Week 81 Review - Lots of Sales

This week was a heady mix of sells and consolidation while all around me the portfolio tanked. It's going to be a complicated week to analyse, as I banked a lot of profit, so the paper loss widened dramatically. This in combination with nearly all the shares decreasing in value meant the portfolio ended up £1,743.99 worse off than last week at a paper loss of £2,260.05. Given I banked £994.98 profit, that means the portfolio declined by £749.01.

There was only one double-digit changer this week and it was a loss. SLP:Sylvania Platinum fell victim to profit taking and declined by 12%.

I'll cover the sales and purchases in the accounts for each portfolio.

The combined ISA and share account portfolio looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£42,680.95		+£562.86
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£37,873.30	(-11.3%)	-£1,128.93
Potential profits	£2,139.47		-£506.80
Yr 2 Dividends	£357.10		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£3,409.68		+£492.03
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£559.49		+£56.17
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	15.7%
Total Dividends	£1,025.03		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,249.94		+£492.03
Average monthly cash profit	£438.26		+£21.17
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.3%

I've already mentioned the sale of PAF:Pan African Resources and the plan to purchase OPTI:Optibiotix with a fill or kill order. Well as usual that order failed. I decided to be canny - I was in no hurry to buy, and if the share price goes up I'll just look for another share. I set a limit order at 70p when the purchase price was 72p. The share price dropped but not enough to fill the order. Normally I panic at this point and cancel the limit order, just buying at the market price the next day. This time I toughed it out, and much to my joy I was rewarded the next day with a purchase at 69.8p. Bargain! The share price promptly dropped even further.

I looked again at what's about to come along for this company, and I can't believe the price keeps falling. The regularity of the sells suggests that the institutional investors that supported Optibiotix since start-up are continuing to off-load their shares in order to fund other start-ups. While this continues, the share price will keep within this 60p-80p band.

I decided to get some more. I sold my ISA holding of TRX:Tissue Regenix as I still have a load in my pension and they were making £71.32 (12.3%) profit. As part of my new de-risking policy I sold just under half of my holding in TLOU:Tlou Energy for a £328.55 (63%) profit leaving me with 10,000 shares. This liberated £1,479.30 to buy another 2,139 shares in OPTI:Optibiotix at 68.6p. It means my ISA now contains 8,608 shares costing a weighted average of 78.69p which is a significant improvement given my biggest purchase was at 90p. The price hasn't dropped further, with the offer price 69p but the bid price is 67p so I'm losing £1,060 on my ISA and £371.25 in my SIPP, but amazingly making £1.79 profit in my share account!

OPTI:Optibiotix now constitutes 18.1% of my portfolio, so I had better be right about its prospects. I think I am. With Skinbiotix about to list in its own right, a new cholesterol product about to launch, the Go Figure range about to launch in 200 stores of what's rumoured to be Boots, partnership deals with six multi-nationals one of which has been recently confirmed is Tata Chemicals, and a great heap of patents and IP in the micro-biome sphere that's taking off as a major step forward in human health. Oh yes - and a natural sweetener that acts as fibre in the body that's due to launch later this year. I can't look at all that and not be very, very excited. This news item alone shows what's on the horizon: New research presented at Probiota 2017 demonstrates cholesterol-reducing microbiome modulation

Back to the stats. Potential profits only dropped by the amount of profit I made on the sales, so the other £600 was deepening losses. Mainly KIBO:Kibo Mining and OPTI:Optibiotix, but with lots and lots of little losses all adding up. The average monthly profit gets a great boost of £21.17 which is good over an 18 month period.

Not at all good to see the red line go up but the green line go down - and it was all going so well! Hopefully just a blip that's about to be reversed.

The SIPP looks like this after week 65

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£16,525.19		+£527.66
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,243.46	(+16.4%)	-£563.01
Potential profits	£3,493.13		-£374.17
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£575.85		+£502.95
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£109.24		+£98.58
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	7.9%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£2,925.71		+£502.95
Average monthly cash profit	£217.80		+£30.65
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	15.8%

I did some more de-risking, and sold BMN:Bushveld Minerals for a £502.95 (65.5%) profit. I think they could do really well, but having seen so many penny mining shares tank after being in profit, I decided the risk was too great and there was somewhere much less risky I wanted to increase my holding.

The potential profits decreased less than the profit I made because JLP:Jubilee Platinum climbed 5%. That could be a lot more if they announce maiden platinum production next week! The sell value of the portfolio got a bit hammered though, with small losses in most of the shares. Average monthly profits went up a nice £30.65 keeping performance way above my 10% target.

I used the £1,274.62 liberated by the sale of BMN:Bushveld Minerals to buy another 2,676 shares of IQE:IQE at 47.1849. This was fractionally below the 47.3099p I paid last week and takes my weighted average in the SIPP to 47.25p. Unfortunately they have slipped a little lower to 46.5p bid price so I'm losing £77, but the ISA shares are making potential profit of £1,077 so I'm still a thousand quid up. IQE:IQE now comprises 7.7% of my portfolio and I'd like to get it up to 10%, as like OPTI:Optibiotix it has multiple potential revenue streams and many multi-national partners in an area that's about to go ballistic. This presentation from a year ago really tells the story: PI World IQE Presentation

Oh no! The red line is trying to catch up to the green - shoo!

The trading account looks like this after week 31

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.03		+£0
Cash	£75.59		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£815.36	(-17.3%)	-£52.04
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£61.57		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£8.61		-£0.28
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.5%

This account just isn't working out as I had hoped. Both shares dropped in value and my projected income stands at a spectacular £8.61 a month. That won't even pay the window cleaner!

Last week I moaned that the graph was dull. This isn't dull, but I'd actually prefer dull.

A week to forget in terms of share performance, but a week of great satisfaction to make nearly £1,000 profit and increase the holding in my most favourite shares. If OPTI:Optibiotix could have the jolly good manners to announce something spectacular next week, then that would be very much appreciated.

Stopped out of Pan African Resources

After re-reading The Naked Trader I decided to set up some stop losses. I'd used them before to save profits, but got stopped out of some shares I really didn't want to sell, so I gave up using them.

However, I've seen some substantial profits get eaten away over the last twelve months, with hundreds of pounds being wiped off the likes of ARL:Atlantis Resources, KIBO:Kibo Mining, RED:RedT Energy and TLOU:Tlou Energy. Rather than using it as a stop loss, I could have used it as a profit protector and either moved on to another share with my money or re-invested at a lower price. With the shares listed above, it would have been a much lower price.

I'd put a stop loss on PAF:Pan African Resources and it triggered today. A worrying and sad RNS yesterday reported a fatal accident during a shaft refurbishment, and this took the price down past my stop limit. The price did climb back a bit higher just afterwards, but it was too late.

I have mixed feelings about the sale. On one hand this is a great and undervalued company, and with the purchase price now higher than my selling price there's no guarantee I can get back in. On the other hand I made a £92 (9.1%) profit from the sale and with the £52.25 dividend finished with a 14% profit which is over my 10% target. It also liberates £1,151.63 in my ISA.

I've decided not to hold on for a drop in the Pan African share price, as things may be a bit rocky for them as a result of the accident, and the next dividend payment isn't until the end of the year, but I will keep them on my radar.

I've set up a fill or kill order for tomorrow morning on OPTI:Optibiotix, as the price has dropped yet again and is too attractive to resist. The offer price is 72p so I've set my price at 71p in the hope of it starting the day a bit lower. If it doesn't fill successfully then I'll get something else. If I'm right and there's a big seller still offloading shares, then I hope there's a good chance there are enough floating around for this price to be accepted.

Meanwhile today has been rubbish. After clawing back another £200 of my overall paper deficit yesterday, I've lost that and another £200 today to go £715 in the red. This wasn't helped by banking £92 profits either. Nearly everything lost money today, so I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow, and hopefully some more lovely Optibiotix shares.

Week 80 Review and Devastating Revelation

This week started really well and then plummeted spectacularly over the last two days. The combined portfolios were in profit Monday, loss Tuesday, profit Wednesday, small loss on Thursday and bigger loss Friday. In the end we are up by just £37.94 on last week, taking the paper deficit to £516.06. The combined portfolio cost sneaked past £59K last week, which should have garnered a "Woohoo!". I did change policy to only do a "Woohoo!" if the value went up another £1K but it's been so yo-yo I don't think I can keep up, so back to doing it on cost.

I've been re-reading The Naked Trader by Robbie Burns. It was such a valuable book when I first read it, and it's even more valuable the second time through, as I'm no longer phased by everything being new and can focus on learning. I decided to check out the website and there were loads of invitations to contact Robbie about his seminars and books. In a moment of enthusiasm I decided to send him an email and thank him for the help the book had been, both when starting out and again now. I decided to send him a link to this blog, as it was kind of inspired by his book.

He very generously replied to my email - but devastation - after the platitudes he went straight for the jugular, commenting that he thinks I'm more of a gambler than an investor due to the high risk nature of my portfolio. I was gob-smacked - nay shell-shocked. My beautiful portfolio that I love so much - how could he say that?

Then the devastating realisation hit me - he's absolutely right. I mean, I've just this week sold two FTSE250 companies to buy two AIM companies, one of which has never made a profit. Looking down my portfolio it's high risk company after high risk company. Oh cripes!

I've been pondering how this came about - and I think it's the excitement of the stories. I look at all my junior shares and they are intrepid explorers of new technology, or producing gold, platinum, and other shiny things.

It's a tricky one though, as I think my attitude has been soured towards the safer blue-chips by the devastation of Brexit. I've been holding some solid FTSE companies for over a year and how are they doing? BDEV:Barratt Developments down 25%, TW.:Taylor Wimpey down 14%, LOOK:Lookers down 30%, MSHL:Marshalls down 20%, VEC:Vectura down 15%. It's not a shining example of successful investment. However, had I bought these same shares on the post-Brexit dip, or topped these up, then maybe my attitude would be very different.

Anyway, the upshot is my risk profile is off the scale and I need to reign it in, so I need to start identifying some safer shares and gradually move out of the smaller AIM companies once the profits are good and get more of the profile into something defensive. A valuable, if rather humbling correspondence!

Back to this week's performance, and I'm overjoyed to say there were no double digit losers - huzzah!

TLOU:Tlou Energy had a second week's double digit climb, going up 14% and making £520 potential profit. This is where I'm really going to struggle putting all the things I just wrote into practice. In theory I should take the 50% profit on this share and put it into something safer - but I just can't - it's such an exciting project - dammit!! I guess I could compromise - keep some shares just so I can watch what happens, but bank my original investment and use it for something sensible - hmm - interesting notion!

Share of the Week was SLP:Sylvania Platinum which climbed 29% and is making potential profit of £274. How glad am I that I sold the holding from my trading account for £65 profit when 2 weeks later it would have made £250 - grr!!

Here's the share and ISA portfolios

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£42,118.09		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,439.37	(-8.7%)	+£185.47
Potential profits	£2,646.27		+£323.96
Yr 2 Dividends	£357.10		+£69.75
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,917.65		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£503.32		-£7.45
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.3%
Total Dividends	£1,025.03		+£69.75
Total Profit from sales	£6,757.91		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£417.09		-£1.45
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.9%

Not too bad, with the value up £185 and paper profits up £323. The £69.75 dividend was from GVC:GVC Holdings and is hopefully the first of many. There - that's one good FTSE250 company in my portfolio! Average monthly performance stayed pretty flat thanks to the dividend.

It's looking promising - slowly but surely closing the gap.

The SIPP looks like this after week 64

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£15,997.53		+£77.62
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,278.81	(+20.5%)	-£147.37
Potential profits	£3,867.30		+£108.82
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£72.90		+£72.90
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£10.66		+£10.66
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0.1%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£2,422.76		+£72.90
Average monthly cash profit	£187.15		+£2.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.0%

A small rise in cost thanks to the sale of JLG:John Laing Group and ALM:Allied Minds and re-investment in OPTI:Optibiotix and IQE:IQE. Although potential profits are up, the portfolio is down thanks to deepening losses in OPTI:Optibiotix, TRX:Tissue Regenix and ARL:Atlantis Resources. The first sales of year 2 means we have some stats, but they're not very impressive! Average monthly profits overall sneak up a little.

That's not too dramatic a fall - I can live with that gap.

The trading portfolio looks like this after week 30

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.03		+£0
Cash	£75.59		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£867.40	(-12%)	+£0
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£61.57		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£8.89		-£0.31
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.8%

Absolutely no change in either share. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.

Dull.

That's it for week 80. Next week may see JLP:Jubilee Platinum announce production of platinum for the first time. A momentous day that I've been awaiting for so long. Not sure if any other news is expected, but we shall see...

More IQE and More Optibiotix

I couldn't rest last night after the gem of an idea had formed to get one last batch of OPTI:Optibiotix shares. I decided to add them to my pension, but what to sell?

I'd also been looking more and more at the prospects of my second best performing share IQE:IQE, and realised that although these have been going up in value relentlessly, they are still cheap and there's a good chance the results will see a significant increase in profits.

So I looked very carefully at the performance of my existing SIPP portfolio to find shares that I thought would perform worse than either of these two, that wouldn't generate a loss on sale, and that would liberate enough funds to buy more Optiobiotix and IQE.

I chose two.

The first was JLG:John Laing Group. It was a reluctant sale as they trade at a low P/E ratio and the directors are heavily invested. They also pay a dividend unlike both IQE and Optibiotix. I sold my 272 shares for a £92.12 (14.8%) profit and liberated £726.61.

The next to go was ALM:Allied Minds. I bought these for their long term potential and because Neil Woodford is heavily invested in them and he's clever, but they are hard work to own. They are just about the most volatile share in the portfolio, going from good profit to big loss every month or so. They would be a great share to trade on the highs and lows, but I find them too stressful, and the company has never made a profit. It could be I've sacrificed a massive future earner, but I looked at the prospects of IQE and Optibiotix and decided both were a safer bet. I sold my 429 shares for a £19.22 (0.7%) loss, liberating £1,644.81.

So when taken together, I made £72.90 profit out of the two sales which is only 3.2%, but allows me to fulfill my latest plan.

First I wanted £1,000 worth of OPTI:Optibiotix so bought 1,323 shares at 74.63p costing £999.30. This takes my total Optibiotix holding to 10,279, making up 13.9% of my portfolio. 10% maximum holding rule - what 10% maximum holding rule? They are losing £706.72, but each penny they go up is now worth £102.69, so they only need to go up to 80p to break even. If (or indeed when) they go up to 100p, they will be making £2,068.61 potential profit and I sincerely believe that won't take long. When Skinbiotix is split off, even if the share allocation is only one in ten, I'll stand to get over 1,000 free shares. There's just so much potential.

Next I spent the rest of the balance on IQE:IQE, buying 2,885 shares at 47.3099p costing £1,376.84. That takes my total IQE holding to 9,435 making up 5.8% of my portfolio. The new ones are down by £32.84 due to spread and commission, but in combination with my existing holding the potential profits are £1,077.65. I may have to sneak in another 600 shares at some point to take my holding past 10,000.

While doing all these calculations I noticed that there has been a change in my Nemesis Share. AFG:Aquatic Food is losing £879.25, but after my purchases at 8.8p enthused by the prospect of free shares in Katoro Mining, my KIBO:Kibo Mining shares are now down by £991.84. Yikes - how did that happen? They were about £700 in profit when I bought the last batch. No worries - this one will turn around very, very fast at some point soon.

Great news - the yo-yo effect continues and the overall combined portfolios went back into profit today by a massive £21.19. This was mainly thanks to a 10.4% rise in TLOU:Tlou Energy which has well and truly recovered from it's recent slip thanks to great news of increased gas reserves. This is now making potential profit of £718.58 and could threaten both IQE:IQE and CAML:Central Asia Metals for Star Share on a relatively small initial investment.

No doubt tomorrow will see the yo-yo descend once more - unless Kibo wakes up...

Edge of the Seat

I was going to post another gleeful blog yesterday as the combined portfolios returned to profit again, making back most of Friday's losses. I resisted because it might curse today. I needn't have resisted, as most of those gains were wiped out today and we went back into overall loss.

It's yo-yo time as each day it sneaks into profit and then back to loss. Every time some shares do well, another one spoils the party. Certainly edge of the seat action!

Today it was AMYT:Amryt Pharma that caused a big drop. RED:RedT Energy also let the side down, but TLOU:Tlou Energy was brilliant. Not as brilliant as CAML:Central Asia Metals yesterday, which soared 8% and although it took a small dip today, is still up 6% this week. It's now making £1,860 potential profit, firmly consolidating its place as Star Share, with nearest contender IQE:IQE £750 behind but catching up.

KIBO:Kibo Mining continues to frustrate, with a huge 14% spread and the bid price refusing to lift off 4.75p despite the offer price increasing to 5.5p. OPTI:Optibiotix is still stuck around 73p for the 3rd week. I'm seriously considering buying one last batch, as my average SIPP purchase price is 77p, so I can drag it a bit further down if I buy another 1,000 at the offer price of 74p. So tempting...

The dividend arrived from GVC:GVC Holdings today. It's a very healthy £67 and takes the dividends in my share/ISA accounts over £1,000. In fact altogether my dividends add up to £1,438 which is 2.4% of the combined portfolio cost. Given most of my shares don't pay dividends, that's a pretty good return and a lot better than my cash ISA was delivering. When you add that to the £9,169 combined profits from sales, it's 18% of the cost of the portfolio over 18 months, making about 12% a year. If I can keep that up then job's a good 'un!

Week 79 Review - Gloomy Friday

Well they say pride comes before a fall. I was so happy yesterday that the combined portfolios had gone into profit, but it all went horribly wrong today when half the week's gains vanished. Gloomy Friday I think it should become known as. I ended the week £586 better off than last week, but the portfolio is back to a £554 loss. £700 wiped off the value in one day, and largely by increasing spreads rather than significant price drops. I'm hoping this fact will mean the dip will be short lived, as AMYT:Amryt Pharma has an 8% spread, CWR:Ceres Power 7%, KIBO:Kibo Mining 10% and OPTI:Optibiotix 5%. These are all way wider than usual for these shares.

There was only one double-digit loser this week, but it was a big one and a big drop. KIBO:Kibo Mining fell 15% to just 4.75p. I never thought it would get sub 5p again.

Lots of shares were up 10% this week, with IQE:IQE, PAF:Pan African Resources and TLOU:Tlou Energy all climbing by double digits. JLP:Jubilee Platinum did a little better, up 12% and probably should be Share of the Week. However it's not, due to a technicality

AMYT:Amryt Pharma wins the prize, as the tiny holding I had last week was down 32% from the FAST:Fastnet Oil & Gas reverse takeover price. However, thanks to my big purchase this week and a rally of just 1% in the share price since the start of the week, the fact I bought on a dip means this holding is up 29% and is just 3% in loss now.

Here's the main and ISA portfolios performance

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£42,118.09		+£186.26
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,253.90	(-9.2%)	+£625.76
Potential profits	£2,322.31		+£563.33
Yr 2 Dividends	£287.35		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,917.65		+£72.32
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£510.77		-£8.22
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.6%
Total Dividends	£955.28		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6,757.91		+£72.32
Average monthly cash profit	£418.54		-£1.56
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.9%

There was a profit of £72 from the sale of NANO:Nanoco, and with the injection of £100 from my current account and some spare cash in the share account, the portfolio cost went up £186 when I bought more AMYT:Amryt Pharma to take that share up to 10.3% of my portfolio.

Potential profits are up a healthy £563 and they made up the majority of the £625 gains this week. If only today hadn't have been such a downer, these accounts would have been up by over £1,000 this week. Never mind - there's always next week...

As a result of the small profits gained this week, the overall monthly performance just dropped by £1.56. Year 2 projected performance is still better than overall, but is gradually dropping towards it.

The gap narrows!

The SIPP looks like this after week 63

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£15,919.91		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,348.56	(+21.5%)	+£92.77
Potential profits	£3,758.48		+£109.20
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£185.10		-£3.51
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.0%

Not much going on here. A small increase in value to negate last week's drop, and there were a few deepening losses as the potential profits were up £109. The usual slow decline in performance from sales and dividends will continue for some time as I don't want to sell anything.

Good to see it heading back in the right direction

The trading account looks like this after week 29

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.03		+£0.03
Cash	£75.59		+£61.59
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£867.40	(-12%)	-£132.43
Potential profits	£0		-£65.59
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£61.57		+£61.57
Average monthly cash profit	£9.20		+£9.20
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.2%

Now then, I do believe we have some stats to play with!

I was contemplating selling SLP:Sylvania Platinum when I wrote my update last night, and when I saw KIBO:Kibo Mining fall even further this morning, I had to buy them. I sold SLP:Sylvania Platinum for 10.68p and made a profit of £61.67 (12%). My rule is that I cannot spend more than £500 on any one share, so I bought 9,664 KIBO:Kibo Mining shares for 5p with £4.83 stamp duty costing £499.98. The offer price at the end of the day is up to 5.25p, but with a 10% spread the bid price is 4.75p and shares are down by £52. The REDS:RedstoneConnect shares also dropped a tiny amount this week and are losing £65.

So in summary, the account is finally off to a start, the purchase made the cost go up by only 3p but the cash is now standing at £75. This will be untouchable until it gets up to £500 and I can buy another share. Unfortunately the sale wiped out my paper profit and the portfolio value dropped by £132, but it does mean we have a projected monthly performance figure now, of £9.20 a month. That's based on me continuing this performance over the next 6 months until we have a full year to measure. That would be the equivalent of 11.2% of the portfolio cost. I'm hoping I can do a lot better than that!

The boring graph suddenly got interesting. Let's hope that trend continues.

Next week I'm hoping the mad spreads will narrow and raise the bid prices of my biggest holdings. I'll be getting a decent GVC:GVC Holdings dividend in my account, but it's not big enough to buy anything with so I have to resist the urge to top up on pay day, as there's still that Visa bill to address before April. There does seem to be some momentum behind many of my top holdings at the moment, and if KIBO:Kibo Mining can sort itself out, then things will be looking a lot better.

Combined Portfolios In Profit!

Today is a happy day. The combined share, trading, ISA and SIPP accounts went into the black for the first time in ages.

This was largely thanks to AMYT:Amryt Pharma climbing 6.1%. Since my top-up earlier in the week, each penny the price goes up is now worth £341.88.

The other big riser was IQE:IQE which climbed 4.7% and is now at a potential profit of £995 making it my 2nd most profitable share after CAML:Central Asia Metals.

Not only that, but GVC:GVC Holdings climbed another 10p and has almost gone back into profit.

OPTI:Optibiotix also climbed another penny so is only losing £494. Each 1p rise in this one is worth £90 so I just need it to climb another 5.5p to an 80.5p bid price and I'll break even for the first time in over a year.

The only let-down today was KIBO:Kibo Mining which sank to 5p  and is my 2nd worst performing share. It was one of my most profitable a few months ago. I'm still excited by the project so will buy more if I get a chance at these low levels. I'm just not sure there's anything I'm willing to sacrifice at the moment, unless I take the 10% profit on SLP:Sylvania Platinum in my trading account - Hmmm...

The portfolio value has climbed £1,349 in the last 4 days, so I'm keeping everything crossed for tomorrow, as I'd love the overall portfolio graph to show a crossing line for the weekly review.

Time to go to the pub and celebrate!

Out with Nanoco, in with more Amryt

When I reviewed my portfolio a few weeks ago I realised that AMYT:Amryt Pharma was well below 10% of my shareholding. Given that this is one of my absolute favourite shares, I wanted to find a way of resolving this issue and topping up.

Despite some recent good news, the share price was languishing a bit this morning so it seemed like a good time to strike.

Most of my Amryt shares are in my ISA, with 27,306 costing £4,833.39 at an averaged down price of 17.5p. This has been the result of purchases at 23p, 19.8p, 17.01p, 14.7p and 14.8p. The ISA shares are currently losing £203, but every penny the share price increases, they go up £272, so I'm confident they will soon be back in profit.

I also had a tiny number in my main share account that I purchased when they were still FAST:Fastnet Oil & Gas. I bought just 1,148 at 22.645p - although this was before consolidation when the reverse takeover happened, so was actually 9,184 at 2.83p. I had a small amount of spare cash and I was interested in the company, and I'm glad I bought them as it enabled me to follow the story and get increasingly excited by their prospects.

Like my most favourite share OPTI:Optibiotix, my Amryt shares have been at a loss nearly the whole time I've owned them, albeit with a brief period in profit a few months ago. Actually Optibiotix has always been making a loss, but it's still super. The old Fastnet shares have never been in profit.

The problem is I wanted to buy another £1,000 worth, but didn't want to sell any of my other shares. However, when the price slipped to 18p I figured this might be my last chance before things take off, so I reviewed the portfolio to see which share I had most concerns about, but which was currently in profit.

A difficult decision, as my in-profit shares are generally ones I never want to sell, else I would have done it already.

In the end, the share I had most doubts over was NANO:Nanoco. I think there's an excellent chance that TV, monitor and mobile phone manufacturers will licence their technology and they will take off, but there's a teensy element of doubt as the big boys are doing their own thing and there's competing technologies that may get to production sooner. I'll be happy if I'm wrong because they are a great example of a British company with potential worldwide reach.

I sold my 2,164 shares at 41.6p after buying at 36.9688p. This liberated £888.27 and made £72.32 (9.2%) profit in about 6 weeks. There was some cash in my account, and I added another £100 from my current account so was able to buy 5,734 AMRYT:Amryt Pharma shares for 17.27p costing £1,002.21. This was great value considering the offer price at the time was showing as 18p and still is now.

This takes my total AMYT:Amryt Pharma holding to 34,188 shares costing £6,095.61 and comprising 10.3% of my portfolio. Perfect! They are losing £307.55 at the moment, but a 1p price rise will take them to £34.33 profit. In my opinion they will be at 25p a share quite soon, which will put them at £2,427.49 profit and make them my Star Share - how I dream...

Meanwhile it's been an OK week so far. The shares that were having a blip last week have recovered a bit, so although quite a few things are down, I'm about £500 up and the overall combined portfolios are only £736 in deficit. If the week continues like this I may just break even at last!

The share that could most influence things is KIBO:Kibo Mining, which has taken a really surprising dip to £632 loss. I'm confident that it will head north at pace, especially if there's news on the reverse takeover of OPRA:Opera Investments and a date for when Kibo holders qualify for free shares in the new company Katoro Mining.

JLP:Jubilee Platinum are now producing chromite at Hernic and will be moving on to platinum concentrate production over the next few weeks. Once it's clear there is a platinum revenue stream coming on line, I expect these to re-rate significantly. If that coincides with a decision on the ASA platinum processing or approval of the Tjate mining licence, then anything could happen. The bid price is currently 4.15p and my holding of 87,781 shares is making £711.78 profit. If they go to 10p, which I think they can easily do in the short term, the profit will be £5,846.96. I won't be moaning about a deficit in the portfolio then!

Of course I could be completely wrong...

Week 78 Review

A reversal of the recent gains was bound to happen sooner or later. This week saw the overall portfolio value drop by £190 to a paper loss of £1,140. Good news coming on the trading account though...

Worst performer was a recent star, BMN:Bushveld Minerals. I suspect profit taking as it fell 14% but is still 57% up. The other double digit faller was TRK:Torotrak which fell 12% when they finally admitted nobody wants their tech.

A few good risers though, with IQE:IQE continuing to make steady progress, climbing another 11% to go 38% up. SLP:Sylvania Platinum finally shifted up a gear and went to a 12-month high, climbing 11% and becoming a candidate for sale in my trading account.

Star Share this week goes to TLOU:Tlou Energy which has finally started to bounce back after its recent dip. A climb of 19% took this back into good profit.

Here's the performance of the combined ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£41,931.83		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£37,441.88	(-10.7%)	-£58.77
Potential profits	£1,758.98		+£58.86
Yr 2 Dividends	£287.35		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,845.33		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£518.99		-£43.25
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.9%
Total Dividends	£955.28		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6,685.59		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£420.10		-£11.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.0%

Tiny drop, mostly from deepening losses despite potential profits going up. Key culprit was AMYT:Amryt Pharma which took a dip of 8% and dropped about £400. I forgot to add another week to the performance calculation last week, so it was over optimistic. The optimism is corrected this week with drops to cover both weeks. Only 2% over my target now, so may need to consider selling something.

That's ok - not an alarming dip as long as it stops there.

The SIPP looks like this after week 62

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£15,919.91		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,255.79	(+21%)	-£226.06
Potential profits	£3,649.28		-£143.03
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	0%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£2,349.86		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£188.61		-£3.10
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.2%

A more serious drop caused mainly by OPTI:Optibiotix having a little blip, TRX:Tissue Regenix moving to loss despite good news, and RED:RedT Energy dropping 9%. Nothing else happening so all very quiet.

It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would.

The trading account looks like this after week 28

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.00		+£0
Cash	£14.00		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£999.8	(+1.4%)	+£95.55
Potential profits	£65.59		+£53.72
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%

A big rise in SLP:Sylvania Platinum and recovery of REDS:RedstoneConnect sees the account go into profit for the first time ever. I now need to watch SLP:Sylvania Platinum like a hawk, as I only really need to make about 50% and that's 14.3p as opposed to the current 10.75. I may put a limit sell order on it. In fact, I just did!

The lines cross at last - let's hope I can start having proper fun with this account now...

That's it for week 78. Hopefully KIBO:Kibo Mining, OPTI:Optibiotix and RED:RedT Energy will recover from their little blips this week. Best recovery has been GVC:GVC Holdings which seems to have beaten off the shorting attack, and a big dividend will land in my account in the next few weeks.