Week 129 Review - Catastrophic losses and plunged into the red

What an absolutely dreadful week. OPTI:Optibiotix dropped another 2p losing me over £1,000 and putting the offer price 2.5p below what I've just paid for them in my great bargain last week, and IQE:IQE has been utterly savaged by hedge funds. Pretty much everything else has dropped too. The end result is a fall in paper profits of £3,664 and the combined portfolios dropping to a loss of £1,249 and a value of just £70,553 when it was knocking on £80K in the Autumn.

IQE:IQE has been hammered, losing 19% in my SIPP which was purchased at 131p. More painful is losing 64% of my purchase cost of 39.2p in my ISA. I'm devastated as I thought this was going up, and even recommended someone buy it at 135p which I don't normally do - and now I know why! This is surely being manipulated and doesn't give me much faith in the workings of the market. It appears is if someone is getting their journalist mates to print fake news articles about Apple that damage the IQE:IQE share price, and I think that has to be some form of fraud?

WRES:W Resources dropped 12%, MTFB:Motif Bio dropped 8% and virtually everything else dropped at least a few percent.

Share of the Week by miles was KIBO:Kibo Mining which climbed a huge 4%. That's as good as it got!

First drop below the red line in about 6 months. Very distressing.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£10.89		+£0
Portfolio cost	£44,964.39		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£42.790.47	(-4.8%)	-£2,672.11
Potential profits	£5,110.52		-£2,008.00
Yr 3 Dividends	£34.11		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,104.47		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£194.10	(5.2%)	-£8.09
Total Dividends	£1,213.16		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,816.97		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£299.17	(8.0%)	-£2.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Most of the drop in potential profits is IQE:IQE, and OPTI:Optibiotix also contributed significantly. One of the worst weeks ever for this portfolio.

Well into the red

The SIPP looks like this after week 113

			Weekly Change
Cash	£39.01		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,492.59		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,523.61	(3.9%)	-£974.42
Potential profits	£4,002.10		-£8.66
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£496.89		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£205.95	(9.3%)	-£8.66
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,422.08		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£386.53	(17.5%)	-£3.42
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were hardly touched, as both IQE:IQE and OPTI:Optibiotix are loss-making, so it was just the 1% drop in LGEN:Legal & General that affected paper profits. A thumping big £974 drop in portfolio value was rather unpleasant though.

The narrowest the gap has been for a long time. Could these go into the red for the fist time in over a year?

The trading account looks like this after week 79

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£345.65		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£239.34	(-30.8%)	-£18.48
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	-£35.07	(-121.7%)	+£1.35
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£13.18	(-45.7%)	+£0.16
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

No worse than usual

It's not been a nice week, and I'm not convinced next week will be any nicer. My biggest holdings seem to have been targeted either by shorters in the case of IQE:IQE or something else equally sinister with OPTI:Optibiotix.

The hedge funds are utterly evil. So much fake news about Apple pulling the iPhone X. Why would Apple do that when the supply can't keep up with demand? The hedge funds are using every weapon in their armoury to drive IQE:IQE down until they can close at a massive profit. I hope against all hopes that there's some deal or contract about to be announced and causes a gigantic surge in the price, as making money in this way is just plain wrong. Shorting stock just encourages manipulation and dodgy practice, but it will never be banned as it makes rich people so much money, and they make the laws.

I really don't know what's happening with OPTI:Optibiotix. I can only suspect there's a massive order being filled, because there is so much good news being issued and yet the price keeps going down. I must stop worrying - although my weekly performance is being hit really hard, this now makes up 50% of my portfolio and a 1p rise is worth £534, so when that elusive trigger happens this will go bonkers. Surely it must come soon...