back to a loss.

It could have been so much worse, as the overall losses were only about £300, which given that only six shares were blue today is a small miracle.

However, it was enough to drive me back underwater and I really hoped to stay afloat from now on, especially after being £1,300 in the black last Tuesday.

When I checked the prices at lunchtime TLOU:Tlou Energy and RED:RedT Energy were both up all morning, but then dropped after 2pm. If they'd stayed blue it could have been a break even day, which would have been even more of a miracle.

Thank goodness for AFG:Aquatic Food which climbed 10%, meaning it's almost passed AFPO:African Potash to get out of its 2nd place in the Nemesis Share competition. OPTI:Optibiotix still leads that by a long, long way, dropping another penny today.

CAML:Central Asia Metals climbed just 2.25p, but every penny is worth £20 so it helped negate some of the losses. NTBR:Northern Bear climbed 2.2% which gets this within £35 of profit, and WRES:W Resources climbed a magnificent 0.04p which translates to 8.2% and means this isn't far from breaking even, at least in the SIPP. Still a long way to go for the ones in the share account.

The other phenomena that reduced today's losses was the number of shares where the share price dropped, but the bid price stayed the same, so I didn't register any loss as I'm using the most pessimistic price.

Let's hope Hils gives a storming performance tonight and Trump makes an idiot of himself, else I hate to think what horrors tomorrow will bring...

Week 59 Review

The week started off amazingly, with the combined portfolios going into the black for the first time ever, and on Tuesday things were looking brilliant, with a £1,300 buffer of blackness and the share/ISA accounts being within £280 of profit without the help of the SIPP.

It wasn't to last, with the big gains wiped out on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The combined accounts stayed in the black, but by just £272, a loss of over £1,000 in three days.

There was only one double digit loser, but that was the one I'd just invested loads of money in, and it ended the week lower than the price I paid for the new shares.KIBO:Kibo Mining dropped 10% and is barely keeping hold of the Star Share accolade, with CWR:Ceres Power breathing down it's neck but taking a 5% hit this week and TLOU:Tlou Energy within a few pounds of taking over.

Speaking of TLOU:Tlou Energy, that was the first double-digit riser this week. It climbed 10% but it would have been much more if not for people profit taking at the end of the week and driving it back down.

RED:RedT Energy climbed 11% and I'm glad I doubled my holding just before this. I'm very excited about their prospects at the moment.

Share of the Week was not surprisingly my only remaining gold mine, with the Fed's decision to leave interest rates unchanged and good results helping PAF:Pan African Resources climb 24%. Roll on the big dividend which arrives nicely just before Christmas.

Here's the share and ISA accounts' performance

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£41,206.60		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,839.92	(-3.3%)	+£229.21
Potential profits	£4,007.45		+£233.67
Yr 2 Dividends	£105.48		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,303.91		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£1,489.21		-£248.20
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	43.4%
Total Dividends	£773.41		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6,144.17		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£503.36		-£8.68
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.7%

The week ended up a few hundred quid, but still sulking about the £1,000 that got away. The Year 2 projected average monthly profit is still a long way from being sensible, but is dropping a hefty chunk each week. The overall performance is dangerously close to dropping below £500 a month. I'm not sure I should let that happen! I just need a 3.3% rise next week and we'll be in the black on this one.

 I think those trend lines are at least parallel if not converging. Will they cross next week?

The SIPP looks like this after week 43.

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£14,932.06		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£16,626.49	(+11.3%)	+£172.28
Potential profits	£2,316.86		+£279.89
Dividends	£290.79		+£28.64
Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£262.32		-£3.29
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	21.1%

Similar story to the other accounts, with a small rise in both sell value and potential profits. The drop in both OPTI:Optibiotix and ALM:Allied Minds means the losses deepened by about £100 to offset some of the rise in potential profits.

A dividend of £28.64 appeared from LGEN:Legal & General, which was nice. This is added to the £40 from the tax man to give me a lump sum that's way too small to do anything with. I'll just keep it as cash to pay the monthly charges.


Once more the gap widens in a way that's very pleasing to the eye.

Here's the dreaded trading account after week 9

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£499.95		+£0
Cash	£0.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£444.67	(-11.1%)	+£0
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%

Good grief how impossibly tedious!



Pleh! Rubbish!

What will next week bring?

Exciting times for ARL:Atlantis Resources, with the first tidal turbine all ready to take to sea.
https://twitter.com/atlantisresplc

KIBO:Kibo Mining have announced a reverse takeover of OPRA:Opera Investments in order to create the new company Katoro Gold Mining. Although there's been no announcement of how many shares will be distributed to Kibo shareholders, there appear to be around 1 for every 6 Kibo shares. That would be worth £600 based on 6p a share, so I'd be very happy with that. No doubt the price would plummet to begin with, as the mine is 18 months from production.

So the combined portfolios are just about in the black. Will they stay there next week? Will the ISA/Share accounts get into the black without the help of the SIPP? Will SLP:Sylvania Platinum ever increase enough for me to play with my trading account? All will be revealed...

Backwards Step

There's so much tension this week. To come within £280 of the combined ISA and share accounts going into the black I was sure today would be the day.

Unfortunately a lot of the past few day's gains were hit hard today, with GVC:GVC Holdings dropping 13p a share, TLOU:Tlou Energy losing 9.8%, KIBO:Kibo Mining down another 2.7% and most shocking ILKA:Ilika down by 10.5% on no news. That does seem to be the problem - no news!

PAF:Pan African Resources gave a superb set of results and announced a massive dividend increase, so the resulting 4% share price increase was a disappointment. A few other improvements like RED:RedT Energy up 2.1% and LOOK:Lookers up 2% and most notably IOG:Independent Oil & Gas up 14.8% helped reduce the loss on the day to about £300, with the SIPP gaining around £100 it means the overall picture across all portfolios is £1,142 in the black.

Unfortunately, rather than the combined ISA and share portfolios being within £280 of break even, they are now £604 away, and unless something spectacular happens after the Fed interest rate announcement, my dreams of reaching the next milestone are unlikely to be fulfilled this week.

Meanwhile I'm getting even more excited about IQE:IQE. Reading bulletin boards is sometimes dangerous, with blatant ramping and little substance, but the IQE bulletin board has some quality posters and it's a great way to find out more about what IQE are producing. They have so many strings to their bow, and in an area that's the future for high tech. Add to that strong fundamentals and I think this could easily go from 31p to 50p over the next 12 months. I need to find a way to get some more!

Near Miss on the Next Milestone

Oooooh - I was so close to hitting my next milestone just one day after moving into the black.

Putting today's price changes into my spreadsheet I got to GVC:GVC Holdings and upped the bid price by the amazing 47.5p (6.6%) to 770p causing the portfolio value to soar and the ISA/share account combo to go into the black.

All I needed to do was maintain the performance down the rest of the portfolio.

My jubilation was short lived, as I got to KIBO:Kibo Mining and entered the 0.5p (5.1%) drop to 9p. This wiped out £350 which was more than the GVC gain and sent them back into the red. Although upsetting, it did make me realise that a 1p increase in this share would be worth £700. I just need it to increase enough that 1p isn't a big percentage, as this would be a pleasant regular occurance.

A 6.2% increase in TLOU:Tlou Energy, 4.2% increase in PAF:Pan African Resources and 3.3% increase in IQE:IQE almost made up the gap, but AFPO:African Potash was down 11.1%, IOG:Independent Oil & Gas was down 3.6% and lots of little declines in my FTSE shares mean the deficit is still £280.

So, almost £200 taken off the deficit in a day, and a reasonably good day for the SIPP means an improvement of £280 in the overall picture to £1,384 in the black.

I'm hoping today's Kibo drop was an attempt to flush out sellers. If the 0.5p is put back on tomorrow, then I'll be reporting hitting my next milestone after work.

Meanwhile I'm getting increasingly excited by IQE:IQE. I think these are due a serious re-rating and wish I'd discovered them a long time ago. Could they be the next ARM:ARM Holdings? I need to find a way to get some more. Unfortunately I'm running out of shares with a loss I'm willing to take, and all the ones in profit are keepers. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

In The Black At Last!

After 58 weeks and one day, my combined portfolios are in the black for the first time ever.

Not only are they in the black, but after being £129 in the red on Friday evening, they are £1,108 in the black today.

It's mainly thanks to a 9.9% rise in KIBO:Kibo Mining taking that up to £1,978 potential profit and a 15.7% rise in TLOU:Tlou Energy taking that to a potential profit of £1,262. It's no thanks at all to OPTI:Optibiotix that slid another 2.8% and is a very naughty share!

There were also excellent gains for JLP:Jubilee Platinum (5.2%), IQE:IQE (5.3%) and SLP:Sylvania Platinum (4.3%), but PAF:Pan African Resources frustrated as the price stood still while most gold miners went up.

As Kibo and Tlou are mostly in my ISA, the effect was most pronounced there, with the account £430 in profit. The SIPP has been in profit for ages, but that has extended to £1,746. The original share account with its set of toxic shares like AFPO:African Potash (despite 12% rise today - 12% x practically nothing = practically nothing), LOOK:Lookers and BDEV:Barratt Developments (both still in post-Brexit mode) is still £860 in the red. The ill-fated trading account is just £45 in the red after a small rally for SLP:Sylvania Platinum today.

So today is a landmark day of joy and happiness and a massive sigh of relief. It also means the combined ISA/share accounts are only £472 from being in profit - and that's the next milestone. One more day like today will do it, but one outbreak of profit-taking could easily undo the whole thing as day traders offload Kibo and Tlou. Given the potential of these two, that would be a very short sighted move...

Week 58 Review

An action packed week with some strategic sales of some long standing shares, and some amazing weekly performances.

On paper, the worst performing share was my ISA holding of KIBO:Kibo Mining, which dropped 52%. However, this was just a trick as my £600 original purchase for 3.725p was blatted by £2,000 worth purchased this week at 8.825p, so although the share price soared, the percentage increase got a hammering.

The only real double digit loser this week was IOG:Independent Oil & Gas, which dropped 26% and may drop further before the next news, which is likely to be either the results of the test drill analysis or on the Vulcan field.

Lots of big risers this week, starting with CRL:Creightons, which after a long static period climbed by 18% this week. This is another share I wish I'd got more of, and may top up on, but it has a huge spread so it's taken a year to get into profit. The £151 potential profit is very welcome though.

The standard share account version of KIBO:Kibo Mining told a more realistic story than the ISA, climbing 34% and taking the potential profit to £1,364 between the two accounts. This has moved it past CWR:Ceres Power and into the Star Share position.

TLOU:Tlou Energy climbed an amazing 42% this week, following results on Monday. This has a long way to go, but could prove an excellent earner if the project succeeds.

You'd think that would be enough for Share of the Week, but it's not. That title goes to RED:RedT Energy which also climbed 42%, but as I bought some more of these just before they stepped up, I've decided to award the prize to them

Here's the effect on the main share and ISA portfolios

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£41,206.60		+£1,417.17
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,610.71	(-3.9%)	+£568.93
Potential profits	£3,773.78		+£679.54
Yr 2 Dividends	£105.48		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,303.91		-£59.46
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£1,737.41		-£399.01
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	50.6%
Total Dividends	£773.41		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6,144.17		-£59.46
Average monthly cash profit	£512.04		-£13.51
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.9%

The cost went up £1,417, but that's a temporary situation. I need to sell something over the next few weeks to return that £1,417 back to my current account, as it was "borrowed" in order to max out my ISA for the year, with the aim of selling from my standard account to make it up.

The sell value is up £568, partly helped by me selling off shares that were at a loss as well as making profit, but £500 of that is from share price rises. No dividends yet again - it seems like ages since the last one, and profit from sales takes a regrettable £59 drop due to selling more things at a loss than I would have liked.

Year 2 projected monthly performance is still mental and will take a few months to settle to a realistic amount, and the average overall monthly profit took a bigger than usual dip because of the losses. The percentage return is less than 15% now, but as my target is 10% I'm still happy. When the portfolio cost comes down in the next few weeks it may go back above 15%.

Just look at that green line go! The deficit is only £1,600 now, but some frustration that the trend line isn't quite parallel yet.

Here's the SIPP after week 42

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£14,932.06		+£158.55
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£16,454.21	(+10.2%)	+£445.50
Potential profits	£2,036.97		+£426.06
Dividends	£262.15		+£0
Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£265.61		-£6.48
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	21.3%

The monthly savings plan was invested in JLG:John Laing Group which accounts for the increase in cost. The value did well, climbing £445, nearly all of which was down to increasing profit. ALM:Allied Mind and OPTI:Optibiotix are responsible for the biggest losses, with TRX:Tissue Regenix and WRES:W Resources each having a small loss. Everything else is happily in profit.

No dividends or sales, so the monthly performance dips a small amount but projected profit is still over 20%.

A nice widening gap is just what I want to see.

The ill-fated trading account looks like this after week 8

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£499.95		+£0
Cash	£0.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£444.67	(-11.1%)	+£0
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%

Absolutely no change whatsoever, after promising gains early in the week for SLP:Sylvania Platinum were cancelled out at the end of the week.

Although the green line is flat, the trend line is still going in the right direction.

That's it for another week. Not sure if there's any news planned for next week. KIBO:Kibo Mining may announce the cutoff date for the gold mine shares. Some say they may suspend trading while it's sorted out. There's a risk there may be a big sell-off when they resume, but it should be short lived. I keep hoping for news from OPTI:Optibiotix, as a reversal in fortunes for the share price would sort out a massive chunk of my paper loss. The big target next week is to get the overall combined portfolios in the black. Last week they were £200 away. At the end of this week they are just £129 away. Steady progress and no nasty surprises would be much appreciated. That means you Fed - no messing with interest rates thank you very much!

Significant Consolidation

I did some re-jigging today, selling some shares that were either going nowhere or where I'd just lost patience, or where I thought it unlikely that there was scope for growth in the short or medium term.

The first to go was UCG:United Carpets. I've had these right through, and their fundamentals are strong, but they are a very frustrating share to own. They were briefly in profit, but have spent most of their time at a small loss. When I bought them I figured they were ripe for takeover, as they have such a tiny market cap and a strong business. Given the share price has been mostly stagnant for a year, I may very well come back to them in the future, but in the meantime I want to free up the capital. I sold my 10,000 shares for 11.15p after paying 11.5228p, so with commission thrown in I lost £79.63, but liberated £1,097.10.

Next to go was RDW:Redrow. Some relief at lessening my exposure to house builders, and these had ventured close to profit. I sold my 225 shares for 401.36p after paying 436.1 so lost £103.98 but liberated £894.11

Next to go was SXX:Sirius Minerals. This one made a nice profit, in fact an excellent 96.5% profit of £187.85. That's always been the problem with this share. I bought it early on and only got a tiny amount. I figured after the recent meteoric rise, reality would sink in and there's six years till profit generation. There will be points when this re-rates, and will no doubt end up gigantic, but I think there will be time to get back in with a more substantial investment. This had to be sold to offset the losses from the other sales.

I do have one more share I wanted to sell from my standard share account, but it's illiquid and I couldn't get a price, and then it dropped so I gave up. I do need to sell it over the next couple of weeks, as I took advantage of payday to max out my ISA for this financial year so I'm effectively consolidating into my ISA rather than share account.

I bought shares I already own in companies I think are about to do something very interesting.

Firstly I bought 23,000 shares in KIBO:Kibo Mining at 8.825p costing £2,059 with commission and £20.30 stamp duty. That takes my total holding to 61,412. Unfortunately they dropped 2.9% today, so are only £903.41 in profit. Still pretty good, and I won't lie, my main reason for buying these is for the free gold mine shares that should be dished out very soon. I also have a lot of faith in the company and am excited about their prospects in both the gold venture and the coal to power project.

Next I doubled my holding in RED:RedT Energy. The possibilities for their batteries are astounding, and with a fully functioning demo site on Gigha, I don't think it will take much for orders to come flooding in from around the globe. I bought another 10,000 shares at 10.5475p costing £1,063.70 taking my total holding to 22,000 making potential profit of £205.

I did make one more purchase, but in my standard share account as there was no cash left in my ISA. This was increasing my holding in JLP:Jubilee Platinum, which had dropped back down to 3.345p. With platinum production imminent, good revenues from chromite production, a new platinum operation coming on-line at the end of the year, and the prospect of a massive mining licence imminent, these are poised to finally break out after a year of frustration. I bought 20,000 costing £677.95 taking my total holding to 87,781 and currently making potential profit of just £9.53.

I wanted to sell another share in my ISA so I could top up on OPTI:Optibiotix one last time, but the price dropped too much at the start of the day, and Optibiotix went up 5%. They are still cheap enough to lower my weighted average so I'd be willing to pay 75p, but only if I can get the price I want for the shares I was going to sell - shares which I'm just as happy to keep long term, albeit they are quite high risk.

Aside from the excitement in the morning, today was a bit of a rubbish day, with the combined portfolios losing around £300. Just a few days ago I was excited about only having to make £200 to get the combined portfolios into paper profit. Today that figure stands at £756, so I might have a while to wait...

Stellar Results Tinged by Disappointment

There was great anticipation ahead of today's results for both AMYT:Amryt Pharma and IQE:IQE.

The results were both fantastic. Amryt reporting the granting of a US patent for Episalvan as well as an encouraging half year report, and IQE delivering a blistering interim statement with pre-tax profit up by 71%.

I buckled up for the ride.

I needn't have bothered, as it turned out to be a merry-go-round.

AMYT:Amryt Pharma shot up from 20.25p to 22.5p at first. That sort of increase would have been worth a £600 rise in potential profit, but it soon drifted back down to end up just 0.25p up at 20.5p. At least the bid price rose by 0.5p so I finished up by £136.

IQE:IQE also climbed to begin with, from 28.25p to 30.5p. Not massive but at least it suggested I hadn't bought on a spike again. This one drifted right down to 27.5p before staging a recovery to 28p. That's lower than my purchase price yesterday so this is now losing £27. Not quite what I was hoping for after such good results, but clearly the results were expected and priced in. I missed the opportunity to buy in June/July at 18p. If only I had got to the letter I quicker in my research! I don't care, as I think these could easily double in value over the next year or two, and there's likely to be loads of exciting news along the way.

Today was the opposite to yesterday when I thought I was in for a loss but got a big gain. Today I expected a big gain and got a tiny one, although I'm confident the reason will be short lived, and the headline is that the combined portfolios are now within £200 of being in paper profit!

The combined share account and ISAs are only down by £1,506 (compared to £6,500 post Brexit) and the SIPP is up by £1,297. Even the trading account is looking good after a rally from SLP:Sylvania Platinum means it's only £1.56 in the red.

Tragic disappointments today were OPTI:Optibiotix which continues to frustrate. If I didn't already have 10.6% of my holding in this one share I'd buy more while they are so cheap. It's still easily my nemesis share, losing £1,005 but it's also still my favourite share. No share price slippage can detract me from the clear potential in this amazing company. My glasses are as rose tinted as they come - I just hope I don't regret it.

A 3.1% drop in OPTI:Optibiotix cost me a lot today, as did a 4% drop in PAF:Pan African Resources, but by far the biggest impact on the portfolio was KIBO:Kibo Mining dropping 10.1%. I guess I should have expected it, with profit taking after the 25% rise yesterday, but 10% was a bit steep. I still wouldn't risk selling and missing out on the free gold mine shares, and with pay day on the near horizon, there's a very strong desire to top up.

Fortunately the big losses from these three were counteracted by some fantastic rises elsewhere.

CAML:Central Asia Metals is the best run company in my portfolio. They are utterly superb, and the dividend is heading for 7% this year, with interim ex-dividend date just a few weeks away. I've got 6.2% of my holding in this, so a 3.5p rise had a healthy impact.

KIBO:Kibo Mining's rise yesterday propelled it to Star Share status, but it nearly lost that today, dropping to £1,083 profit. CWR:Ceres Power continued the recent gradual climb to £1,070 profit and could regain the Star Share title tomorrow.

The only reason I retain my tiny holding in BLUR:Blur Group is to remind myself of how clueless I was when I started investing. I'm amazed they haven't gone bust yet, but after a 16% rise yesterday, they went up another 9.8% today. Something is going on, as there have been lots of big buys over the last two days on no news, although the big sell-off this afternoon may bring things back to normal. One theory on the ADVFN bulletin board is that people are closing shorts, as you can't do that when a company goes bust. Interesting - and probably more likely than a sudden revival of fortune! I'll leave my massive £109 investment losing 82% and worth only £20 on the off chance something miraculous happens.

Next best riser was TLOU:Tlou Energy, climbing 13.3% after final results posted late in the day, and taking potential profit to £768. These have a hell of a long way to go yet. That rise was nothing compared to the 24.2% increase in RED:RedT Energy, taking them from loss to potential profit of £171. Lots more action to come from this one too.

I'm hoping word will get around about AMYT:Amryt Pharma and IQE:IQE tomorrow so we see their deserved price rise after such good news. I'm also hoping KIBO:Kibo Mining will stay at the current level for a few days to give me the chance to buy more on 15th, although I have vowed to stop putting cash into my portfolio for a few months in order to sort out my Visa bill, so anything I buy will have to be matched by a sell over the next 3 weeks. Although by then the gold mine shares may have been dished out and I could sell some of the Kibo shares - or could I bring myself to do that?

The US markets seem to be getting hammered this evening, which doesn't bode well for UK shares tomorrow. I so badly want to plug that £200 gap and get the combined portfolios into profit. That will take me one step closer to my dream of getting the share/ISA portfolios into profit for the first time since I started this whole escapade, but that's a £1,500 gap to fill. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Out with dotDigital, In with IQE

My alphabetic research is still on the letter I, and this weekend I stumbled across IQE:IQE, a company that makes semiconductor wafers. The fundamentals were strong, with 80% free cash ratio, ROCE 11%, P/E ratio only 9.33, reasonable debt 3.7 times earnings, market to book ratio 1.3, asset to liability ratio 2.9 and significant growth in earnings last year despite not being fully commercialised yet. The only negatives were a lack of dividend, but not surprising in a company focused on growth, and price to net tangible asset ratio of 3.1 when I prefer less than 1.2. A significant proportion of their assets are intangible, presumably patents and IP.

This got me interested enough to look in more depth. I was so excited about what I found that I had to get them quick. They have loads of avenues of work, in wireless, photonics, infrared, solar, CMOS++ and power. It's another share that's pushing the boundaries of tech with potentially global game-changing outcomes.

I can't resist this sort of thing, and with it trading at around 28p a share and the potential of being 51p a share if the P/E ratio was the average 15, it seems to be very cheaply priced. Results are due tomorrow, so there is a risk that the recent price increase will be a typical rise on rumour with a drop on results, but I'm willing to take the risk. If only I'd got to them a few weeks ago in my alphabetic search, I would have bought at a far cheaper price.

So, I had to sell something in order to buy these, and the one to sell was DOTD:dotDigital. I was impressed when I first saw these, but was mostly influenced by the fact they had been made a platinum Magento partner. This was before the advent of my research spreadsheet. I was rather forlorn when I input them to find they had a P/E ratio of 30 and some of the other fundamentals are a bit shaky too, like market to book ratio of 8 when I look for less than 2.5, price to net tangible assets ratio of 10 when I look for less than 1.2, assets to price ratio of just 15% when I look for 66%. Generally the price ratio to both earnings and assets suggests they are over priced, with my fair price indicator showing 35p.

They have been at a loss in my portfolio ever since I bought them, dropping as low as 40p, but have staged something of a recovery so I sold them at 49.75p making a £63.70 (6.3%) loss. With them I bought 3,612 shares of IQE:IQE at 28.1875p costing £1,027.08. Tomorrow will reveal whether I made a terrible mistake or a fantastic stroke of genius.

There was another purchase today in my SIPP, as the regular monthly savings got 59 shares of JLG:John Laing Group at 264.87p costing £158.55 with stamp duty and £1.50 commission. I've decided to switch the monthly share next month, as I now have £634 worth of John Laing, and after recent price rises they are no longer cheap. I'm excited by IPO:IP Group (also found while researching the letter I) which is like a British version of ALM:Allied Minds, commercialising university inventions. These companies have bags of potential in the long run, so I think it's a good one to get in a SIPP.

I was preparing for grave disappointment when checking the portfolio value this evening, as it was a bad say in the market. However, I was amazed to find the portfolio up by £500. This was thanks to AMYT:Amryt Pharma going up 0.5p which is worth £135, ARL:Atlantis Resources going up 8%, CWR:Ceres Power going up 6%, SLP:Sylvania Platinum going up 4%, but most of all KIBO:Kibo Mining going up an amazing 25% and taking my potential profit to £1,468. Boy am I glad I left my holiday money in this one!! If it keeps going like this it will have paid for the whole holiday - especially when the free gold mine shares are issued.

So it was an exciting day, and tomorrow promises to be even more exciting. Will IQE:IQE have stellar results? Will KIBI:Kibo Mining keep climbing or will there be massive profit taking and a drop (oooh - but would you deny yourself those free gold mine shares?!), and will OPTI:Optibiotix stop being a right royal pain in the bum and start behaving like the mega share it knows it wants to be?

We shall see...

Week 57 Review

Not a bad week, with no double digit losers to report. Worst performer this week was TLOU:Tlou Energy, with a 9% drop. The share price doesn't reflect this, and it was interesting today to see several of my shares end up with a much wider spread, as the bid price dropped but the offer price stayed the same.

SLP:Sylvania Platinum climbed 10% and is now in profit overall, but my trading account still remains stubbornly at a loss. SXX:Sirrius Minerals bounced back from worst performer last week with an 11% rise.

ARL:Atlantis Resources climbed a magnificent 14% and is now making £113 profit, and IOG:Independent Oil & Gas made a strong challenge for Share of the Week, climbing 23% to take it 97% up on my original purchase price.

Share of the week goes to KIBO:Kibo Mining which is finally breaking out of the 5p resistance and went up by 33% this week. The combined holding is now making £795 profit. My cunning plan to make some money with my holiday fund went a bit wrong. It went right in the fact Kibo climbed massively and added over £150 to my holiday fund, but it went wrong when Kibo announced the free gold mine shares. It means I absolutely have to keep them - probably forever.

So my dilemma is that I've paid off my holiday, but my current account has gone into overdraft. I still needed to sell something to plug the gap, but there's nothing I wanted to sell. I took the plunge today. A contender for Share of the Week would have been EMH:European Metal Holdings, which I sold today for a £158 (30.3%) profit. It was a painful thing to do, as this share has a long way further to go, but I had to get the money so it was either this one or Kibo. It means I have £658 I can return to my current account and get back into credit. I'll be watching this like a hawk for a chance to get back in, as the price often drops when there's no news and people get bored.

Here's the overall performance of the share and ISA accounts this week

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£39,789.13		-£500.00
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£37,624.31	(-5.4%)	+£1,298.09
Potential profits	£3,094.24		+£981.51
Yr 2 Dividends	£105.48		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,363.37		+£158.24
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£2,136.42		-£366.74
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	64.4%
Total Dividends	£773.41		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6,203.63		+£158.24
Average monthly cash profit	£525.55		+£2.57
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	15.8%

The portfolio cost comes down by £500 as a result of the EMH:European Metal Holdings sale. The sell value is up by a whopping £1,298 despite cashing in £158 profits. Nearly all this rise was in increased potential profits, with just £300 being reduced loss.

The wacky year 2 projected profits only fall by £366 thanks to the sale, and the more realistic (because they are real) overall average monthly profits sneak up £2.57 a month. Getting this figure to increase is going to be harder and harder as the profits get spread out over all the months since I started.

Look at that - I do believe the lines are starting to come together and the trend lines are almost parallel. Will they ever cross?

The SIPP looks like this after week 41

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£14,773.51		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£15,850.16	(+7.3%)	-£55.98
Potential profits	£1,610.91		+£94.24
Dividends	£262.15		+£0
Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£272.09		-£7.48
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	22.1%

Quite a contrast between this account and the other, with an overall loss for the week despite potential profits rising by £94. This was mainly down to drops in RED:RedT, ALM:Allied Minds and OPTI:Optibiotix. Nothing much else happened, so the usual £7 drop in average monthly profit, which will continue until I get a dividend.

The gap has declined by such a tiny amount, it looks more like parallel lines. Hopefully things will go better next week.

The trading account looks like this after 7 weeks

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£499.95		+£0
Cash	£0.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£444.67	(-11.1%)	+£40.29
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%

We're traveling in the right direction, just very slowly.

Just look at that curve heading relentlessly for the red line. Will it ever cross?

So overall a pretty good week, and although sad to say adieu to EMH:European Metals, I'm mightily relieved to have plugged the holiday money gap, although I should really have sold something else as well, so will have to put up with my current account slipping into the red just before payday for a month or two.

I'm really hoping we get news on the KIBO:Kibo Mining free share issue next week, as I want to know when I'm free to sell my share account holding so I can bed it into my ISA. This one's getting too exciting to be reducing my holding, even after qualifying for the free shares.