I couldn't shake the wrongness of the fall in CEY:Centamin share price over the last few days. 160p to 122p in a couple of days. That's a 24% drop based on a production update that suggests short term production may be reduced by around 14%. These updates tend to be pessimistic, and the short term nature of the drop has been stressed. They are also a sound company with £221 million free cash flow last year.
It's not surprising one of their non-executive directors immediately bought 40,000 shares.
I couldn't let the opportunity slip, and in an attempt to prevent myself spending the cash on yet more OPTI:Optibiotix shares, I used the proceeds from yesterday's VRS:Versarien sale to buy 1,198 CEY:Centamin shares at 126.365p costing £1,525.80.
The bid price climbed to 126.8p by the end of the day so spread is covered, but I'm down £18 commission based on a total commission of £23.90 for buying and selling.
I figure VRS:Versarien will take a while to drop down to my target price, so I may as well hold these in the hope of a quick rebound back to 160p. I'll then sell up so I can get even more VRS:Versarien, as getting this to 10% of my holding is still a priority.
I had a major scare this morning, reading an OPTI:Optibiotix RNS with great excitement only to find there has been a placing at 62p. I was gutted - just as things were looking up, the inevitable drop to placing price would hammer my portfolio once more.
I was feeling betrayed - we were assured there was enough cash - what on earth did they need a placing for?
Reading the RNS revealed all. There is great interest from pharma companies in LP-LDL, but in order to satisfy the most basic pharma demands, the processing plant has to have an independent production line for this product. That will cost £500K.
So if we invest £500K now, then it could result in a 7-figure return once the pharma companies have put our product through phase III trials and regulatory approval.
Add to that retail interest in Slimbiome requiring ramp up in production and increased Sweetbiotix activity, and the benefits of raising cash to move faster on these channels seems to outweigh the relatively small dilution that will result.
Thankfully the market agreed, and rather than tanking to 62p as I expected, the bid price climbed to 66p and is only 1p from going back into profit.
Meanwhile VRS:Versarien has dropped from the 94.82p I sold for to 88p and is validating my decision to top-slice a few. I just need the timing to be in favour with CEY:Centamin so I can rescue my cash and get an enlarged VRS:Versarien holding.
In the SIPP CAML:Central Asia Metals went mental today, with a 6.4% increase, but N4P:N4 Pharma sneaked back into a small loss.
At the mid-week point I'm up by a spectacular £3, but that's including the loss in portfolio value from banking £353 VRS:Versarien profits, so I'm feeling decidedly up.
The last few weeks have seen disastrous Thursdays and Fridays though, so I won't get excited unless I can take a positive snapshot on Friday evening.
Wednesday 30 May 2018
Tuesday 29 May 2018
Sold a quarter of Versarien holding
I decided to go through with my plan to top-slice some profits from VRS:Versarien this morning.
The price had gone up some more, and although I'm very happy and sure they will go much further, I'm applying the OPTI:Optibiotix model that there's a chance these will be traded mercilessly up and down until they start producing predictable revenues.
I've held out with OPTI:Optibiotix because I don't want to lose the right to any free spin-off shares, but have watched the yo-yo effect for nearly three years now and every time I get into profit, I sit and watch it all vanish again.
I'm not prepared to do that with VRS:Versarien, so sold 1,626 shares this morning for 94.82p making £353.54 (31%) profit. That leaves me with 6,000 and I intend to re-invest the proceeds from the sale back into VRS:Versarien if the price should fall back into the 70-80p range. If the price drops to 75p then I can increase my 1,626 to 2,000 which would be great.
My plan is to always keep 75% of my holding and trade the other 25% on peaks and troughs.
Knowing my luck the price will permanently re-rate, which isn't all bad as I'll still have the profits from my 75% retainer, but I'll be miffed if after all the other shares I've held which yo-yo, this one suddenly decides to buck the trend.
If I hadn't done the sale, the portfolio would have been positive today, which is quite impressive considering the big drops across the main markets. I'm only £200 down on difference between portfolio cost and value today and would have been £153 up without the sale.
AMYT:Amryt Pharma announced a new deal to sell Lojuxta in the Middle East this morning. Should increase their revenues from this channel by 25%. Caused a minuscule 0.4p share price rise - grr! This is a perfect example of an AIM share where I was once making good profits but now 9% loss, and yet the situation has improved markedly.
I must now remain strong and hold my £1,500 cash to buy VRS:Versarien, and not get tempted by the massively over-done drop in CEY:Centamin or another drop in OPTI:Optibiotix price which would be very, very wrong - but the temptation is pretty hard to resist...
The price had gone up some more, and although I'm very happy and sure they will go much further, I'm applying the OPTI:Optibiotix model that there's a chance these will be traded mercilessly up and down until they start producing predictable revenues.
I've held out with OPTI:Optibiotix because I don't want to lose the right to any free spin-off shares, but have watched the yo-yo effect for nearly three years now and every time I get into profit, I sit and watch it all vanish again.
I'm not prepared to do that with VRS:Versarien, so sold 1,626 shares this morning for 94.82p making £353.54 (31%) profit. That leaves me with 6,000 and I intend to re-invest the proceeds from the sale back into VRS:Versarien if the price should fall back into the 70-80p range. If the price drops to 75p then I can increase my 1,626 to 2,000 which would be great.
My plan is to always keep 75% of my holding and trade the other 25% on peaks and troughs.
Knowing my luck the price will permanently re-rate, which isn't all bad as I'll still have the profits from my 75% retainer, but I'll be miffed if after all the other shares I've held which yo-yo, this one suddenly decides to buck the trend.
If I hadn't done the sale, the portfolio would have been positive today, which is quite impressive considering the big drops across the main markets. I'm only £200 down on difference between portfolio cost and value today and would have been £153 up without the sale.
AMYT:Amryt Pharma announced a new deal to sell Lojuxta in the Middle East this morning. Should increase their revenues from this channel by 25%. Caused a minuscule 0.4p share price rise - grr! This is a perfect example of an AIM share where I was once making good profits but now 9% loss, and yet the situation has improved markedly.
I must now remain strong and hold my £1,500 cash to buy VRS:Versarien, and not get tempted by the massively over-done drop in CEY:Centamin or another drop in OPTI:Optibiotix price which would be very, very wrong - but the temptation is pretty hard to resist...
Sunday 27 May 2018
Week 146 Review - Portfolio value plummets in crazy volatile week
The week started off quite well but went downhill horribly in the last three days. The deficit increased by £2,671 mainly thanks to the 6p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix which cost around £4,000. You can see that there were some spectacularly good performers to reduce those losses so much, however the portfolio value has now dropped to £74,878.
Worst performer was last week's Share of the Week TLOU:Tlou Energy, which gave up nearly all last week's 18% gain and dropped 15%. Not at all what I was expecting!
OPTI:Optibiotix was next worst, with the 6p amounting to a 9% fall and back into the red for my holding. Why will the market not allow me just a few weeks to enjoy OPTI:Optibiotix being in profit before it all gets snatched away?
BLU:Blue Star Capital dropped another 6% this week despite SatoshiPay announcing a deal. It clearly wasn't a big enough deal to satisfy the market.
Another 6% faller was PAF:Pan African Resources. "Hold on!" I hear you cry - "Where the hell did those come from?". I really like this company but haven't held any for a while. I've not got any gold interest at the moment (LION:Lionsgold doesn't count), so I decided to sell the rest of my LGEN:Legal & General shares in order to try and benefit from a potential short term 100% profit. These should easily be trading for double what they are now, and I believe the problems that caused the drop are behind them. There is also a very healthy dividend and a new project about to start producing.
I sold my 416 LGEN:Legal & General shares at 282.8p, liberating £1,164.50 and making £320.70 (40.2%) profit. There's still a dividend due in June to add to the £147 dividends I've already had. I bought 15,439 PAF:Pan African Resources shares at 7.428p costing £1,164.49. They dropped a little today, and with spread and commission are down 6%.
MTFB:Motif Bio continued their slide with another 5% drop, as did RED:RedT Energy who I'm starting to lose patience with.
That's all the bad news out of the way, now for the good news.
ARL:Atlantis Resources had their suspension lifted and all is looking good for the new enlarged company. Shares climbed by 10% but are still 38% down on my purchase price.
N4P:N4 Pharma had a massive surge and are up 16% on the week, meaning they are within 0.05p of breaking even. Fingers crossed these will go green next week.
SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics shrugged off last week's gloom and rocketed 18%. I'm wondering if some long term OPTI:Optibiotix holders are getting fed up of waiting for free shares and are selling out to bolster their SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics holding with a view to re-investing profits in OPTI:Optibiotix later. That could explain the big drop in one company as the other soars.
Share of the Week slaughtered the competition. VRS:Versarien just would not stop going up, eventually climbing 37% to 91p. Why the hell can't OPTI:Optibiotix do that? Thankfully I'd filled my boots in the mid 60's bringing my weighted average down to 71p, so these are now showing paper profit of £1,488 (27%). As these are so volatile I'm tempted to sell some of my holding with the aim of re-investing after a drop - but i daren't do that with all my holding in case it carries on upwards.
Quite a significant drop over the last 2 weeks, just as it looked like going back into the black.
Here's the ISA and share accounts performance
This wasn't too bad because most of the strong performers were in the ISA. The increase in VRS:Versarien almost nullified the losses in paper profit from OPTI:Optibiotix going into the red, but the subsequent deepening of loss took £822 off the portfolio value.
The gap is too wide again, but we're still way above the recent lows.
The SIPP looks like this after week 130
A fantastic £205.50 dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals explains the increase in cash. I'll hold this until I next sell something rather trying to invest such a small sum. The portfolio was absolutely hammered, mainly by OPTI:Optibiotix, but there were also 4% drops in CAML:Central Asia Metals and IQE:IQE. Performance is absolutely brilliant though, with the LGEN:Legal & General sale taking the long term average to 16.6%, and that's based on the current, enlarged portfolio cost so is as pessimistic a figure as there could be.
It wasn't long ago that nearly every share in this portfolio was in profit. Now only CAML:Central Asia Metals is. That's the downside of the realised performance being so good - I sold nearly all my profitable shares! I still prefer the model of investing in potential growth shares and selling when they become profitable, but it does mean long periods in the red. I just need to be patient and wait for the growth to happen.
Still in the black, but only just!
LION:Lionsgold is still suspended so no point in talking about the trading account
I watched the CAML:Central Asia Metals share price with interest this week after reading a theory on a bulletin board that the share price would be walked up by the market makers so any automatic dividend re-investment would be at a premium to shares bought cheaply following an engineered drop last week. The fact that the share price ended up 4% lower than the week before suggests that theory is a duffer. Ah well - it would have added some spice to my trading account if it had played out.
It was a horrible week for my OPTI:Optibiotix shares. The week started so well with the formal announcement of what we already knew, that a deal had been done with Seed Health. This could be a big one given the potential size of the US market and the links between Seed and various high profile celebrities.
However the share price absolutely tanked following the annual results. I really don't understand why. The year end was back in November so most of the deals hadn't been done, and there certainly wasn't time to get any revenue even if they had been. The sell-off of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics meant there was a paper profit, but if the company are genuinely planning to give that back to shareholders it won't last. There is a risk that they need the interest in that company to keep in profit until we are able to break even on sales alone. That could delay any handout of shares for at least another year.
I think that's what triggered a lot of the selling. Long term holders were hoping for news of a dividend in the form of free shares, and got fed up of waiting so bailed out some of their holding to put into SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics directly, as that is showing much more growth momentum. Personally I think that's a short termist view, and for those with the patience to hold onto their OPTI:Optibiotix shares, the rewards will eventually be much greater.
I was expecting the next sell-off to be Sweetbiotix, however it's looking like the probiotics division may be next in line. The Microbiome Invest Congress was held on 23rd May. Dr Luis Gosalbez is the Director of Business Development at OPTI:Optibiotix and was there to pitch the probiotics division in the "Pitch Your Microbes" final. This was a massive opportunity to present the division, and cholesterol/blood pressure reducing LP-LDL to a wealth of investors and pharma companies. I can't believe that this sort of exposure won't have a positive impact on the share price and give that long-awaited re-rate to the 100p range. It took way less than that to get VRS:Versarien from 66p to 91p last week.
So, it may be a quiet week next week, or I may decide to top-slice some VRS:Versarien profits. I bought 7,676 shares for £5,439 that are worth £6,927. If I sell 1,676 then I would make £291 (25%) profit and liberate £1,467 which would pretty much skim off the profits and leave the value the same as I invested in the first place. If I do this, I would definitely not re-invest in another share, but hold the cash for the almost inevitable drop back to the 70p range. If they don't drop, then I still have 6,000 and still have over £1,000 paper profit while banking my £291. If they do drop then I won't have lost all my paper profits, and will end up with more than the original 7,676 shares. Hmm - it's tempting...
Worst performer was last week's Share of the Week TLOU:Tlou Energy, which gave up nearly all last week's 18% gain and dropped 15%. Not at all what I was expecting!
OPTI:Optibiotix was next worst, with the 6p amounting to a 9% fall and back into the red for my holding. Why will the market not allow me just a few weeks to enjoy OPTI:Optibiotix being in profit before it all gets snatched away?
BLU:Blue Star Capital dropped another 6% this week despite SatoshiPay announcing a deal. It clearly wasn't a big enough deal to satisfy the market.
Another 6% faller was PAF:Pan African Resources. "Hold on!" I hear you cry - "Where the hell did those come from?". I really like this company but haven't held any for a while. I've not got any gold interest at the moment (LION:Lionsgold doesn't count), so I decided to sell the rest of my LGEN:Legal & General shares in order to try and benefit from a potential short term 100% profit. These should easily be trading for double what they are now, and I believe the problems that caused the drop are behind them. There is also a very healthy dividend and a new project about to start producing.
I sold my 416 LGEN:Legal & General shares at 282.8p, liberating £1,164.50 and making £320.70 (40.2%) profit. There's still a dividend due in June to add to the £147 dividends I've already had. I bought 15,439 PAF:Pan African Resources shares at 7.428p costing £1,164.49. They dropped a little today, and with spread and commission are down 6%.
MTFB:Motif Bio continued their slide with another 5% drop, as did RED:RedT Energy who I'm starting to lose patience with.
That's all the bad news out of the way, now for the good news.
ARL:Atlantis Resources had their suspension lifted and all is looking good for the new enlarged company. Shares climbed by 10% but are still 38% down on my purchase price.
N4P:N4 Pharma had a massive surge and are up 16% on the week, meaning they are within 0.05p of breaking even. Fingers crossed these will go green next week.
SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics shrugged off last week's gloom and rocketed 18%. I'm wondering if some long term OPTI:Optibiotix holders are getting fed up of waiting for free shares and are selling out to bolster their SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics holding with a view to re-investing profits in OPTI:Optibiotix later. That could explain the big drop in one company as the other soars.
Share of the Week slaughtered the competition. VRS:Versarien just would not stop going up, eventually climbing 37% to 91p. Why the hell can't OPTI:Optibiotix do that? Thankfully I'd filled my boots in the mid 60's bringing my weighted average down to 71p, so these are now showing paper profit of £1,488 (27%). As these are so volatile I'm tempted to sell some of my holding with the aim of re-investing after a drop - but i daren't do that with all my holding in case it carries on upwards.
Quite a significant drop over the last 2 weeks, just as it looked like going back into the black.
Here's the ISA and share accounts performance
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £7.11 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £51,874.49 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £46,426.56 | (-10.5%) | -£822.39 |
| Potential profits | £1,676.87 | -£52.11 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £44.15 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £8,033.77 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £829.95 | (19.2%) | -£20.25 |
| Total Dividends | £1,223.20 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £14,746.27 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £469.85 | (10.9%) | -£3.24 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
This wasn't too bad because most of the strong performers were in the ISA. The increase in VRS:Versarien almost nullified the losses in paper profit from OPTI:Optibiotix going into the red, but the subsequent deepening of loss took £822 off the portfolio value.
The gap is too wide again, but we're still way above the recent lows.
The SIPP looks like this after week 130
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £235.54 | +£205.51 | |
| Portfolio cost | £27,612.67 | +£320.69 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £28,029.50 | (1.5%) | -£1,849.59 |
| Potential profits | £2,095.10 | -£1,779.53 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £205.50 | +£205.50 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £1,619.73 | +£320.70 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £293.86 | (12.8%) | +£79.46 |
| Total Dividends | £1,121.60 | +£205.50 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £10,544.92 | +£320.70 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £381.89 | (16.6%) | +£14.72 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
A fantastic £205.50 dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals explains the increase in cash. I'll hold this until I next sell something rather trying to invest such a small sum. The portfolio was absolutely hammered, mainly by OPTI:Optibiotix, but there were also 4% drops in CAML:Central Asia Metals and IQE:IQE. Performance is absolutely brilliant though, with the LGEN:Legal & General sale taking the long term average to 16.6%, and that's based on the current, enlarged portfolio cost so is as pessimistic a figure as there could be.
It wasn't long ago that nearly every share in this portfolio was in profit. Now only CAML:Central Asia Metals is. That's the downside of the realised performance being so good - I sold nearly all my profitable shares! I still prefer the model of investing in potential growth shares and selling when they become profitable, but it does mean long periods in the red. I just need to be patient and wait for the growth to happen.
Still in the black, but only just!
LION:Lionsgold is still suspended so no point in talking about the trading account
I watched the CAML:Central Asia Metals share price with interest this week after reading a theory on a bulletin board that the share price would be walked up by the market makers so any automatic dividend re-investment would be at a premium to shares bought cheaply following an engineered drop last week. The fact that the share price ended up 4% lower than the week before suggests that theory is a duffer. Ah well - it would have added some spice to my trading account if it had played out.
It was a horrible week for my OPTI:Optibiotix shares. The week started so well with the formal announcement of what we already knew, that a deal had been done with Seed Health. This could be a big one given the potential size of the US market and the links between Seed and various high profile celebrities.
However the share price absolutely tanked following the annual results. I really don't understand why. The year end was back in November so most of the deals hadn't been done, and there certainly wasn't time to get any revenue even if they had been. The sell-off of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics meant there was a paper profit, but if the company are genuinely planning to give that back to shareholders it won't last. There is a risk that they need the interest in that company to keep in profit until we are able to break even on sales alone. That could delay any handout of shares for at least another year.
I think that's what triggered a lot of the selling. Long term holders were hoping for news of a dividend in the form of free shares, and got fed up of waiting so bailed out some of their holding to put into SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics directly, as that is showing much more growth momentum. Personally I think that's a short termist view, and for those with the patience to hold onto their OPTI:Optibiotix shares, the rewards will eventually be much greater.
I was expecting the next sell-off to be Sweetbiotix, however it's looking like the probiotics division may be next in line. The Microbiome Invest Congress was held on 23rd May. Dr Luis Gosalbez is the Director of Business Development at OPTI:Optibiotix and was there to pitch the probiotics division in the "Pitch Your Microbes" final. This was a massive opportunity to present the division, and cholesterol/blood pressure reducing LP-LDL to a wealth of investors and pharma companies. I can't believe that this sort of exposure won't have a positive impact on the share price and give that long-awaited re-rate to the 100p range. It took way less than that to get VRS:Versarien from 66p to 91p last week.
So, it may be a quiet week next week, or I may decide to top-slice some VRS:Versarien profits. I bought 7,676 shares for £5,439 that are worth £6,927. If I sell 1,676 then I would make £291 (25%) profit and liberate £1,467 which would pretty much skim off the profits and leave the value the same as I invested in the first place. If I do this, I would definitely not re-invest in another share, but hold the cash for the almost inevitable drop back to the 70p range. If they don't drop, then I still have 6,000 and still have over £1,000 paper profit while banking my £291. If they do drop then I won't have lost all my paper profits, and will end up with more than the original 7,676 shares. Hmm - it's tempting...
Saturday 19 May 2018
Week 145 Review - Hopes of returning to profit dashed
I was so close to getting back in the black, but a rubbish end to the week has scuppered those ambitions. The gap between cost and value widened by £1,785 in the wrong direction, leaving the deficit at £2,524 and total portfolio value down to £77,024
Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which has been one of my best performers over the last few weeks but this week dropped 11% and back into the red.
Continuing the bad theme for pharmas was MTFB:Motif Bio with a 7% drop not helped by announcing a placing. This also went into the red.
N4P:N4 Pharma was already in the red, but dropped 7% and is now 16% under water.
My cunning plan to make a quick buck on MMX:Minds + Machines has failed miserably, with those also dropping 7% this week while the share I sold to buy them went up.
OPTI:Optibiotix issued yet more good news, involving a massive deal with Indian manufacturer Akums and winning best weight management product award at the prestigious NutraIngredients awards. So predictably the share price dropped 2p and cost me £1,200. At least they are still in profit.
Only one candidate for Share of the Week as everything else was either a minuscule rise, no rise or drop. TLOU:Tlou Energy won it by a mile, climbing 18% and is now only down 7%. If the momentum continues, this should be back in profit next week.
Well, I guess when you look at it on this graph, the drop is actually quite tiny. It was so close to crossing the line though.
Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts
Everything that was in profit except OPTI:Optibiotix swung to a loss. Quite remarkable how consistently badly nearly everything is doing. The deficit on these accounts is £4,582. I'm confident the majority of shares will do well - particularly the ones where I have increased my holding like MTFB:Motif Bio and VRS:Versarien, but at the moment it's all a bit of a disaster.
As with the combined graph, the tick down doesn't look as bad here.
The SIPP looks like this after week 129
Profits were damaged by the drops in OPTI:Optibiotix and CAML:Central Asia Metals but partly mitigated by the rise in LGEN:Legal & General. IQE:IQE caused the losses to deepen further than the reduced profits.
Still very happy with this chart.
No need to report on the trading account with LION:Lionsgold suspended for months. I'm tempted to just give up on the whole concept, but I think I'll keep it going as an illustration how difficult it is to make money from short term trading, especially when you're as rubbish at it as I am.
This week was meant to be a really great week for OPTI:Optibiotix, with the Vitafoods conference in Geneva and the winning of an award, as well as the announcement of a massive deal with Akums. We're expecting news of the SEED Health contract soon, as the accidentally published press release said the launch as just weeks away.
Most importantly, results will be published on Wednesday. We're not expecting any great revenues, as most of the deals have come after the end of reporting period, and many are for licensing of products that are not on the market yet. However, there is an opportunity for some forward looking statement that could generate a positive response from the share price, or even an announcement of the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics share dividend.
However, the company have been consistent in not attempting to guess at revenues so far, so why would they start now? Also, the stated intention has been to release the news of the share dividend at the last possible minute to prevent traders buying in for short term gain. So it's completely possible the results will do nothing, and if past history is anything to go on, good news tends to drive the share price down!
I can't complain though - my OPTI:Optibiotix holding is making £3,033 paper profit which I could have only dreamed of a few weeks ago when the loss was over £5,000. The fact I'm in profit when the company isn't yet profitable is a great thing, because when they do become profitable heaven knows what will happen!
CAML:Central Asia Metals pay out the dividend on Friday. I'm not sure if it will reach my account in time for next week's roundup. Someone wrote an interesting thought on the bulletin board yesterday. Many people opt for automatic re-investment of their dividends, so for the market makers there is a predictable demand on dividend payment day. Interesting that the share price has dropped so much this week. Could this be orchestrated by the market makers to get their hands on enough cheap shares to meet the dividend re-investment demand? If the share price should miraculously climb through next week back to the highs of a month ago, the automatic re-investment would be at a much higher price than the market makers paid for their shares. Let's see what happens...
Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which has been one of my best performers over the last few weeks but this week dropped 11% and back into the red.
Continuing the bad theme for pharmas was MTFB:Motif Bio with a 7% drop not helped by announcing a placing. This also went into the red.
N4P:N4 Pharma was already in the red, but dropped 7% and is now 16% under water.
My cunning plan to make a quick buck on MMX:Minds + Machines has failed miserably, with those also dropping 7% this week while the share I sold to buy them went up.
OPTI:Optibiotix issued yet more good news, involving a massive deal with Indian manufacturer Akums and winning best weight management product award at the prestigious NutraIngredients awards. So predictably the share price dropped 2p and cost me £1,200. At least they are still in profit.
Only one candidate for Share of the Week as everything else was either a minuscule rise, no rise or drop. TLOU:Tlou Energy won it by a mile, climbing 18% and is now only down 7%. If the momentum continues, this should be back in profit next week.
Well, I guess when you look at it on this graph, the drop is actually quite tiny. It was so close to crossing the line though.
Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £7.11 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £51,874.49 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £47,248.95 | (-8.9%) | -£985.89 |
| Potential profits | £1,728.98 | -£1,068.51 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £44.15 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £8,033.77 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £850.20 | (19.7%) | -£21.25 |
| Total Dividends | £1,223.20 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £14,746.27 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £473.09 | (10.9%) | -£3.29 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
Everything that was in profit except OPTI:Optibiotix swung to a loss. Quite remarkable how consistently badly nearly everything is doing. The deficit on these accounts is £4,582. I'm confident the majority of shares will do well - particularly the ones where I have increased my holding like MTFB:Motif Bio and VRS:Versarien, but at the moment it's all a bit of a disaster.
As with the combined graph, the tick down doesn't look as bad here.
The SIPP looks like this after week 129
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £30.03 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £27,291.98 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £29,558.40 | (8.3%) | -£799.24 |
| Potential profits | £3,874.63 | -£568.13 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £0 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £1,299.03 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £214.40 | (9.4%) | -£8.94 |
| Total Dividends | £916.10 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £10,224.22 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £367.17 | (16.1%) | -£2.87 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
Profits were damaged by the drops in OPTI:Optibiotix and CAML:Central Asia Metals but partly mitigated by the rise in LGEN:Legal & General. IQE:IQE caused the losses to deepen further than the reduced profits.
Still very happy with this chart.
No need to report on the trading account with LION:Lionsgold suspended for months. I'm tempted to just give up on the whole concept, but I think I'll keep it going as an illustration how difficult it is to make money from short term trading, especially when you're as rubbish at it as I am.
This week was meant to be a really great week for OPTI:Optibiotix, with the Vitafoods conference in Geneva and the winning of an award, as well as the announcement of a massive deal with Akums. We're expecting news of the SEED Health contract soon, as the accidentally published press release said the launch as just weeks away.
Most importantly, results will be published on Wednesday. We're not expecting any great revenues, as most of the deals have come after the end of reporting period, and many are for licensing of products that are not on the market yet. However, there is an opportunity for some forward looking statement that could generate a positive response from the share price, or even an announcement of the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics share dividend.
However, the company have been consistent in not attempting to guess at revenues so far, so why would they start now? Also, the stated intention has been to release the news of the share dividend at the last possible minute to prevent traders buying in for short term gain. So it's completely possible the results will do nothing, and if past history is anything to go on, good news tends to drive the share price down!
I can't complain though - my OPTI:Optibiotix holding is making £3,033 paper profit which I could have only dreamed of a few weeks ago when the loss was over £5,000. The fact I'm in profit when the company isn't yet profitable is a great thing, because when they do become profitable heaven knows what will happen!
CAML:Central Asia Metals pay out the dividend on Friday. I'm not sure if it will reach my account in time for next week's roundup. Someone wrote an interesting thought on the bulletin board yesterday. Many people opt for automatic re-investment of their dividends, so for the market makers there is a predictable demand on dividend payment day. Interesting that the share price has dropped so much this week. Could this be orchestrated by the market makers to get their hands on enough cheap shares to meet the dividend re-investment demand? If the share price should miraculously climb through next week back to the highs of a month ago, the automatic re-investment would be at a much higher price than the market makers paid for their shares. Let's see what happens...
Saturday 12 May 2018
Week 144 Review - Almost back in profit
A superb week, with the deficit almost smashed following a 6p rise in OPTI:Optibiotix. The deficit improved by £3,893 and is now only £739, with total portfolio value at £78,809. We may yet break the magic £80K that has never featured in an end of week report. There was just a brief mid-week dalliance before Christmas.
Only one big loser this week, and that was TND:Tandem Group dropping 6% to go 33% down. There's no obvious reason for the fall, but in the past this one has fallen on days with no trades at all.
BLU:Blue Star Capital climbed 6% but has a long way to go, as it's still 64% down. This needs Satoshipay to launch something with a major publisher before anything more dramatic happens to recover my losses.
SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics keeps sneaking up, climbing another 7% this week and going £95 (9%) into profit. The more this climbs, the more it's worth to OPTI:Optibiotix and hopefully the more my free shares will be worth when they are dished out.
OPTI:Optibiotix should win Share of the Week, with the 6p climb increasing value by 9% and increasing my potential profits to £4,300 making this Star Share. This knocks CAML:Central Asia Metals off its perch with £2,331 potential profit, albeit a much higher percentage of the smaller purchase cost.
There is one share that performed better. IQE:IQE has been under loads of pressure recently, making me glad I sold out for a huge profit just before OPTI:Optibiotix started waking up. However, this week there was an 11% climb, reducing my paper loss in the SIPP to 5% and winning Share of the Week.
I was never in any doubt! Well, maybe a little bit of doubt, but with a kind wind maybe next week the lines could cross?
A fantastic performance from OPTI:Optibiotix countering some smaller losses throughout the portfolio, with pretty much all the increase going directly to paper profit.
Still quite a big gap to make up.
The SIPP looks like this after week 128
This is a bit more complicated than usual, as I was a bit naughty. I keep an eye on my old shares, and I'd been watching MMX:Minds+Machines particularly closely lately. They were one of my early purchases, as I was interested in their potential as a low cost high income company, assuming the new types of domain names they sell take off. I had a few doubts, so sold out. One holding made £20 (3.2%) profit and the other made £40 (3.9%) loss so I'm £20 down in my dealings with them. At the time their share price was around 9p.
I watched the price rise as they got more renewals and looked like making a profit. It peaked at around 13.5p last August and I figured I had lost my chance. Recently that had dropped to around 10.5p, but then crashed to 7.5p last week after news they were buying out an American company that owns a set of adult domain names.
So, the day they announce maiden profit is the same day they announce all their cash has been spent, and further share dilution. This clearly annoyed many holders who expected the opposite - that the company would be bought out and a big return paid out to shareholders. Instead they were locked into a bigger company having to wait up to 2 years to see any return. Some holders are also upset at the purchase of adult web domains. However, in an area where regulation is important, anyone visiting one of these sites will know they are on a regulated site, and not a random .com site, so if this causes many unregulated .com sites to close down as people stop visiting, then it's surely a good thing?
So a cash generative company buys another cash generative company and the share price gets thumped. That the type of crazy I like, so I sold half my SIPP holding in LGEN:Legal & General. This was 372 shares at 280.63p after paying 197.7p so a profit of £275.19 (38.8%).
I purchased 13,184 shares in MMX:Minds+Machines at 7.58p costing £1,011.30. They snuck into profit on day one but slipped on day 2 to £34 (3%) loss. That's mainly commission as the offer price is still 7.7p so higher than I paid. My plan is to let these recover when people realise it's a good deal, then sell them and put the money back into LGEN:Legal & General as this is a nice safe SIPP share. As long as I can buy back more than the 372 shares I sold, then I'll be happy.
It does mean my SIPP is now invested in both porno websites and viagra pills though!
The effect of the trades was to increase my cash to the minimum amount allowed, up the portfolio cost by £275 as the profits were re-invested, and increase long-term average monthly performance by £6 a month to £370 (16.3%). Not a huge difference but every little helps. Meanwhile OPTI:Optibiotix took the paper profits and portfolio value up by around £1,200 which was nice.
Yippee!! That's more like it! Highest ever portfolio value.
Here's the cursed trading account at week 94
LION:Lionsgold sneaked up a tiny amount, so there was an £11 improvement in value. However, on Friday the shares were suspended as it appears the new emphasis of the company is too different from the listing paperwork. They have to be suspended pending a re-listing. This could take 3 or 4 months.
This account has been cursed from the word go! The only ray of sunshine in the whole debacle is that I don't need to report performance every week because nothing can happen. Vital man-minutes of my life won back!
This chart will still appear in the right panel of the page, but will flatline until the suspension is lifted.
Focus next week will be on the Vitafoods Europe event in Switzerland. OPTI:Optibiotix are exhibiting there with multiple partners, so there will be multiple opportunities to generate further contracts. There are also the NutraIngredients awards. Winning one of these would be huge. Slimbiome is a finalist for weight management ingredient of the year and LP-LDL is up for probiotic product of the year.
There's also the infamous press release that was published early and was meant to go out on 16th May announcing a deal with Seed Health even though a deal hadn't yet been made. We'll find out whether that cock-up by Business Insider US has delayed signing any contracts on 16th, when the article was meant to have been released.
Given the positive share price movement this week, and the high potential for positive news next week, then maybe it will be enough to take me back into profit. A 2p rise for OPTI:Optibiotix would be enough.
Only one big loser this week, and that was TND:Tandem Group dropping 6% to go 33% down. There's no obvious reason for the fall, but in the past this one has fallen on days with no trades at all.
BLU:Blue Star Capital climbed 6% but has a long way to go, as it's still 64% down. This needs Satoshipay to launch something with a major publisher before anything more dramatic happens to recover my losses.
SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics keeps sneaking up, climbing another 7% this week and going £95 (9%) into profit. The more this climbs, the more it's worth to OPTI:Optibiotix and hopefully the more my free shares will be worth when they are dished out.
OPTI:Optibiotix should win Share of the Week, with the 6p climb increasing value by 9% and increasing my potential profits to £4,300 making this Star Share. This knocks CAML:Central Asia Metals off its perch with £2,331 potential profit, albeit a much higher percentage of the smaller purchase cost.
There is one share that performed better. IQE:IQE has been under loads of pressure recently, making me glad I sold out for a huge profit just before OPTI:Optibiotix started waking up. However, this week there was an 11% climb, reducing my paper loss in the SIPP to 5% and winning Share of the Week.
I was never in any doubt! Well, maybe a little bit of doubt, but with a kind wind maybe next week the lines could cross?
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £7.11 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £51,874.49 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £48,234.84 | (-7%) | +£2,413.37 |
| Potential profits | £2,797.49 | +£2,440.79 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £44.15 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £8,033.77 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £871.45 | (20.2%) | -£22.35 |
| Total Dividends | £1,223.20 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £14,746.27 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £476.38 | (11%) | -£3.33 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
A fantastic performance from OPTI:Optibiotix countering some smaller losses throughout the portfolio, with pretty much all the increase going directly to paper profit.
Still quite a big gap to make up.
The SIPP looks like this after week 128
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £30.03 | +£20.69 | |
| Portfolio cost | £27,291.98 | +£275.74 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £30,357.64 | (11.2%) | +£1,469.15 |
| Potential profits | £4,442.76 | +£1,204.13 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £0 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £1,299.03 | +£275.19 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £223.34 | (9.8%) | +£42.14 |
| Total Dividends | £916.10 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £10,224.22 | +£275.19 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £370.04 | (16.3%) | +£6.47 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
This is a bit more complicated than usual, as I was a bit naughty. I keep an eye on my old shares, and I'd been watching MMX:Minds+Machines particularly closely lately. They were one of my early purchases, as I was interested in their potential as a low cost high income company, assuming the new types of domain names they sell take off. I had a few doubts, so sold out. One holding made £20 (3.2%) profit and the other made £40 (3.9%) loss so I'm £20 down in my dealings with them. At the time their share price was around 9p.
I watched the price rise as they got more renewals and looked like making a profit. It peaked at around 13.5p last August and I figured I had lost my chance. Recently that had dropped to around 10.5p, but then crashed to 7.5p last week after news they were buying out an American company that owns a set of adult domain names.
So, the day they announce maiden profit is the same day they announce all their cash has been spent, and further share dilution. This clearly annoyed many holders who expected the opposite - that the company would be bought out and a big return paid out to shareholders. Instead they were locked into a bigger company having to wait up to 2 years to see any return. Some holders are also upset at the purchase of adult web domains. However, in an area where regulation is important, anyone visiting one of these sites will know they are on a regulated site, and not a random .com site, so if this causes many unregulated .com sites to close down as people stop visiting, then it's surely a good thing?
So a cash generative company buys another cash generative company and the share price gets thumped. That the type of crazy I like, so I sold half my SIPP holding in LGEN:Legal & General. This was 372 shares at 280.63p after paying 197.7p so a profit of £275.19 (38.8%).
I purchased 13,184 shares in MMX:Minds+Machines at 7.58p costing £1,011.30. They snuck into profit on day one but slipped on day 2 to £34 (3%) loss. That's mainly commission as the offer price is still 7.7p so higher than I paid. My plan is to let these recover when people realise it's a good deal, then sell them and put the money back into LGEN:Legal & General as this is a nice safe SIPP share. As long as I can buy back more than the 372 shares I sold, then I'll be happy.
It does mean my SIPP is now invested in both porno websites and viagra pills though!
The effect of the trades was to increase my cash to the minimum amount allowed, up the portfolio cost by £275 as the profits were re-invested, and increase long-term average monthly performance by £6 a month to £370 (16.3%). Not a huge difference but every little helps. Meanwhile OPTI:Optibiotix took the paper profits and portfolio value up by around £1,200 which was nice.
Yippee!! That's more like it! Highest ever portfolio value.
Here's the cursed trading account at week 94
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £0.03 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £345.65 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £180.22 | (-47.9%) | +£11.09 |
| Potential profits | £0 | +£0 | |
| Year 2 Dividends | £0 | +£0 | |
| Year 2 Profit | -£218.50 | +£0 | |
| Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit | -£22.54 | (-78.3%) | +£0.55 |
| Dividends | £1.15 | +£0 | |
| Profit from sales | -£241.35 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | -£11.07 | (-38.4%) | +£0.12 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
LION:Lionsgold sneaked up a tiny amount, so there was an £11 improvement in value. However, on Friday the shares were suspended as it appears the new emphasis of the company is too different from the listing paperwork. They have to be suspended pending a re-listing. This could take 3 or 4 months.
This account has been cursed from the word go! The only ray of sunshine in the whole debacle is that I don't need to report performance every week because nothing can happen. Vital man-minutes of my life won back!
This chart will still appear in the right panel of the page, but will flatline until the suspension is lifted.
Focus next week will be on the Vitafoods Europe event in Switzerland. OPTI:Optibiotix are exhibiting there with multiple partners, so there will be multiple opportunities to generate further contracts. There are also the NutraIngredients awards. Winning one of these would be huge. Slimbiome is a finalist for weight management ingredient of the year and LP-LDL is up for probiotic product of the year.
There's also the infamous press release that was published early and was meant to go out on 16th May announcing a deal with Seed Health even though a deal hadn't yet been made. We'll find out whether that cock-up by Business Insider US has delayed signing any contracts on 16th, when the article was meant to have been released.
Given the positive share price movement this week, and the high potential for positive news next week, then maybe it will be enough to take me back into profit. A 2p rise for OPTI:Optibiotix would be enough.
Monday 7 May 2018
Week 143 Review - Optibiotix and SkinBioTherapeutics both go into profit
A great week. Not necessarily one of the best gaining weeks, but one that has seen both OPTI:Optibiotix and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics move from paper loss to profit. This contributed to an improvement of £1,410 in the deficit between cost and value, reducing it to £4,633 and a total portfolio value of £74,619.
Worst performer was VRS:Versarien dropping 9% and having a much more serious effect now it comprises 6.9% of my portfolio. This moved it from profit to £418 (8%) loss. I'm not surprised, as this is one of my most volatile shares. I should be buying any dips below 70p but my fighting fund is spent.
N4P:N4 Pharma dropped yet again and is now losing £172 (14%) after dropping another 5% this week. I must learn the right time to buy a share!
Lots of other small drops and rises but a relatively quiet week all told. OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 3% which is 2p and accounted for £1,200 of the improvement this week. This moved all three holdings into profit, totaling £498. It's taken 2.5 years so not a great return so far, but all being well, this should just be the beginning.
RED:RedT Energy climbed 6% and I can only hope this is the start of a revival, as they have dropped 36% since I bought them.
IQE:IQE is still in the hands of the shorters, but a few must have closed some positions this week as the share price was up 6%. There's still a way to go to make up my 16% loss though.
Share of the Week is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which zoomed up a magnificent 14% and has now gone to £21 (2%) profit. Not a huge amount, but significant as I bought these in the midst of IPO frenzy and they've been at a loss ever since.
The gap narrows a little more
Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts
The rise in OPTI:Optibiotix accounted for most of the increase, with profits up a little, but it as mostly reduced loss this week. Not much change anywhere else apart from the monthly ISA fee hitting cash.
A minor improvement. Still a lot to do here.
The SIPP looks like this after week 127
Similar story to the other accounts, except the monthly fee is bigger and the increase in profit greater as OPTI:Optibiotix were nearer to profitability in this account.
Reasonably comfortably in the black again, but will the momentum hold?
Here's the trading account after week 93
No change
No change
Bank holiday today, and then we start again tomorrow...
Worst performer was VRS:Versarien dropping 9% and having a much more serious effect now it comprises 6.9% of my portfolio. This moved it from profit to £418 (8%) loss. I'm not surprised, as this is one of my most volatile shares. I should be buying any dips below 70p but my fighting fund is spent.
N4P:N4 Pharma dropped yet again and is now losing £172 (14%) after dropping another 5% this week. I must learn the right time to buy a share!
Lots of other small drops and rises but a relatively quiet week all told. OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 3% which is 2p and accounted for £1,200 of the improvement this week. This moved all three holdings into profit, totaling £498. It's taken 2.5 years so not a great return so far, but all being well, this should just be the beginning.
RED:RedT Energy climbed 6% and I can only hope this is the start of a revival, as they have dropped 36% since I bought them.
IQE:IQE is still in the hands of the shorters, but a few must have closed some positions this week as the share price was up 6%. There's still a way to go to make up my 16% loss though.
Share of the Week is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which zoomed up a magnificent 14% and has now gone to £21 (2%) profit. Not a huge amount, but significant as I bought these in the midst of IPO frenzy and they've been at a loss ever since.
The gap narrows a little more
Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £7.11 | -£3.75 | |
| Portfolio cost | £51,874.49 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £45,821.47 | (-11.7%) | +£694.52 |
| Potential profits | £356.70 | +£96.58 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £44.15 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £8,033.77 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £893.80 | (20.7%) | -£23.95 |
| Total Dividends | £1,223.20 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £14,746.27 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £479.71 | (11.1%) | -£3.49 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
The rise in OPTI:Optibiotix accounted for most of the increase, with profits up a little, but it as mostly reduced loss this week. Not much change anywhere else apart from the monthly ISA fee hitting cash.
A minor improvement. Still a lot to do here.
The SIPP looks like this after week 127
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £9.34 | -£10.63 | |
| Portfolio cost | £27,016.24 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £28,612.75 | (5.9%) | +£715.69 |
| Potential profits | £3,238.63 | +£472.85 | |
| Yr 3 Dividends | £0 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Profit from sales | £1,023.84 | +£0 | |
| Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit | £181.20 | (8%) | -£10.33 |
| Total Dividends | £916.10 | +£0 | |
| Total Profit from sales | £9,949.03 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | £363.57 | (16.1%) | -£3.25 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
Similar story to the other accounts, except the monthly fee is bigger and the increase in profit greater as OPTI:Optibiotix were nearer to profitability in this account.
Reasonably comfortably in the black again, but will the momentum hold?
Here's the trading account after week 93
| Weekly Change | |||
| Cash | £0.03 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio cost | £345.65 | +£0 | |
| Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission) | £269.13 | (-51.1%) | +£0 |
| Potential profits | £0 | +£0 | |
| Year 2 Dividends | £0 | +£0 | |
| Year 2 Profit | -£218.50 | +£0 | |
| Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit | -£23.09 | (-80.2%) | +£0.58 |
| Dividends | £1.15 | +£0 | |
| Profit from sales | -£241.35 | +£0 | |
| Average monthly cash profit | -£11.19 | (-38.9%) | +£0.13 |
| (Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months) |
No change
No change
Bank holiday today, and then we start again tomorrow...
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