Week 137 Review - Oh dear. oh dear, oh dear...

This might be one of the most painful reviews I've had to write yet. Although I banked some profits this week and bought some more shares with the cash I've been saving, all the shares I bought have dropped in value and so has practically everything else. The end result is a widening of my paper losses by £5,045 making the gap between cost and value £8,036 and total portfolio value £69,475.82. It's all rather sad.

Worst performer unfortunately didn't perform badly enough for my plans. IQE:IQE dropped 32% of cost price in my ISA and 16% of cost price in my SIPP, but I needed a bigger drop to buy my bargain shares on results day. All the drop has done is wipe out a huge amount of value and allow the hedge funds to close more of their shorts without affecting the share price.

The next two worst performers are the shares I bought when IQE:IQE didn't tank as much as I hoped. MTFB:Motif Bio dropped 15% and has gone from profit ever since I bought it to an 8% loss. VRS:Versarien was clobbered by 13% and is now only 2% up from when I bought them, but at least still in the black.

CAML:Central Asia Metals was Share of the Week last week, so no surprise it tanked 11% this week.

N4P:N4 Pharma was my other new purchase this week and that's already dropped 10%.

TND:Tandem Group fell 7% despite there being no trades that day, and WRES:W Resources is drifting south again on no news, also falling 7%

OPTI:Optibiotix only dropped 5% but the 3p fall contributed to £1,800 of the week's losses.

AMYT:Amryt Pharma is also falling relentlessly so I'm glad I sold 80% of my holding a while back. It dropped another 5% this week and is now making a 6% loss.

There were very few glimmers of hope this week, with one of the lowest ever increases for a Share of the Week.

LION:Lionsgold was a contender climbing 4%, RED:RedT Energy beat it by a percent climbing 5%, and Share of the Week goes to TLOU:Tlou Energy which also climbed 5% but beats RED:RedT Energy because I have more invested.

One of the biggest ever dips in value exacerbated by the big jump in cost as profits were re-invested. That's a very, very wide gap!

The ISA and share portfolios looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£10.36		-£2,198.04
Portfolio cost	£50,109.65		+£2,783.60
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£42.293.52	(-15.6%)	-£2,880.58
Potential profits	£2,103.79		-£1,484.46
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£6,246.78		+£581.92
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£822.63	(19.7%)	+£53.09
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,959.28		+£581.92
Average monthly cash profit	£444.43	(10.6%)	+£15.27
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

All the spare cash was re-invested along with the proceeds of my final IQE:IQE top-slice, resulting in portfolio cost going above £50,000 and increasing by £2,783. Unfortunately, the value dropped by more than that and drops in potential profits made up half the loss, falling £1,484.

The good news is that the IQE:IQE sale increased banked profits by £581 and took my long-term average up by £15 a month and I stay over my 10% of portfolio cost target comfortably despite the portfolio cost going up so much.

I don't like to dwell on the graph...

Here's the SIPP after week 121

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.10		-£233.48
Portfolio cost	£27,016.24		+£726.17
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£26,965.29	(0.2%)	-£2,178.87
Potential profits	£3,383.41		-£1,165.29
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,023.84		+£485.19
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£250.44	(11.1%)	+£115.75
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,949.03		+£485.19
Average monthly cash profit	£382.34	(17%)	+£14.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The cash got re-invested along with the proceeds of the CAML:Central Asia Metals top-slice, and that went towards my first investment in N4P:N4 Pharma which it appears was badly timed. Portfolio value was savaged by £2,178 just over half of which was reduced profits of £1,165 but £484 of that was down to the sale. Average monthly performance has been enhanced, now running at a comfortable 17% of the enlarged portfolio cost.

Amazingly it just about stays in profit. Will the lines cross or bounce next week?

The trading account is a more welcome sight this week

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£345.65		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£176.52	(-48.9%)	+£14.78
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	-£27.05	(-93.9%)	+£0.80
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£11.96	(-41.5%)	+£0.14
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Last week's losses were gained back, but it's a long way from profit.

One day I hope this graph does something reasonably spectacular

I've done so many trades over the last few weeks that I'm planning for a more quiet time now. CAML:Central Asia Metals and IQE:IQE are now under the 10% portfolio cost limit and I've increased the number of shares with more than £3,000 investments, which now comprises of OPTI:Optibiotix, IQE:IQE, CAML:Central Asia Metals, JLP:Jubilee Metals, MTFB:Motif Bio and VRS:Versarien.

It's time to sit back for a bit and wait things out...

No IQE bargains so shopped elsewhere

I could hardly sleep last night with the excitement of IQE:IQE results day, and woke at 7am to read the RNS.

It was upbeat, but not spectacular, which it needed to be for the shorters to give up. Unlikely the price would rocket - but would it fall?

This was it - the tree shake could be about to happen. I logged in and had my buy all ready to submit for when the price crashed to 100p.

Things started off well, with a gradual tick down and then a big 400K sell. This was the tree shake happening before my eyes.

Then it stopped.

I never saw the offer price drop below 132p. That was nowhere near the bargain I was waiting for.

It recovered in minutes to 142p then  spent the rest of the day drifting down again.

It became clear my dreams of really cheap shares had been shattered, so I put plan B into action.

After much deliberation I had decided my plan B was to top up on VRS:Versarien, as this is rapidly catching up OPTI:Optibiotix as one of my favourite shares, and has so many similarities.

• A CEO with lots of skin in the game
• Multiple global partners
• A breakthrough technology with lots of IP and patent protection
• On the cusp of commercialisation
• Potentially massive profits

Just as I was about to make the purchase I noticed that MTFB:Motif Bio had crashed 12% after an RNS saying there will be a slight delay in submission of their New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), postponing to the 2nd quarter of 2018. That's within the next 3 months!

The reason was to ensure the submission is spot-on, as everything pretty much depends on this being right.

I have no problem with a few months delay, and I certainly have no problem when I'm given the opportunity buy more shares at a bargain price.

I bought 3,092 shares at 32.05p costing £999.94 and happily by the end of the day the bid price was 32.25p so my purchase had already recovered the 2% spread. Unfortunately the 2.55p drop did affect my existing holding, and so altogether my shares dipped from paper profit to an £8 loss. I have no doubts that this is a strategic time to buy extra shares, as commercialisation isn't that far away.

This reduced the pot available for VRS:Versarien, but I was still able to buy 2,821 shares at 78.1p costing £2,212.15. Once again the 3% spread was almost cancelled by the end of the day, with the bid price climbing to 78p. My holding is now making £98 (3%) paper profit.

It was generally a pretty poor day for the rest of the portfolio, with some surprising drops considering the blue day on the FTSE100.  TND:Tandem Group dropped 7.7% and there wasn't a single trade!

The result of all my buying and selling and the slip in prices is the gap between cost and value has widened by £3,007 to £5,998 and portfolio value stands at £71,513 which is about £2,000 less than last week.

The selling has done wonders for my average profits though, with the average monthly profit in my ISA and share accounts  standing at £447 per month (10.7% of portfolio value) over 136 weeks and my SIPP making an average of £385 per month (17.1% of portfolio value) over 120 weeks. £832 a month is way, way more than I could have hoped for and is down to £25,000 profits from sales and dividends since I started. That's almost 50% of the cash I originally invested in less than 3 years.

 Considering some of the utterly stupid mistakes I've made over the last 3 years I'm amazed things have turned out that well so far. Having said that, without IQE:IQE it would have been a different story. Almost half my profits have been from that one share. I guess they key thing is to ensure the other losses are small enough so the very few that really take off get the chance to make a difference.

I hope to be able to say the same thing about OPTI:Optibiotix 12 months from now, although it continues to try my patience rather severely now the bid price is back down to 60p and just can't seem to hold any momentum despite relentless good news.

No more ammo left in my locker now, so if mad things start happening to the IQE:IQE share price, I have nothing to play with...

Welcome N4 Pharma to the portfolio

As I have a day off today, I've been keeping a close eye on my portfolio and pondering what I wrote in my weekly review.

As I read, and looked at the links kindly provided by Parob on the Advfn bulletin board for N4P:N4 Pharma, my conviction that this is a good long term hold gained momentum.

I decided that rather than wait for CAML:Central Asia Metals to rise a couple of pence to hit my 11.4% of portfolio target, I would sell now and reduce my holding to slightly less than 10% in order to buy N4P:N4 Pharma at this price and add to my SIPP as a long term holding.

I sold 303 CAML:Central Asia Metals shares at 334.08p making £485.19 (92%) profit and liberating £1,003.31

With the addition of proceeds from a recent WRES:W Resources sale this meant I could buy 5,706 N4P:N4 Pharma shares at 21.65p costing £1,244.30.

Although N4P:N4 Pharma have a way to go before becoming profitable, their model of licensing out their products rather than having to fund their own clinical trials makes this a much more attractive proposition than most small-cap pharma companies.

One to tuck away for the long term, although the story promises to be fast-moving and exciting as deals are done with partner companies.

My only concern is that I bought too early. The share price spiked from around 10p in January to over 32p in late February, only to drop to the current 21.6p in a month. There's some evidence that the initial spike was over-done but the potential is there for a drop back to 10p.

I think the news of progress with the Nuvec vaccine delivery system was the catalyst for the rise, and given this promises to be just as profitable, if not more so, than the reformulation products, it seems reasonable to me that the share price should be worth double what it was before - now there are double the opportunities.

Maybe an over-simplistic view, but choosing an entry point for a share isn't an exact science. I may have caught yet another falling knife here, but I may also have found a satisfactory entry point even if there's a risk of some short term loss.

My other plan to top-slice another £1,000 from IQE:IQE has been scuppered by a drop in price. It is creeping back up again though, so all it will take is a few closing shorts and we'll be back above 140p. I don't really want to sell for less than 145p but I'm so convinced there is going to be a gigantic tree-shake first thing in the morning, that I may sell for less with the aim of buying at 100p tomorrow.

Edit - I watched the IQE:IQE price all day and it never really got above 140p. I ended up selling 727 shares at 140.2p making £581.91 (133%) profit. I now have a fighting fund of £3,212 for tomorrow morning. If it's a great set of results I'll enjoy the price rise, but if as I expect it's a set of results hit by tax bills and worsening currency conversion, I'm convinced the hedge funds will short massively and the tree shake could be off the Richter scale. Should that come to pass, I'll be ready to pounce for bargain shares!

Week 136 Review - All a bit flat

This week has been mainly flat, but a 2p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix is responsible for the whole of the £1,182 drop in portfolio value. That increases the deficit between cost and value to £2,991 leaving portfolio value plus cash at £73,442.

Worst performer in terms of percentage drop was RED:RedT Energy which fell 7% and is really struggling. This is way, way below the recent discounted placing when sentiment was improving, but there is still no evidence that selling their vanadium redox flow machines can be made profitable, so I suspect this miserable performance to continue until that's resolved.

JLP:Jubilee Metals was almost as bad. Shareholders are giving up on the directors and bailing out. I'm almost tempted to do the same, but a 44% loss would be a lot to stomach given how positive things were not so long ago. Every time it looks like the share price might take off they do something to shoot themselves in the foot, and the Beaufort issues and BMR:BMR Group project bailout make me even more suspicious of the directors. I have a horrible feeling this is going to end up in a mess. I've not completely given up hope though. They are producing chrome and platinum so that proves the whole operation isn't just geared to pay director salaries with shareholder money. If things do recover, I won't be hanging around to find out if they make it to mid-cap as I've lost faith in the directors completely and am in damage limitation mode.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics had a good week, climbing 7% but still 37% down. The only way I'll get into profit in the medium term will be adding the free shares from OPTI:Optibiotix. Long term I'm still happy this will do well and would be topping up at these prices is not for the promise of freebies.

Share of the Week is my favourite yo-yo CAML:Central Asia Metals which climbed 8% and is up at new highs. This has now risen 94% since my original purchase. The value is 11.2% of my portfolio cost, so it only needs to climb another 0.2% of portfolio value to qualify for top-slicing £1,000. The ex-dividend date should be around 10th May so it's hard to sell before then, as I'm expecting over £200 in dividends. On the other hand, I won't be selling too many so shouldn't lose very much.

Note that I've changed my calculation for top-slicing to look at portfolio cost rather than value. That's because if OPTI:Optibiotix does take off, then the portfolio value will become very skewed until I start reducing my OPTI:Optibiotix position. However, I'm not planning to do that for a long time so no shares will have a chance to break 10% of portfolio value apart from OPTI:Optibiotix. Calculating my top-slice position based on portfolio cost gets around that problem.

Back below the red line, but only just.

Here's the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£2,208.40		+£0
Portfolio cost	£47,326.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£42.390.50	(-10.4%)	-£1,025.44
Potential profits	£3,588.25		-£88.89
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£5,664.86		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£769.54	(19.5%)	-£24.82
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,377.36		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£429.16	(10.9%)	-£3.18
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A nice quiet week with little change. Most of the damage was deepening losses, mainly of OPTI:Optibiotix, but flat IQE:IQE and drop in VRS:Versarien meant paper profits also took a small dip. Still £2,208 cash tempting me to buy something, but I need ammo for IQE:IQE results day on Tuesday in case I get the opportunity for a bargain, and I think I will as the exceptional tax charges alone should impact profits. They include over £4m unpaid tax discovered this year and the impact of Trump's tax cuts which will have a negative impact on 2017 results, but positive in future years. Last year the exchange rate also helped profits, but this year it hasn't been as favourable. Even a bullish forecast for 2018 won't stop the market makers and hedge funds ensuring there's a great big dip, even if only for a few minutes. It happened last year to trigger stop losses. I could be wrong of course, in which case I'll use the cash for something else.

Things never go up in a straight line - they often come down in one though!

Here's the SIPP after week 120

			Weekly Change
Cash	£263.58		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,290.07		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,417.99	(8.1%)	-£141.83
Potential profits	£4,548.70		+£340.19
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£538.65		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£134.69	(6.1%)	-£8.98
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,463.84		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£368.10	(16.8%)	-£3.10
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Very quiet. Profits are up mainly thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals but OPTI:Optibiotix has dragged the whole thing down to a small £141 loss. Average performance still way ahead of target so I don't mind that year 3 forecast average is so low.

Still very healthy after the recent scare.

The dreaded trading account looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£345.65		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£161.74	(-53.2%)	-£14.78
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	-£27.85	(-96.7%)	+£0.84
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£12.10	(-42%)	+£0.15
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Another drip downwards for LION:Lionsgold means these have halved in value since I bought them - and I thought I was being clever getting them after they had dropped - but no - I was catching a falling knife and it carried on falling!

They say we learn by our mistakes. I'm glad this mistake is only costing £183 so far - it's actually been worth a hell of a lot more as an example of when not to buy a share. Given I've already applied learning from this mistake when timing my purchase of VRS:Versarien which is £179 up, it's almost paid for itself already. It's also stopped me buying HEMO:Hemogenyx yet, which is a very good thing as it continues to slide. At 2.8p it's getting perilously close to my 2.5p target though.

So CAML:Central Asia Metals has almost hit the 11.4% of portfolio cost limit that makes me top-slice, and IQE:IQE is also at 11.4% so I may be selling some on Monday. If I do then I should have around £4,000 ammunition ready for Tuesday, which is about what I had last time I bought IQE:IQE for 92p and made a massive profit in about 10 days. In fact, whatever happens to IQE:IQE in the future, it's been very good to me so far, having banked around £9,700 profit, and a sale on Monday will take that past £10,000. That's almost half of all the profit I have ever made from sales.

I'll also be watching CWR:Ceres Power very closely on Tuesday as they are posting results. I want to buy back in, but the price is 2p more than I sold my holding for, so I really need it to drop below that before I buy in. As they have no commercial sales yet, I'm hoping lack of tangible progress will cause a drop in price, as I still believe these have a very strong future. There are just a few hurdles to get around before they become profitable.

There are some other shares I've been watching closely for a potential entry point, all of which have been pumped recently and are now dropping into more reasonable pricing. IMM:Immupharma may have stabilised at around the 125p range so now may be the time to buy. The results of their Phase III trial for lupus treatment are imminent. I suspect success has been priced in already, but positive news could cause a re-rate.

N4P:N4 Pharma have also been dropping like a stone, but the drop seems to have stalled a bit. They have an interesting business model of improving the efficacy of existing drugs. It removes the need for marketing new drugs, and the drugs they have targeted are massive earners. They are also developing Nuvec which is a delivery system for getting nucleic acids into cells for cancer treatment. If this works it could be huge, and the re-formulation business helps de-risk this research as the profits should provide any required funding.

So if IQE:IQE doesn't plummet on Tuesday I may be dipping my toe into IMM:Immupharma, N4P:N4 Pharma and HEMO:Hemogenyx as they all seem to be at or nearing a reasonable entry point.

Small-cap pharma is quite risky though - and I already have AMYT:Amryt Pharma and MTFB:Mofif Bio.

The other question is whether these are still falling knives? IMM:Immupharma has been stable for a few weeks now and on a slightly upward trend, but N4P:N4 Pharma has only just stopped the slide for a few days. The problem is, N4P:N4 Pharma is probably the most exciting, with greater prospects and a more diverse business model. It only has 90m shares in issue too, so much less dilution than many small companies. IMM:Immupharma only has 139m compared to HEMO:Hemogenyx which is much further away from profits and has 356m. Maybe I'll carry on watching that one and revise down my entry point to 2p as it's so much further behind the other two.

Lots to think about next week. Sales on Monday and buys on Tuesday - but what will I buy?

Week 135 Review - Massive progress towards getting back in the black

What an absolutely brilliant week. I banked another £2,395 profit from IQE:IQE and the difference between cost and value still improved by £2,642. Technically the portfolios are in the red by £1,809 but if you add the £2,472 cash waiting to be re-invested then I'm happy. When I re-invest I will be £1,809 down again, but I'm enjoying the moment.

Worst performer was one of last week's best performers SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which dropped 10%. RED:RedT Energy dropped 8% after a 6% rise last week, so that's going backwards, and TLOU:Tlou Energy can't seem to convince the market that things are going great as the price dropped another 6% just after I bought some more.

AMYT:Amryt Pharma climbed 6% and is back in profit, CAML:Central Asia Metals had a great week and climbed 6%, and WRES:W Resources seems to be sneaking gradually higher, gaining 7%.

TND:Tandem Group are waking up as people notice they are bucking the trend of the other toy makers, possibly thanks to their thriving mobility scooter market They climbed 10% this week.

OPTI:Optibiotix had me doing a jig of joy, as the 10% rise of 6p is worth £3,654 and was a massive contributor to the performance.

Share of the Week goes to IQE:IQE, which as well as earning me loads of real profit also climbed 14% in my SIPP and 32% of purchase price in my ISA. The shorters are closing slowly, but I'm still nervous as they are running out of time before results. More of my sales later, but I'm keeping the cash just in case there is a big dip at any point and I get a chance to buy back cheap. If not, then yippee my holding makes loads of money and I buy something else secure in the knowledge that no more than 10% of my portfolio is locked into IQE:IQE.

As this includes cash, the value just sneaks up past the cost.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£2,208.40		+£2,198.09
Portfolio cost	£47,326.05		+£189.51
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£43.415.94	(-8.3%)	+£515.12
Potential profits	£3,667.14		-£1,441.59
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£5,664.86		+£2,395.10
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£794.36	(20.1%)	+£318.36
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,377.36		+£2,395.10
Average monthly cash profit	£432.34	(11.0%)	+£74.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Three lots of IQE:IQE sales were 1,635 at 129.0661p = £1,137.85 (117%) profit, 839 at 132.28p = £606.49 (120.4%) profit and 764 at 145p = £650.76 (141.7%) profit. These caused the £2,395 rise in banked profit and has rocketed the long-term average monthly profit up by £74 to a very healthy 11%. That's 11% of portfolio value too, which has a habit of growing and making the performance much harder to maintain.

Portfolio value only climbs a small amount as I re-invested the first sale in OPTI:Optibiotix and TLOU:Tlou Energy but kept the proceeds of the other 2 sales as cash. Paper profits only dropped by just over half the profits I took out mainly thanks to IQE:IQE increasing share price by so much.

Still in the red but only a tiny gap.

The SIPP looks like this after week 119

			Weekly Change
Cash	£263.58		-£9.51
Portfolio cost	£26,290.07		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,559.82	(0.5%)	+£2,138.62
Potential profits	£4,208.51		+£521.22
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£538.65		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£143.67	(6.6%)	-£13.21
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,463.84		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£371.10	(16.9%)	-£3.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped due to monthly charges, portfolio value went up massively and comfortably into the black. Potential profits were only up by £521 because IQE:IQE were in loss and now just in profit, and the OPTI:Optibiotix recovery was all reduced losses.

The rise is almost as steep as the fall, but how long can it continue?

The trading account looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£345.65		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£176.52	(-48.9%)	-£11.09
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	-£28.69	(-99.6%)	-£0.90
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£12.25	(-42.5%)	+£0.14
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Another trickle down - all very frustrating.

It's not looking good!

That's it - no time to ponder the week coming as it's already here. A wonderful long weekend in the Lake District messed up my ability to update, but I was able to take a snapshot of the stock prices before the markets opened Monday morning.

Next week is already here - remarkably flat - up £2 on last week...

More IQE profits banked and last ever Optibiotix purchase

Following the disposal of my temporary 92p IQE:IQE shares over the last few weeks, today I started the gradual selling in order to get my holding down to 10% of my portfolio value. I've decided that apart from OPTI:Optibiotix which is a "special" company and one I'm happy to be overweight in, I need to reduce my risk with the others.

IQE:IQE is especially risky because of the attention from major hedge funds who still maintain their heavy short positions despite all the recent shenanigans. I'm satisfied IQE:IQE has a very, very healthy long term future, but short term could be carnage.

I sold 1,635 shares at 129.0661p making £1,137.85 (117%) profit. This liberated £2,101.28 to re-invest elsewhere. I'm left with 7,174 shares comprising 13.4% of my portfolio value, so still a few more to shed before I get down to 10%.

Most importantly, the sale means my combined ISA/share account long-term monthly profit performance increases to 9.8% which is incredibly close to my 10% target.

I bet you can't guess where the first half went?

I've been frustrated for a while that I have 59,003 OPTI:Optibiotix shares, and really wanted to get it up to 60,000. I'd also invested £39,315 so wanted to get that to a nice £40,000. Given that the share price has dipped below 60p and my weighted average is 67p, I couldn't resist one last bargain buy.

I bought 1,719 shares at 59.95p costing £1,039.49. This takes my total OPTI:Optibiotix shareholding to 60,722 costing £40,354.84 and comprising 53.9% of my portfolio cost but currently just 50.8% of my portfolio value. The portfolio now comprises of OPTI:Optibiotix and everything else, with everything else unable to make much impression if there's any movement in OPTI:Optibiotix price. Each 1p change in share price is now worth £607, so this final purchase has got me over the £600 per penny milestone too.

This one really will be the last top-up. The 60K, £40K and £600/penny milestones are significant and it's all rather neat if I stop now.

The rest of today's buys were doubling my holding in TLOU:Tlou Energy. The price drop was way, way over-done a few weeks ago and I was happy to buy back in at 10.5p then. The price dropped again making them even more insanely cheap. I bought 10,832 shares at 9.685p costing £1,058.03. This brings my holding to 20,991 shares with a weighted average of 10p. Given these were 17p less than 2 months ago and nothing has materially changed other than reserves have increased by over 900%, I'm confident they will double in value during 2018.

Week 134 Review - Great timing on Versarien investment

Although this week has seen a drop in portfolio value, it's actually been quite good. The fall is entirely down to small drops in my biggest holdings OPTI:Optibiotix and IQE:IQE but compared to the general decline in the market, things turned out quite well. The value dropped by £803 to £69,603 and the portfolio is £4,452 in the red.

Biggest loser was in the trading account. LION:Lionsgold fell 11% and made me regret my optimism a few weeks ago. This is back to being a donkey and down 46% in the short time I've owned it.

IQE:IQE dropped 6% in my SIPP and 14% in my ISA against cost price. Shorters seem to be back in control. I thought the price would be allowed to rise leading up to results, with the potential for a big drop on that day when tax charges and improving dollar hit profits. Although the price is now higher than my recent sales, they were my sacrificial shares bought at 92p. Although I do want to get my holding down to 10% of portfolio value, I don't want to sell for anything under 140p.

There were lots of other small losses across the portfolio, but they had limited impact apart from the 1p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix which was responsible for £590 of the drop in value.

There were some good rises though. CAML:Central Asia Metals has become a proper yo-yo share. Last week it had dropped 8% after being Share of the Week the week before that, but this week it climbed 4% to claw back half the losses. It's now 80% up, or 96% if you count the stunning £647 dividends I've had in just over 2 years.

RED:RedT Energy has been really poor lately on lack of news, but climbed 6% this week. It's still 32% down but I suspect this will sort itself out very quickly if they can prove there's a profit in selling their machines.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics has been another really poor performer lately, but renewed optimism this week saw the share price climb 17%. It's still 34% down, and normally I would top up at these prices, but seeing as I'm about to get thousands of free shares from OPTI:Optibiotix, there doesn't seem much point.

Share of the Week was my most recent purchase VRS:Versarien, climbing 18%. In a very rare example of good timing, these have climbed 20% in 2 weeks and are making £249 paper profit. I've been really excited about the company for months, and that excitement is increasing. There's still a risk it will languish in a trading range for a year or two before it can prove profitability, just like OPTI:Optibiotix, but I think this is one to tuck away for the long term and potentially top up on any dips.

I guess it was too much to hope that the upward trend would continue without a blip or two.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£10.31		+£0
Portfolio cost	£47,136.54		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£42.711.31	(-9.4%)	-£538.94
Potential profits	£5,118.73		-£416.06
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£3,269.76		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£475.43	(12.1%)	-£16.39
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,982.26		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£358.23	(9.1%)	-£2.70
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A quiet week. As mentioned above, most losses were IQE:IQE and OPTI:Optibiotix, with the increase in VRS:Versarien helping reduce the impact on potential profits.

Still way too big a gap.

The SIPP loos like this after week 118

			Weekly Change
Cash	£273.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£26,290.07		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£26,421.20	(0.5%)	-£227.11
Potential profits	£3,687.29		+£91.18
Yr 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£538.65		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£156.88	(7.2%)	-£12.06
Total Dividends	£916.10		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£9,463.84		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£374.59	(17.1%)	-£3.20
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

As both OPTI:Optibiotix and IQE:IQE are making a loss, the drop didn't really affect paper profits. LGEN:Legal & General fell 2% but the rise in CAML:Central Asia Metals was easily enough to ensure potential profits climbed this week.

In the black, but the gap is so narrow it's on a knife-edge.

Trading looks like this after week 84

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£345.65		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£187.61	(-45.7%)	-£36.95
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 2 Profit	-£218.50		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	-£19.59	(-102.7%)	+£0.95
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£12.39	(-43%)	+£0.15
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I have a new strategy, but can't bring myself to sell for such a massive loss to put it into practice. I'm stuck in limbo until LION:Lionsgold does something to enable me to sell. Next time, I'll sell long before it drops this low and things will be different! I hope...

If this account ever works, I'm sure I'll look back at this graph and shake my head and wonder how I could let it get so bad. In fact, I'm shaking my head now and wondering how I let it get so bad!

I'm hoping IQE:IQE will recover to 140p next week as I have a couple of shares I'd like to dip a toe into. One was going to be HEMO:Hemogenyx which I started watching a couple of weeks ago, and at just above 2p looked like a reasonable price. Unfortunately I was too late and it climbed 186% in one day to 6p. Since then it's dropped to 4.9p but that's way more than I'm prepared to pay. One to watch and hope it drops back to maybe 2.5p which seems a fair price given how long it will be before they make a profit.

One of my old favourite shares is PAF:Pan African Resources. They've been on hard times recently, but may have come through them. The share price has halved and they have a P/E ratio of just 0.067. There are some significant risks, but with new projects starting to produce later this year, now could be a good time to get back in.

I'm also hoping for resolution of a potentially disastrous situation for KIBO:Kibo Mining. Their broker Beaufort Securities Limited has been placed into insolvency, just after a placing was carried out to raise £750,000 which hasn't been handed over yet. Hopefully Beaufort haven't received the money yet else we may never see it, but the investors will no doubt want their shares or their money back. This could have a terrible impact if KIBO:Kibo Mining need to grant the shares despite getting no cash. Just as everything was looking so promising too!

The insolvency also affects JLP:Jubilee Metals who use them as sole broker and now need to find another one quick.

There's only really one thing I want next week, and that's the golden RNS from OPTI:Optibiotix. Surely it's got to come soon? Years of waiting and building what for me is a gigantic position, but still nothing to show for it apart from my £5,500 paper loss. No wonder my portfolio is in the red! At least we had news this week that the premium account has been cancelled, so dividends can be distributed. I hope they wait to distribute the free SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics shares, as I think that would significantly lower the OPTI:Optibiotix share price. We need news of revenues and a share price over 100p so the effect of the drop will be less severe. I'd be wailing in the street if they dish them out now and the share price drops to 48p, about 30% below my weighted average. If it drops from 100p to 90p I'll be much less upset.