Central Asia Metals top-slice

I've always wanted to top-slice some profits from a share, but it was never a scientific enough process for my brain to tolerate. I felt I was losing some of a good thing.

My new process for keeping one holding to 10% of my portfolio worked wonders today though, as I had set a limit order to sell 320 CAML:Central Asia Metals at 330p and it triggered today.

The price did reach 333p at one point, but that was share price rather than bid price. That seems to have peaked at 332p very briefly, so I sold fairly near the top. By the end of the day the bid price was back down at 326p.

My 320 shares resulted in £496.89 (88.8%) profit, helped by the fact I left all the purchase commission charges on my remaining holding and removed them from the sale so I don't double-count.

The sale has liberated £1,044.08 to be re-invested.

So what made this sale so successful? Simple - I didn't really need to do it so I held out until it reached the price I wanted. Normally I'm too eager and make the sale because I want to buy something else quick, so I lose out.

I need to remember this lesson and apply it to future sales. As there are only 4 shares that are likely to exceed 10% of my holding, it's not a technique I'll get to use very often. If these continue to climb then I'll sell a few hundred more next time there's £1,000 to liberate, and if things go well for AMYT:Amryt Pharma I may get to top-slice there too.

IQE:IQE and OPTI:Optibiotix are the only other two, but they are more complicated.

IQE:IQE would be straightforward if I hadn't just bought a load more for 166p. With the price now at 125p I can't possibly offload any until 200p just to make those pay, despite my overall holding being 200% up. It was 400% up a few weeks ago so I'm keeping them all for now.

OPTI:Optibiotix is even more complicated. It's going to be a few months until we find out what free SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics share are being handed out, and even longer before Sweetbiotix floats. As I'm counting on free shares in both to really make these pay, then I need to hold the maximum possible amount until then. I don't really want to sell any until they are 200p and I have the free shares. That would compensate nicely for the 2 years of misery watching my losses deepen, then occasionally threaten to become profitable before returning to loss again.

I'm even more excited about OPTI:Optibiotix after today's RNS that they are publishing a paper at Probiota 2018 on the identification and development of a prebiotic which selectively enhances the growth of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG(R)) in the gut. This is the best-selling probiotic in the world! There's an existing market and all the manufacturers have to do is add the new prebiotic to enhance their existing ingredient!What baffles me is how that news only resulted in 28 trades, and most are showing as sells. Do people not understand??

There was at least a 1p increase in share price, which cancelled out the negative £496 from my CAML:Central Asia Metals sale on this week's performance, leaving me £60 up on the week, which is much better than £2,600 down last week.

So I have my £1,000 to play with, but I'm not spending it yet. I had been looking at VRS:Versarien after they were certified as producing proper graphene, which apparently most companies aren't. I wish I had invested then as the shares were around 20p, but I didn't and now they're 91.5p. They have done something similar to OPTI:Optibiotix and soared early on - so it's possible the same will happen as did to OPTI:Optibiotix and they will drift around the 60p mark for years.

With that in mind I'm not buying any at 91.5p as I made that mistake with OPTI:Optibiotix, and more recently with BLU:Blue Star Capital and LION:Lionsgold which have both been unmitigated disasters.

Have I finally learned my lesson?

There was a documentary on the telly about Warren Buffet last week. I knew most of the story from reading his biography, but the program showed a picture on his office wall of a baseball player's position, surrounded by the possible places the ball could arrive when pitched, and a scoring system for which place is most likely to result in a clean strike.

There was one small sweet spot just right of centre.

The analogy was that many, many balls will fly at the batsman, but he must wait for one to arrive in the sweet spot before hitting it. I realised as I watched that my technique is to swing wildly at whatever comes in my direction, which explains why I only occasionally make a good hit, with the majority flying off the wrong way or going nowhere.

So - patience is required when buying new shares not just to choose the right company, but to choose the right moment to buy the company. Today would have been a far better day to by BLU:Blue Star Capital and LION:Lionsgold, although both were foolish gambles on the crypto-currency bubble which seems to have burst the second I got on board.

If VRS:Versarien drop back to around 50p then I may consider them - but have more research to do yet anyway. I must admit I'm desperate to buy IQE:IQE, but I simply mustn't crush my 10% rule when I've only just resolved to re-instate it (albeit gradually).

What else do i have in my SIPP that may perform better?

OPTI:Optibiotix is out as I'm way, way to deep in that already. On the other hand - it's just so bloody brilliant, and one more purchase would take it to 50% of my portfolio value. Surely I could then whittle it back to 10% after getting the free shares? The current price is only 1p more than my weighted average in the SIPP and 1p less than my overall weighted average. Oh the temptation!!

 LGEN:Legal & General would be safe, but is probably a bit expensive at the minute, ARL:Atlantis Resources is still suspended pending reverse takeover, WRES:W Resources is rubbish and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, so that just leaves TRX:Tissue Regenix.

I'm quite tempted to top up on TRX:Tissue Regenix at 9p as my current holding was bought for 18.7p. Things do appear to be looking more promising for them, so there could be a re-rate fairly soon. They are cheaper now than they were 7 years ago when they had nothing. Now they have a product on sale and have just bought a profitable company. With an emphasis on sales rather than product development, these could rise nicely from here.

The other possibility is MTFB:Motif Bio which is also about to commercialise their product. My ISA holding is already up 36% and my concern that it's near the top of it's recent range, so could easily drop again from here prior to full commercial news.

When I sold TLOU:Tlou Energy a few weeks ago I said I would watch them like a hawk. I have. They are back down to the price I originally sold them for. If they drop to their resistance level of 12p then I may give them another go.

A completely left-field option is KAT:Katoro Gold. I've been watching them because I hope to receive free shares at some point via KIBO:Kibo Mining. The price has dropped from the 5p IPO price to 2.76p to buy. I've been impressed by CEO Louis Coetzee's approach to the KIBO:Kibo Mining coal to power project, so this could be a good price to buy in, but with production a few years away and the prospect of free shares anyway, maybe not.

I'm determined not to rush this decision and hold the cash for a while - in fact I should be aiming to keep 10% of my portfolio value as cash anyway - but that's really, really hard...