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!