Week 125 Review - Fantastic end to 2017

The bleak misery of the run-up to Christmas is out of the way and 2017 ended with a mini-rally. The combined portfolios increased by £2,798 restoring the buffer between cost and value to £3,490 and a total value of £74,900. Every single share in the ISA, Share and SIPP accounts was either static or increased this week. Only the trading account let the side down, and that was due to a disastrous transaction, more of which below.

Half of the rise this week was thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix climbing 3p today. The rise reduced my losses from £3,237 to £1,841 so it's still my Nemesis Share but maybe this time the rise will be sustained and 2018 could be the year these wake up.

CAML:Central Asia Metals achieved a further record high this week, and ended 5% up which gives potential profit of £3,545 (77%), and with copper, zinc and lead prices all climbing, things are looking good here.

BLU:Blue Star Capital was a disappointing purchase last week but made up some of the losses, climbing 6% but still 26% down. I'm glad I dipped a toe in this one as I'm getting more interested. Less so in Blue Star itself (their website is utterly frightful), but more so in their stake in Satoshipay. I'm not ready to buy more just yet, but it's looking tempting.

TRX:Tissue Regenix has been dreadful for many months, but something is stirring. The price went up another 7% today and I'm wondering if people are getting wind that the company recently taken over is going to speed the journey to profitability. That's what I'm hoping but my shares are still 54% down.

KIBO:Kibo Mining climbed 15% last week and another 10% this week. I think it's in anticipation of the Power Purchase Agreement which should be imminent. After so many delays it would be great to tick off this next step in the journey. My holding is only 18% down now so things are looking up.

TLOU:Tlou Energy had a great week, climbing 12%. I think this is in anticipation of them winning the tender for a new power station. These are 38% up now, and if all goes to plan have the potential to absolutely soar.

Share of the Week is MTFB:Motif Bio which climbed 16% and is now 36% up. I think it was under shorting attack following the rapid rise on announcement of successful Phase III trials. Those appear to be closing now, so fingers crossed we'll see a slow gradual growth.

The descent is reversed!

Here's the ISA and share accounts performance

			Weekly Change
Cash	£36.20		+£0
Portfolio cost	£44,981.97		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£46.024.48	(2.3%)	+£1,546.93
Potential profits	£8,148.87		+£406.41
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,131.66		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£228.17	(6.1%)	-£11.41
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,844.16		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£309.82	(8.3%)	-£2.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Only a small improvement in potential profits thanks to MTFB:Motif Bio and TLOU:Tlou Energy and a teensy bit from IQE:IQE which had the decency to creep up about a penny. Most of the improvement in value was decreasing losses, particularly OPTI:Optibiotix, KIBO:Kibo Mining and some from JLP:Jubilee Metals.

The green line has bounced off the red!

The SIPP looks like this after week 109

			Weekly Change
Cash	£38.66		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,517.24	(9.7%)	+£1,089.24
Potential profits	£4,213.09		+£272.71
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£-9.23	(-0.4%)	+£2.31
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£384.95	(17.8%)	-£3.56
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Huge increase in value with only £272 coming from increased profits, mainly CAML:Central Asia Metals and great chunks of losses for OPTI:Optibiotix and TRX:Tissue Regenix were recovered.

When OPTI:Optibiotix does get to a sensible price, this graph will look amazing!

Here's the effect of this week's carnage on the trading portfolio after week 75

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		-£79.60
Portfolio cost	£345.65		-£140.40
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£283.69	(-17.9%)	+£23.20
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		-£218.50
Year 2 Performance	-£41.17	(-142.9%)	-£41.17
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		-£218.50
Average monthly cash profit	-£13.88	(-48.2%)	-£12.61
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

So I kind of got bored and frustrated and totally gave up on REDS:RedstoneConnect in order to use this as a proper trading account. I sold them for 100p after buying at 170p making a loss of £218 (44.1%). Absolutely rubbish! The sale obliterated any hope of a reasonable performance, now losing on average £12 a month since I started almost 18 months ago.

The trigger for the sale was watching the LION:Lionsgold share price, which has been dropping like a stone since the share was ramped a few weeks ago. It suddenly dived spectacularly. This was the moment I'd been waiting for! I sold REDS:RedstoneConnect for a huge loss and then added my cash from previous sales and went to buy LION:Lionsgold at this bargain price.

It turned out there was no bargain price. The reason for the drop was that the bid price had been dropped massively but the offer price remained the same, so although it looked like a bargain was available it wasn't. A cynic might say that the market makers were trying to trigger a load of stop losses to fill an order, but I'm sure they wouldn't be so underhand! I decided something must be going on and that the price had already dropped 30% from the ramping spike, so decided to buy for a quick profit on the next ramp cycle. WRONG!

I bought for 4.515p and I could have bought for 4.11p today.

Never mind - because of my £500 rule, and because I'm not seeding any more cash into this account, I only bought £345 worth. I need these to do well to try and get back to my original £500 and reverse the desperate performance stats.

I think LION:Lionsgold might be onto something, but it's stupidly high risk and I would never invest outside of the trading account. It does help me keep an eye on the story, but I'm counting on this being a very volatile share and hoping that I can take advantage of that rather than being victim of it like I have with my long term holdings.

What all the above does mean is that the trading account is back in the game!

Not a pretty sight, but at least something is happening now - the jury is out as to whether it's anything positive!

One last bit of news - AFG:Aquatic Foods issued an RNS yesterday.

"The Directors of Aquatic Foods Group Plc (AIM: AFG), a leading Chinese marine foods and seafood processor and producer supplying to export and local markets, are disappointed to announce that the Company does not now expect to be in a position to publish its audited full year accounts to 31 December 2016 ("2016 Accounts") or its interim accounts to 30 June 2017 ("2017 Interims") by 29 December 2017.

Given that as of 29 December 2017 trading in the Company's shares will have been suspended for a period of six months, trading in the Company's shares on AIM is expected to be cancelled at 7.00am on 29 December 2017 in accordance with Rule 41 of the AIM Rules for Companies." 

I guess it was inevitable. They have successfully walked away with £9.3m raised at the IPO. How can this be allowed to happen? I lost £1,100 on this fiasco but managed to rescue £900 when I finally realised what they were up to and sold my shares. Heaven knows if the remaining shareholders will see anything of their investments. This has been a harsh lesson that although the rewards of investing in AIM companies can be great, there are huge dangers and I was terribly naive!

That's it for 2017 - I got a bit ahead of myself with the round up last week, so here's the final paragraph from that blog edited with the final figures.

So all in all I'm in a far better position than I was 12 months ago. My combined portfolio value was £54,542 then and it's £74,900 now, which is £20,358 more. Although some of that came from top-ups, a lot came from shares increasing in value. My portfolios were in the red by £3,735 whereas this year they're in the black by £3,490, so there is plenty to be happy about (and even more than there was last week!).

Week 124 Review - Christmas misery

Bah humbug! Yet another disastrous Santa screw-up as the combined portfolios dropped £1,106 and would be in the red if the SIPP wasn't holding up better. The buffer between cost and value is now only £692 so I'm not feeling any festive cheer!

For the second week in a row my worst performing share was IQE:IQE, dropping 8% in my SIPP and 27% in my ISA. Not the disaster of last week, and still up by 245% but far from the 400% gains a few weeks ago. I know the right thing to do is hold and not look at the price fluctuations, but it's so frustrating knowing that people are making huge amounts of money from those fluctuations - and in my opinion manipulating the share price to ensure they do!

Next worst performer was my newest share BLU:Blue Star Capital, dropping 6% and now 32% down in 2 weeks - that was a well timed purchase! Fortunately I only dipped a toe with £500 while I get a handle on the whole crypto-currency thing. I think the best potential here is a reverse takeover of Satoshipay. This has massive potential for revolutionising the presentation of paid content and BLU:Blue Star Capital have around 30% stake so would be a good vehicle for Satoshipay to go public.

OPTI:Optibiotix fell yet again by 2p which did £900 damage. My "bargain" purchase last week at 66p doesn't look like such a bargain now you can buy them for 62p. Very frustrating reading the bulletin board where people are happily announcing they are back in the share at 62p while I've seen nothing for my 2 years holding and am losing £3,237. I really, really hope something comes of the SBTX:SkinBiotherapeutics free shares for long term holders. There's surely got to be some reward for supporting this company for so long.

I'm convinced the share price is being played, but I'm not sure how. I did suspect shorting activity but I'm not so sure now. If someone had bought a million shares when they were 4p they would be sitting on a vast profit. They could easily sell chunks of 10,000 to force the price down (which is definitely happening) and then buy back smaller amounts at the lower prices, maybe regaining 75% of their holding but 10% cheaper than they sold. They may even be shorting the stock at the same time they are selling! With a million shares you could easily keep that up for 2 years, cash in your gigantic profit from the original purchases and continue to make money on the peaks and troughs. This is an illiquid share with only 78 million in circulation, and a high proportion are owned by directors and private investors holding out for free SBTX:SkinBiotherapeutics shares - it's a perfect share to trade in this way.

At some point they will run out of shares, or the momentum will overtake them. Now I'm hoping this will be a few months away, as I have a pension transfer pot on the way. I'm almost tempted to take my 245% IQE:IQE profit and put it into here at these prices! Maybe not.

There wasn't wall-to-wall gloom this week. There were some good news stories that helped mitigate the impact of the big drops.

CAML:Central Asia Metals climbed another 7% and is now 72% up and performing wonderfully.

MTFB:Motif Bio has reversed recent declines, buoyed by the news that AMP:Amphion Innovations have re-structured their loan facility and won't be forced to offload their shares to pay it back. That threat has been weighing heavy on the shares for a while. They climbed by 9% this week and are now 20% up.

Share of the Week is KIBO:Kibo Mining which has been desperate lately, but climbed 15% this week. I am still losing 28% but there should be a massive re-rate in the new year when the Power Purchase Agreement is signed and things can start moving on the power station.

Ouch!

The ISA and share portfolios looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£36.20		-£30.00
Portfolio cost	£44,981.97		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£44.477.55	(-1.1%)	-£853.04
Potential profits	£7,742.46		-£711.04
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,131.66		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£239.58	(6.4%)	-£12.61
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,844.16		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£312.31	(8.3%)	-£2.54
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash is down by £30 as I transferred it to the SIPP to cover charges. Portfolio value was hammered by £853 and this account is now £504 in the red. Merry bloody Christmas!

It looks like the lines have met rather than crossed, so maybe I can pretend I'm still in the black - until next week no doubt!

The SIPP looks like this after week 108

			Weekly Change
Cash	£38.66		+£30.00
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,427.93	(5.5%)	-£255.99
Potential profits	£3,940.38		+£127.68
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£-11.54	(-0.5%)	+£3.84
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£388.51	(17.9%)	-£3.63
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash up by the £30 transfer, potential profits up thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals being so wonderful, but deepening losses on OPTI:Optibiotix had no problem wiping out the gains causing a £255 drop in value. Year 3 performance will be quite bad until I sell something, as the monthly charges are quite high now. While we're in negative territory the performance will improve each month - until the next charge!

Should I be getting alarmed yet?

The trading account looks like this after week 74

			Weekly Change
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£260.49	(-46.4%)	+£2.78
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.27	(-3.1%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Back to where it was the week before

Pleh!

So it's rather a gloomy end to the year, but I'm absolutely confident that my major holdings have massive potential for growth in 2018. Although the current situation is depressing, it could very easily turn around within a few weeks of 2018, as it did in the autumn when my portfolios soared into the black for the first time in 2 years.

Even my micro shares are on the cusp of really exciting progress. Some have been stagnating for 2 years and are hurting my portfolio badly. JLP:Jubilee Metals losing £939, KIBO:Kibo Mining losing £747, SBTX:SkinBiotherapeutics losing £409, ARL:Atlantis Resources losing £319, TRX:Tissue Regenix losing £1,107 and most of all OPTI:Optibiotix losing £3,237 but with so much to come!

Let's end the year on a positive. CAML:Central Asia Metals has gone from strength to strength and is now up by £3,338 with £647 dividends, LGEN:Legal & General continues to tick up slowly and is making £529 plus great dividends of £147 and IQE:IQE despite the recent fall is up by £6,901 and showing signs of a rapid recovery when the massive short positions are closed.

So all in all I'm in a far better position than I was 12 months ago. My combined portfolio value was £54,542 then and it's £72,165 now, which is £17,623 more. Although some of that came from top-ups, a lot came from shares increasing in value. My portfolios were in the red by £3,735 whereas this year they're in the black by £692, so there is plenty to be happy about.

Roll on 2018...

Week 123 Review - Santa's a bloody Scrooge!

This week was an unmitigated disaster. Not only did the combined portfolios lose £2,996 but my sale of CWR:Ceres Power after a very lackluster AGM update was followed by a massively upbeat trading statement sending the shares significantly higher while everything I invested the proceeds in sank. Talk about the worst possible timing in every aspect. The buffer between cost and value is now only £1,798 so I could easily sink back into the red next week.

By far the worst performer this week was IQE:IQE which dropped by 13% in my SIPP which I purchased fairly recently. My ISA holding dropped by a spectacular 179% of the original purchase price, partly due to the 13% drop in current price and partly due to buying a load more on Monday just before the 13% drop and increasing my weighted average purchase price from 29p to 39p. Merry bloody Christmas!

Next worst performer was my brand new share BLU:Blue Star Capital, which I thought was on a steady march upwards, and it was until the second I bought it. My purchase price is higher than the highest ever price shown on their chart! I really must stop buying shares on a Monday morning! In the week I've owned them the price has dropped by 26%. Whoopy doo!

Loads of other drops for no reason other than Christmas sucks. KIBO:Kibo Mining down 7% and now runner-up Nemesis Share to OPTI:Optibiotix which dropped another 2p just after I purchased which altogether cost the portfolio value £900. Spawn of OPTI:Optibiotix, SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics dropped another 7% and is now 44% down and MTFB:Motif Bio fell another 5% and will soon be in the red. AMYT:Amryt Pharma dropped 4% but it's such a big holding that cost a lot.

There were a few glimmers of hope to slightly reduce the impact of the losses.

RED:RedT Energy recovered slightly and climbed 5% but is still 19% down, and WRES:W Resources climbed 7% on news of financing but is still 40% down.

Share of the Week for the second week in a row, climbing 10% for the second week in a row, is the best run company in my portfolio CAML:Central Asia Metals. This is now up by 65% and if you include dividends it's 75% up on what I paid. Maybe this would have been a better investment for my CWR:Ceres Power proceeds?

I hate bloody Christmas!

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£66.20		+£0
Portfolio cost	£44,981.97		+£555.13
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£45.330.59	(+0.8%)	-£2,834.07
Potential profits	£8,453.50		-£2,074.93
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,131.66		+£546.31
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£252.19	(6.7%)	+£117.50
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,844.16		+£546.31
Average monthly cash profit	£314.85	(8.4%)	+£16.82
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The CWR:Ceres Power sale did boost the year 3 performance significantly, and helped nudge the overall average performance up by £16 a month as it tries to get back to the target 10%. The £546 profit was good - although could have been so much better if I had waited a week! So if you take away the cost of the sale to paper profits, there was still a £1,500 drop as nearly everything fell in value. It's the worst hammering these accounts have had in a while.

There's only £348 keeping this in profit so a real chance the red line will be breached next week and leave me under water for Christmas.

The SIPP looks like this after week 107

			Weekly Change
Cash	£8.66		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,683.92	(6.4%)	-£160.08
Potential profits	£3,812.70		+£205.44
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£392.14	(18.1%)	-£3.70
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were up thanks to the amazing rise of CAML:Central Asia Metals, but although that negated the drop in IQE:IQE profits, it couldn't compete with the losses to OPTI:Optibiotix so the value drooped by £160 which is thankfully nothing compared to the other accounts.

There was excitement at the end of the week when ARL:Atlantis Resources shares were suspended after the announcement of a proposed reverse takeover which will significantly enlarge the company and change the name to SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited. It will give access to lots more renewable energy assets, so will be interesting to see if the share price can recover from its 48% slump when the shares resume trading.

That's not too alarming as long as the trend reverses at some point soon.

The trading account looks like this after week 73

			Weekly Change
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£257.71	(-47.0%)	-£2.78
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.29	(-3.2%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A 1p drop in REDS:RedstoneConnect made very little difference.

I should be trading the massively volatile crypto currency shares with this account. I may have to lend myself some cash to do that over Christmas rather than watch this fester.

IQE:IQE promised a trading update before the end of the year. To be fair they didn't say whether they meant calendar year or financial year, but in the past there has been an update in mid-December. I think one of the reasons for the fall in share price is people bought in expecting a positive update, and the shorters won't close their positions until one comes through, and only then if things are exceeding expectations. Let's hope something comes through next week.

There was a very strange RNS from OPTI:Optibiotix announcing 73 warrants had been exercised raising £5.84. This would be an utterly pointless waste of time - unless those warrants needed to be tidied up, maybe prior to some sort of announcement of distribution of SBTX:SkinBiotherapeutics shares? That would be a really, really nice Christmas present given the current desperate state of the share price, which is still an absolute mystery given the relentless good news over the last few weeks. Now it's gone on this long I hope it continues for a few more weeks when my pension transfer may have come through and I can buy some more.

A short week next week, but hopefully most traders will still be at work and it won't be a damp squib. One positive week as a sop to a Santa rally would be nice - especially with my accounts being so close to slipping into the red.

Goodbye to Ceres Power

I read an update from the CWR:Ceres Power AGM over the weekend and reluctantly decided to sell, as they are showing too many signs of an academic company with limited ability to commercialise their product. There were a few things from the reports that swayed me:

1. Talk of building a new manufacturing plant - that would cost money and I thought they were planning to licence their product not keep manufacturing it
2. I'd been looking at their tie-up with Honda in terms of vehicles but it turns out it's their power generation wing
3. Nothing seems to have come of the partnership with an Asian boiler manufacturer

Maybe I'm still affected by the collapse of TRX:Tissue Regenix share price, the failure of IKA:Ilika to commercialise their batteries and the recent fall into administration of TRK:Torotrak. Add to that my dwindling performance figures and I decided to cash in the profit while it was there.

I really hope I'm wrong, as their proposed model of distributed power generation seems really promising. I'll keep a close eye, as my pension transfer should come through soon and I may well buy back in.

I sold my 21,099 shares for 11.27p making £546.31 (29.8%) profit.

This liberated £2,365.91

I've been looking at the crypto-currency  madness and wondering if there's a way to join in. Out of all the companies involved, I decided BLU:Blue Star Capital had the most potential, so decided to dip my toe with £500. Their share price has been incredibly volatile, and I couldn't have timed my interest more badly. I bought 76,169 shares this morning at 0.667p costing £520 and by the end of the day I could have bought for 0.59p, so with a bid price of 0.57p my holding is down 19% in a day and losing £97. I really am bloody useless!

The rest of the cash I wanted to divide between my favourite two shares, and thinking today was going to be a blue day I bought early.

I topped up another 494 shares of IQE:IQE at 166.6874p costing £835.39 which took my average purchase price in the ISA up to 39.205p - a whopping 30%. That explains why along with the subsequent drop in value today to 161.75p my stats have been crippled and I'm down by about 80% of purchase price today. My timing is dreadful!

The only way I can stomach OPTI:Optibiotix shares sliding below 70p is to try and average down my price a bit more. I bought another 1,515 shares at 66.495p costing £1,019.35 and the price promtly dropped even further to a bid price of 64p. At least the offer price held up at 68p so I still feel like I got a bargain. OPTI:Optibiotix is now 44.2% of my portfolio cost and losing £1,841 making it once more my Nemesis Share, although with a loss of £1,200 JLP:Jubilee Platinum isn't far ahead!

So if you take my amazingly timed purchases along with a general malaise despite the FTSE being up today, my portfolio has lost £1,493 in value. What a successful day!

Did I mention I really hate Christmas!!

Week 122 Review - Santa rally? - What Santa rally?

Bah humbug! Another pretty poor week following on from last week's big losses. Combined portfolios were down by £1,573 dropping the value to £75,868 and buffer between cost and value drops to £4,795. It doesn't seem like long ago the value crept past £80,000 mid-week but that seems like a far-off goal now.

Worst performer was CWR:Ceres Power Holdings dropping 11% and continuing a gradual drift downwards on lack of news.

TLOU:Tlou Energy was going well but has dropped 6% this week and TRX:Tissue Regenix is in freefall, dropping another 5% to go 69% down.

OPTI:Optibiotix also fell 5% but the impact was more drastic. A 3p drop cost the portfolio £1,350 and accounts for most of the drop this week.

IQE:IQE had a flat week climbing 1% in my SIPP but 7% of cost price in my ISA

Share of the Week is CAML:Central Asia Metals, climbing 10% and now 55% up on cost price making potential profit of £2,535

The buffer has almost halved over a couple of weeks.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

		Weekly Change
Cash	£66.20		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£44,426.84		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£47,609.53	(+7.2%)	-£1,308.60
Potential profits	£10,528.43		-£408.40
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£585.38		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£134.69	(3.6%)	-£8.87
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,297.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£298.03	(8.0%)	-£2.60
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped due to monthly fees. Potential profits not hit too badly, but OPTI:Optibiotix is back to making a loss and most of the £1,308 was down to that. Performance is looking really poor so I may contemplate a pre-Christmas sale to try and turn it aroiund.

I should be happy that this account is still in profit after the first 2 years in the red, but it really highlights my dependence on IQE:IQE as I'd be well in the red without that.

The SIPP looks like this after week 106

			Weekly Change
Cash	£8.66		-£10.65
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,844.00	(7.1%)	-£284.49
Potential profits	£3,607.26		-£73.75
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£395.84	(18.3%)	-£4.21
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash fees taken leaving not enough to cover next month, but damage to the portfolio fairly limited, especially compared th last week. Negatives were counter-acted by a 10% rise in CAML:Central Asia Metals.

Much more serious drop - I really need OPTI:Optibiotix to recover.

The trading account looks like this after week 72

			Weekly Change
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£260.49	(-46.4%)	+£19.46
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.31	(-3.2%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The best performaong account this week! News of a big contract win for REDS:RedstoneConnect resulted in a 4% climb but nowhere near enough to get rid.

Still looks rubbish

TRK:Torotrak went into administration this week. Hopefully they will sell off some assets and return something to shareholders. I'm quite looking forward to them not being in my portfolio any more.

Next week may see interim results for IQE:IQE. The share price isn't rising into it, but may rise as a result of it. I am tempted to sell something in order to top up a few more before results, and drop my average price of OPTI:Optibiotix now it's dipped back below 70p. What to sell?

Week 121 Review - Key shares have a bad time

What a dreadful week. There was a drop of £1,904 in the combined portfolio value reducing total value to £77,456 and the gap between cost and value is reduced to £6,369.

You don't need to look far to explain the losses. Some of my biggest holdings had a bad week.

IQE:IQE was down 6% in my SIPP and a whopping 30% of cost price in my ISA but I'm hoping this drop was manipulation and we'll see a recovery next week.

CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped 8% for no real reason, so hopefully this is just a blip too.

OPTI:Optibiotix only dropped 2p but that's £900 of the losses this week.

WRES:W Resources fell 10% in my SIPP and 7% in my ISA but this is a small part of my portfolio, and one I don't intend holding for much longer as I'm anticipating an irrational spike when they install the processing machinery, so will sell on that before they have a chance to dilute even further.

ARL:Atlantis Resources continues to disappoint, falling another 6% to go 48% down on purchase price. I still believe this company has amazing prospects but suspect it will take a while before I'm back in the black.

TRK:Torotrak absolutely tanked on news that they are almost certainly headed for administration. I just wish they'd hurry up because I'd rather remove the embarrassment of having them in my portfolio, as along with BLUR:Blur Group these were purchased without me having a clue what I was doing. They have been a very stark lesson on directors who may be technically clever, but don't have a clue how to commercialise thier product and are happy to cream off a salary and bonuses for years while delivering nothing to shareholders. As I only invested £106 in the first place, it could actually have been a cost effective lesson.

One of my other massive mistakes was AFPO:African Potash, but they have risen unexpectedly this week from 0.01p to 0.09p by sticking the word block-chain in their name. I suspect they are still doomed, but this rise took them up 3% of my purchase price so they are only 98% down, and if I sold hem I would get £13 once commission is taken - quite tempting!

AMYT:Amryt Pharma continued their recovery climbing another 6% and helping reduce the impact of this week's other losses.

Share of the week is MTFB:Motif Bio which reversed almost all of last week's losses and climbed by 8%.

Given the size of the losses, this line hasn't dipped too badly. I guess as a percentage of the portfolio it's not that much these days.

The ISA and share accounts now look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£69.95		+£0
Portfolio cost	£44,426.84		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£48,918.13	(+10.1%)	-£801.86
Potential profits	£10,936.83		-£92.41
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£585.38		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£143.56	(3.9%)	-£8.98
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,297.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£300.63	(8.1%)	-£2.50
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were only down by £92 so most of the poor performance was down to deepening losses, and most of that was down to OPTI:Optibiotix. The fact potential profits only dipped £92 given the IQE:IQE fall is thanks mainly to AMYT:Amryt Pharma and MTFB:Motif Bio rises.

Not as bad as I had feared.

The SIPP looks like this after week 105 now it's into year 3

			Weekly Change
Cash	£19.31		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,128.49	(8.2%)	-£1,093.91
Potential profits	£3,681.01		-£986.71
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£400.05	(18.5%)	-£3.85
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Easy to see where most of this week's damage was done. Big drops in CAML:Central Asia Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix along with smaller drops elsewhere wiped £986 off potential profits and some deepening losses sent the whole lot down by £1,093. A clean slate for year 3 but no prospect of selling anything in the near future.

A much more alarming dip on the graph than the one above.

I suppose I should review the trading account after week 71

			Weekly Change
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£241.03	(-50.4%)	-£8.34
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.32	(-3.3%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I really couldn't be bothered with this any more

Is that what a death spiral looks like? No! Must stay positive!

That's it for a week where I came back from the tropical heat of Costa Rica to the freezing cold of Blighty. It was a bad week for my main holdings, which I'm confident will bounce back. Here's looking forward to a Santa rally over the next few weeks, although in my experience from the last 2 years I'm suspecting this is a myth!

Week 120 Review - Amryt Pharma recovers

This is another brief one so I can catch up. Week 120 was pretty good, with the combined portfolios increasing by £806 to a value of £79,360 and a £8,273 buffer between cost and value.

Worst performer was CWR:Ceres Power Holdings, dropping 15% after a recent rise. I think the rise was in expectation of news which hasn't materialised.

MTFB:Motif Bio had another bad week, dropping 11% and is only 5% up on my original purchase price. Amazing how AIM stocks drift if there's not a constant supply of news.

RED:RedT Energy slipped by 10% also on a lack of news or further unit sales.

With such big losses I'm amazed the week did so well.

CMCL:Caledonia Mining is benefiting from the change in sentiment towards Zimbabwe, climbing 10% but still losing 27% on my purchase price. Analysts are still predicting this will double in the medium term and the quarterly dividend is great, so I ought to be topping up if I had any spare cash.

Share of the week was AMYT:Amryt Pharma which reversed recent declines and rose by 14% to go back into profit. That would have accounted for much of the rise in portfolio value this week.

The ISA and share accounts now look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£69.95		+£16.34
Portfolio cost	£44,426.84		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£49,719.99	(+11.9%)	+£557.47
Potential profits	£11,029.24		+£226.52
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£16.34
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£585.38		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£152.54	(4.1%)	-£5.45
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£16.34
Total Profit from sales	£7,297.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£303.13	(8.2%)	-£1.95
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were down by £226 so all the gains were down to reduced losses this week. A dividend came through from LOOK:Lookers which doesn't make up for the fact their share prices is still 47% down on when I bought them. So much for FTSE250 shares being a safer bet than AIM!

The SIPP looks like this after week 104 and 2 years

			Weekly Change
Cash	£19.31		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,007.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£29,222.40	(12.4%)	+£329.37
Potential profits	£4,667.72		+£404.54
Yr 2 Dividends	£502.91		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£6,575.33		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£581.77	(26.8%)	-£23.27
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£8,925.19		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£403.90	(18.6%)	-£7.92
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits up £404 but overall value only up by £329 thanks to some deepening losses. Performance at the end of year 2 is brilliant, with 26.8% achieved for the year and despite that the portfolio value 12.4% above cost. Mostly thanks to selling IQE:IQE but the fact that didn't hammer paper profits is reassuring.

The trading account looks like this after week 70

			Weekly Change
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£249.37	(-48.7%)	-£11.12
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.34	(-3.4%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

It gets worse every week. I won't sell for a 50% loss so these are in limbo for a while yet

That's the catch-up done - now back to normal and the return of the graphs...