Week 151 Review - Mid-week slump partially recovered but still down

Another crappy week with a significant drop in portfolio value. Small drops throughout the portfolio took £1,125 off the value and widened the deficit between cost and value to £9,825 but it had been significantly wider earlier in the week before a late rally. Total portfolio value now stands at £74,504.

Worst performer was TND:Tandem Group who announced difficult trading so far this year. What's really annoying is the 2nd half of the message about increasing Disney franchises got ignored in favour of the bad news, so the share price dropped 10% and is now 43% down.

N4P:N4 Pharma also had a bad week, dropping 7% from profit to a 2% loss.

CAML:Central Asia Metals continued it's dreadful run to the point that I really, really wish I had spare funds to get my holding back up to 10% of portfolio value. Although miserable at the price slip, it does make me quite happy I sold some at 330p and 334p to make £982 profit earlier in the year! If only I'd kept the proceeds to re-invest now.

OPTI:Optibiotix had a bizarre end to the week with about 5 million shares allegedly traded on Friday, but it's clear two of the "sells" were a buy and a sell of the recent options that were taken up. I really don't understand what was going on though, as there's an additional buy late in the day. The good news is that whatever was going on is likely to have buggered up the share price, so now it's out of the way we may get some upward movement.

There were only 2 shares with any meaningful rise. MMX:Minds + Machines has been perking up since an article was published on the LSE bulletin boards by one of the major shareholders of the company recently bought out. Their rationale for remaining a long term holder was very encouraging, and it seems to be bringing more people in as the share price went up 5% but is still 13% down on my purchase price.

Share of the Week was MTFB:Motif Bio which should be shooting up in value after announcing the completion of the NDA submission, but it's more hobbling upwards. The 10% rise this week was very welcome though, and takes the share back into paper profit of 4%.

Very bad - gap widening and no immediate hope of respite.

Here's the ISA and share portfolios

			Weekly Change
Cash	£600.14		+£0
Portfolio cost	£55,460.60		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£46,504.41	(-16.1%)	-£658.29
Potential profits	£138.29		+£99.27
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£11,984.62		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£1,105.58	(23.9%)	-£24.03
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,697.12		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£567.57	(12.3%)	-£3.78
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were up thanks to MTFB:Motif Bio getting back into the green. Everything else is making a loss now as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics slid back into loss. Much of the loss was thanks to the 1p slide in OPTI:Optibiotix, but lots of other shares contributed and nothing seems close to a turn around.

Value is almost the same as it was 12 months ago, despite cost rising by £10,000.

The SIPP looks like this after week 135

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.28		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,189.70	(-2.5%)	-£467.07
Potential profits	£1,622.45		-£210.26
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£257.06	(11.1%)	-£8.57
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£370.18	(15.9%)	-£2.76
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits clobbered by N4P:N4 Pharma going back to loss and CAML:Central Asia Metals losing a load, and small losses everywhere else dropped the value but not by too much.

Well into the red now. The worst it's been for quite a while. The trend line will start to flatten out now as each week goes by without a rise.

It's too hot to write much more today.

The cutoff date has passed for my TLOU:Tlou Energy open offer, so hopefully I will find out soon if I managed to get more than I was allocated.

Aside from that I just need a good week to give a break from this relentless slide. As an example of how miserable I feel, I finished paying off a 12 month loan this week. I got £2,250 to buy OPTI:Optibiotix shares at what I considered the ludicrously cheap price of 66.7p.

Here's what I wrote in my blog on 22nd June 2017. "This will cost me £167 interest over the year. I expect to make that back within a week when the market corrects."

One year later, and the offer price is 67p. Practically identical to this time last year, and the bid price is 64p so I'm still losing money on the investment this loan went to fund, plus having forked out £167 interest I still haven't made back on the investment yet.

Now I know there's a good chance the price will start to rise properly, as the recent contracts are much more valuable, and at some point something will snap. However, when I took out the loan it was on the absolute certain belief that if I didn't buy them then, I'd miss my chance and by now this would be well over £1.

How wrong was I?

And some poxy git smashed my wing mirror on Thursday night. Presumably someone who knew of my distant Belgian ancestry!

There's speculation over whether the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics dividend might be cash instead of shares. That would be quite upsetting as I held off buying any when they were really cheap on the understanding I was due a big slice when the dividend was distributed. Someone speculated 18p a share cash dividend, which would be worth £13,700 so is not to be sniffed at, but by then the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics share price would be far too expensive for me to want to buy in. I really hope we're still given shares.

So much for not writing any more because it's too hot!

Week 150 Review - Flat(ish) week but gap widens from profit taking

The portfolio value plus cash ended up at £75,630 this week, which is just £101 lower than last week. Unfortunately the gap between cost and value has widened by £3,918 due to my sale of VRS:Versarien, banking profit and re-investing most of the proceeds. The portfolio cost has now risen to £83,700 so if I can get back to break-even then the total value will be at a new record high.

Worst performer this week was N4P:N4 Pharma which dropped 13% and lost all of last week's 12% gain plus a bit more. I think this will continue to be very volatile.

IQE:IQE had a bad week, and shorters seem to have a grip of it again. The price dropped 9% and is now 24% down on my purchase price. After making over £10K with my original holdings, I can't really complain.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics makes me really mad I didn't take that 18.5p sell opportunity as it dropped another 7% and is now at 14.5p and only 2% up, wiping out all my paper profits. I can afford to trade this one, as I know I'll soon get a huge stash couresty of OPTI:Optibiotix, but I missed my chance in this cycle of the trading peaks and troughs.

KIBO:Kibo Mining is really suffering from the lack of a Power Purchase Agreement. I didn't think it would go below 5p again, but it has, and a 6% drop this week took it to 4.25p. That's 39% down on my purchase price.

There was very little good news this week, and Share of the Week was really tricky to find.

OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 1p which is only 2%. That's worth £746 for me now, so is very welcome, and it was almost enough to earn Share of the Week.

The accolade goes to BLU:Blue Star Capital which climbed a mighty 3% and easily beat everything else in the portfolio. Unfortunately my stake is so small it was worth about £5, but I won't deny it the prize for that.

Big spike in cost as I re-invested my VRS:Versarien proceeds in OPTI:Optibiotix, but as that was at 66p and the bid price is still 65p, there's no real benefit yet. The gap is now very, very wide, but the trend line is still pointing upwards.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£600.14		+£592.76
Portfolio cost	£55,460.60		+£3,224.54
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£47,162.70	(-15%)	-£3,572.31
Potential profits	£39.02		-£3,467.56
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£11,984.62		+£3,597.31
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£1,129.61	(24.4%)	+£321.30
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,697.12		+£3,597.31
Average monthly cash profit	£571.35	(12.4%)	+£100.79
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash increased as I added £220 for the TLOU:Tlou Energy open offer before I knew I would sell VRS:Versarien. The rest of the cash is left over from the sale. The sale gave me £3,597 profit and most of that was re-invested so the cost rose by £3,224. The value dropped by £3,572, which is in reality around £350 if you don't include the virtual loss from the cashing in of profit. Potential profits were hammered to only £39 which is truly awful, with only SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics in profit now.

The good news is that actual, real performance is looking amazing. With only 6 weeks to go, my year 3 performance is averaging over £1,000 a month  and can only drop to £999 a month by the end of the year unless I sell something at a loss. That's 21% and double my target. My long term average increased by £100 a month over nearly 3 years. At 12.4% I'm comfortably over target - and that was a very ambitious target. I just have to try and cast out of my mind the fact the portfolio is 15% down on paper. That would be turned around in short order by a 10p rise in OPTI:Optibiotix.

I've been under water for a long time now and the trend line is still downwards, but when I see a big spike in portfolio cost it always makes me feel good!

The SIPP looks like this after week 134

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.28		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£27,656.77	(-0.8%)	-£346.35
Potential profits	£1,832.71		-£325.30
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£265.63	(11.4%)	-£9.16
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£372.94	(16%)	-£2.81
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Not much happening. CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped another 4% which caused most of the fall in potential profits. The 1p rise in OPTI:Optibiotix almost negated the 9% drop in IQE:IQE.

Just slipped into the red again, but the trend line is pointing comfortably upwards. I guess it will become much more shallow as the lows from last summer nudge off the left of the chart.

The open offer for TLOU:Tlou Energy became available yesterday. I was entitled to 3,498 shares based on one share for every six I own, but am feeling optimistic so applied for 10,200 as I have some extra cash from the VRS:Versarien sale. That would take my holding to 31,191 with the new shares almost half the price of my original purchase, and that was almost half what they were trading a few months before. I'm pretty comfortable we'll be back at the 16p range in the next 6 months, which will give me a great return. The only problem is that lots of other TLOU:Tlou Energy holders may be thinking the same thing, so I might only end up with my original allocation.

I'm not expecting anything else of interest next week. As usual I could do with OPTI:Optibiotix breaking out of the 60p range into the 70p range, I need VRS:Versarien to hold off on any news and slip below 100p so I can get back in, I need CAML:Central Asia Metals to shake off this poor spell, I need the gold price to go up, and when are KIBO:Kibo Mining going to sign this bloody PPA?

Sold entire Versarien holding for more Optibiotix

I have either made a staggeringly well timed move that will make me tens of thousands, or the biggest mistake of my short investing career, as I sold my entire VRS:Versarien holding in order to buy a load more OPTI:Optibiotix following today's share price drop on yet more good news.

I wasn't going to - but after reading the OPTI:Optibiotix RNS this morning I was really excited to see the massive bounce in share price such a great deal would be bound to trigger. Absolutely nothing - in fact it was worse then nothing, as the price dropped.

Meanwhile VRS:Versarien issued an RNS for what I think will be a much smaller contract, and the price soared - again.

I believe VRS:Versarien are going to be mega, and I want to be a long term holder, but for the share price to pass 130p when they are not yet profitable, and putting them twice as expensive as OPTI:Optibiotix with more shares in circulation, and more than IQE:IQE just didn't seem right.

This was the final straw, and with a huge amount of trepidation I sold my 6,000 VRS:Versarien shares for a £3,597.30 (83.8%) profit and used most of the liberated funds to buy 11,336 OPTI:Optibiotix shares at 66.0545p costing £7,499.89.

This takes my total OPTI:Optibiotix holding to 74,697 costing £49,417.02 at an average price of 66.16p. The massive purchase today means that every 1p rise is worth £746. The inevitable climb to £1 a share will produce paper profit of £25,244. The dreamed-of climb to £5 a share will produce paper profit of £324,032. I don't think the dream is that much of a fantasy, as there are so few shares in circulation and the spin-off companies could now land me a much bigger pot than before.

OK - so I've ignored one of the most important rules - the 10% rule - as OPTI:Optibiotix now makes up 59% of my portfolio. However, I'm so utterly convinced in the business model and quality of directors that I'm willing to take the risk.

I feel like when I first read Game of Thrones many, many years before it was on TV, and couldn't seem to persuade my friends just how good it was. Now look at it!

The effect of the sale was to send my average monthly performance into orbit, climbing to £575 (12.4%) a month and giving me a great buffer above my 10% target. Unfortunately the profit taking did screw my paper performance, widening the gap by £3,687 to £8,468 but the portfolio cost is increased to £83,700 so break-even will now also mean the highest ever portfolio value, and I believe it will come when OPTI:Optibiotix finally wakes up the sleeping market.

Now I just have to work out how the hell to get back into VRS:Versarien, and when...

Week 149 Review - Optibiotix drags the portfolio down again

Another week that would have been fairly flat if not for OPTI:Optibiotix going through one of its downturns and losing 3p. That alone took £1,800 off my portfolio value and was the main contributor to a £1,692 widening of the deficit. That now stands at £4,781 with portfolio value dropping to £75,731.

Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which is particularly frustrating as I had a sell order in for 18.75p and if I'd just gone online and sold them I could have done so for 18.5p quite easily. This week they dropped 18% to a bid price of 15.5p so I could have banked my profits and bought more back. I knew this would happen, as it's happened with OPTI:Optibiotix all along. Unfortunately recent experience has made me wary of this tactic as I shall cover later.

CAML:Central Asia Metals got hammered along with the rest of the metals sector and dropped 9%. This has now fallen from around 340p to 268p over the last few months despite being in a far, far better position. I'm expecting a rapid rise when the next trading update comes out and the new operation starts being reflected in the balance sheet. I would be accumulating if I had the cash to get the holding back up around the 10% of portfolio mark.

MMX:Minds + Machines was very much a punt to try and get some short term profit, as I felt the massive drop was unjustified. It's now looking like less of a short term investment and again demonstrates when I attempt anything vaguely like trading it doesn't seem to work. These fell 5% this week and are 14% down on what was already a very depressed price.

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped 4%, but as mentioned above that 3p had a devastating effect on the week. I keep saying one day these will break out, but after nearly 3 years it's getting a tad tiresome. It will happen though, and will be all the sweeter for the wait and the chance to accumulate so many shares.

There was some good news to balance the bad. IKA:Ilika has been completely rubbish since I bought them, but after the announcement of a big grant for two projects to research using their solid state batteries in vehicles, the share price climbed 7% and is now only 60% down from when I bought them. The first project is with Honda, Ricardo, the Centre for Process Innovation ("CPI") and University College London and the second is with McLaren, A123 Systems and the University of Warwick. These are encouraging partners, but at the moment IKA:Ilika is a research organisation and not a commercial business.

N4P:N4 Pharma leapt 12% this week and is now up 18% and making £227 potential profit. There are many encouraging signs for this one, and revenue may not be too far away.

VRS:Versarien scores Share of the Week for the second week in a row, climbing 18% to go 79% up with a paper profit of £3,392 which overtakes CAML:Central Asia Metals and makes it Star Share. This relentless rise is utterly brilliant, but I still can't get the frustration out of my head that I sold 25% of my holding at 94p and lost out about £500 I could have got if I held until now. Given my holding has now hit my 10% limit, I would have sold some but in a more controlled manner. I was just so convinced it would behave the same as OPTI:Optibiotix and slump back to 70p when the traders started playing around. Given VRS:Versarien is further away from revenue than OPTI:Optibiotix, it's surprising that the share price has done what the OPTI:Optibiotix price just refuses to do and broken the 100p barrier. If OPTI:Optibiotix could just do what VRS:Versarien has done, then I'd be sat on £38,000 paper profit. Oh the agony!!

It's around 20 weeks that the portfolio has been in the red, apart from the brief blip near week 136. The trend line is still up, but getting more shallow.

The ISA and share portfolios looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.38		+£0
Portfolio cost	£52,236.06		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£47,510.47	(-9%)	-£846.87
Potential profits	£3,506.58		+£452.27
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£8,387.31		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£808.31	(18.6%)	-£18.37
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£15,099.81		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£470.56	(10.8%)	-£3.18
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits are actually up thanks to the big rise in VRS:Versarien and the fact that most of the other big drops were deepening losses. Not much else happening really.

Still a very big gap to fill and a downward trend line.

The SIPP looks like this after week 133

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.28		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,003.12	(0.4%)	-£845.74
Potential profits	£2,158.01		-£533.05
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£274.79	(11.8%)	-£9.81
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£375.75	(16.2%)	-£2.84
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits whacked by the big drop in CAML:Central Asia Metals, and the drop would have been worse if N4P:N4 Pharma hadn't done well. At this rate I'll be able to keep going without a sell for over a year and still be above my 10% return target.

Only just in the black. This account very rarely drops into the red so I really hope there's a reversal next week. The trend line is very positive though, and I must remember that I've banked quite a lot of profit.

I received a message from my broker saying that my entitlement share offer from TLOU:Tlou Energy will be activated next week. I've loaded £220 into my ISA which will be enough to cover my entitlement of 3,498 shares as it's one for every six owned. The price is 5.75p which is a bargain, especially as I paid 10p for my existing shares thinking the sudden drop from 16p was over-done. Looks like I called that one wrong! I'm still confident these will get back to 16p shortly, just based on the huge reserves that have already been confirmed. If the power plant is also agreed, then heaven knows where they could end up. I just wish I'd waited until now to re-invest, but calling the bottom is just a matter of luck.

There are a few pending announcements that I'm hoping will come in next week. OPTI:Optibiotix are due to launch their web shop soon, so I'm hoping that will come very soon and get the share price heading up again. KIBO:Kibo Mining must surely be close to signing the Power Purchase Agreement as that's been dragging on for ages.

Having said that, MTFB:Motif Bio announced the completion of their NDA submission last week, and the share price managed to stay completely flat. Given that it was the announcement of a delay in the submission which caused the share price to collapse, how the hell does it go nowhere when the reverse announcement is made? At least these are still pretty much at the price I paid for them so my 3% loss is just spread and commission.

I toyed with selling all my VRS:Versarien shares as I'm sure they have gone way past their true value, but after my 94p sale being such a disaster I can't bring myself to do it. In fact I desperately want to buy my shares back, and more. They are probably the world leaders in the most groundbreaking new tech that's been discovered for decades, and people are talking about graphene as being a new industrial revolution. There doesn't seem to be anything that can't be enhanced in some way by it. If VRS:Versarien can protect their IP and the competition struggle to manufacture the true few-layer graphene called nanene, then this could easily be a world beater, just like OPTI:Optibiotix!

I sometimes get a bit down after a week like this, however I had a quick tot-up of my average monthly realised profits and was quite shocked to see it is now £846. I'm sure last time I looked it was less than £700. That's a pretty stonking return, and I make it around 18% p/a based on the original £55K I invested. My weekly calculations are all based on the current portfolio value, so as the value increases from re-investment, the harder it gets to keep at the 10% target. This is good, as it means I have to make more every year to keep up. It doesn't seem long ago that I was getting the odd £25 premium bond prize each month and maybe £10 interest from my cash ISA. That thought will always see me through the more troubling weeks...

Week 148 Review - Flat week despite Optibiotix slide

OPTI:Optibiotix managed to spoil what would have been a great week by slipping 2p, and while just about managing to stay in profit they wiped out the amazing gains for VRS:Versarien and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, so the week ended up almost flat. The gap between cost and value is £137 greater at £3,089, so the portfolio value dropped a tiny amount to £77,424.

Worst performer was TLOU:Tlou Energy which announced a heavily discounted placing and dropped 17%. This was a bit of a pain, but improved dramatically by the entitlement offer made to existing shareholders to top up for even less than the placing price. No message on my account yet, but hopefully the purchase option will become available soon, and I will take it up.

TND:Tandem Group decided that being Share of the Week last week meant it should drop 5% today and is back to 27% down overall. I so wish I could get rid of these!

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped 2p which was only 3% but wiped over £1,200 off my paper profits.

N4P:N4 Pharma had a good week and moved up 6% to go 6% up and in profit, albeit only £73.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics had an amazing week, climbing 20% to go 27% up with paper profit of £283. My limit order is still active, but I may cancel it over the weekend as the price hasn't dropped straight back down, so there is a risk it will hang around this level. I really don't know if I can watch them drop like OPTI:Optibiotix keep doing, but I'm torn as I'm meant to be an investor not a trader, and my trading performance has been utterly terrible, as you are about to read.

Normally I would have been leaping around with joy at VRS:Versarien climbing 31% this week, but they were meant to drop to 75p after my selling 25% of my shares for 94.82p! So I was torn between celebrating my holding going up to 61% profit and £2,612 in the black, and my misery that I wasn't going to be able to get my 25% back. I'm a rubbish trader! It could have been worse - I could have sold all my shares rather than 25%. That would have been really painful. I guess it was understandable that I wouldn't trust AIM to allow a re-rate to stick. I just happened to be wrong.

This is the new chart, showing the last 12 months rather than starting from almost 3 years ago. That chart is still visible in the right-hand side-bar. I didn't realise how fast the portfolio cost has been rising recently. I've added a trend line and I'm happy to say it's pointing upwards.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.38		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£52,236.06		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£48,357.34	(-7.4%)	+£223.98
Potential profits	£3,054.31		+£740.66
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£8,387.31		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£826.68	(19%)	-£19.60
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£15,099.81		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£473.74	(10.9%)	-£3.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Monthly fees took some cash, and thanks to VRS:Versarien and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics the potential profits defied OPTI:Optibiotix and climbed £740. Deepening losses caused by multiple small drops battered £500 of that away leaving a small £223 rise.

The problem with switching to an annual graph means the gap looks even bigger. Trend line not so positive either.

The SIPP looks like this after week 132

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.28		-£205.26
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£281.09
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,848.86	(3.4%)	-£371.10
Potential profits	£2,691.06		-£357.39
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£87.07
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£284.60	(12.2%)	+£1.63
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£87.07
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£378.59	(16.3%)	-£0.38
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped after dividends were re-invested today. I bought 3,741 shares in PAF:Pan African Resources for 7.1585p costing £281.09. That brings my total holding to 19,180 at a weighted average of 7.375p costing £1,445.58. They are down 5% and losing £74 so far, but that includes 2 lots of commission. Prior to the purchase I had £11 monthly charge taken out of my cash, but also added £87.07 dividend from LGEN:Legal & General. The dividend was enough to limit the drop in monthly performance to 38p. Losses from the OPTI:Optibiotix drop were limited by small rises elsewhere and the good rise from N4P:N4 Pharma.

Still in the black and a very healthy trend line. Doesn't seem like almost a year ago I sold all those IQE:IQE shares and had the big rise in portfolio cost from the re-investment.

That's it for a frustrating week. So near to being great but it all petered out into a damp squib.

Versarien saves the week after Optibiotix slip

As usual the great news that OPTI:Optibiotix have an ingredient in the newly-launched Seed Health symbiotic has caused the share price to drop. Fortunately the drop hasn't been quite enough to go into the red, but 2p more will be enough. When is this going to stay above 70p?!

Thank goodness for VRS:Versarien, which surged to 105p today giving me £2,012 (47%) potential profit. Of course it would have been 25% more if I hadn't cunningly flogged a quarter of my holding for 94.82p last week on the assumption it was about to drop to 75p!

OPTI:Optibiotix and every bloody AIM share I own reliably dropped after a surge like that, but the one time I try and bank some profit, what happens? The surge continues. Bloody typical!

I can't complain - I banked some money, got a gold mine and am making tons of paper profit. the decision to only play with 25% of my holding was a good one!

Meanwhile SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics has gone mental and soared way above what's a reasonable price for its current position. For that reason I placed a limit sell order at 18.75p last night. Frustratingly the sells hit 18.6p this morning, but didn't quite stretch to my limit. However, the spread has widened and the offer price has increased from 18.75p to 19p so I'm hopeful there may be another mini surge in the morning so I can flog them and bank some profit.

I don't care if they carry on upwards, as I have my stash in the form of my OPTI:Optibiotix holding, which depending on how many they dish out should be in the tens of thousands. My intention, should the sell trigger tomorrow, is to hold the cash and buy back on the inevitable dip, as I'm sure this will be played by the traders the same way OPTI:Optibiotix has been, and probably still is. I want many, many more SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics but with no cash, this is the only way I'm going to stand a chance of getting them.

I've received both my dividends from CAML:Central Asia Metals and LGEN:Legal & General and so have £281 sat idle in my SIPP. I was going to keep it as cash because of the commission expense of spending it, but seeing as it's free money I've decided to invest it in PAF:Pan African Resources. I've set up a limit order for 7.2p which is about halfway between bid and offer, which will get me 3,741 shares if it triggers. I do really like this company and seriously believe they have the capacity to double in value. P/E ratio of 5.23 and dividend yield of 6.23% is crazy.

So far the week is up by just £186 so everything hangs in the balance for tomorrow. There's a good chance VRS:Versarien will get hammered by profit taking so I desperately need OPTI:Optibiotix to get back to 70p else the week will become very red.

Week 147 Review - Optibiotix back in profit

A good week moving mostly in the right direction. OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 3p which was enough to go back into profit by £1,766. How long will it last this time? The overall deficit was reduced by £2,244 and now stands at £2,951 with total portfolio value up to £77,489.

Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which is up and down by big margins every week. This week it dropped 9% but is still just about in profit.

ARL:Atlantis Resources gave up most of the gains since their suspension was lifted, dropping 8% and now back to a loss of 46%.

IQE:IQE is still getting hammered so looks like I may have done the right thing selling most of my holding. They dropped 6% this week and are now down by 19% in my SIPP.

Very few big risers this week, but as one of them was OPTI:Optibiotix climbing 6%, this meant I didn't need much more to have a good week.

Share of the Week was rather unexpected. TND:Tandem Group is my most illiquid share and somebody bought a few, resulting in an 11% climb. These are only 22% down now, but with a pe ratio of just 4.6 they should be much, much higher than they are.

Still in the red but getting close again

There ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£11.13		+£4.02
Portfolio cost	£52,236.06		+£361.57
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£48,133.36	(-7.9%)	+£1,345.23
Potential profits	£2,313.65		+£636.78
Yr 3 Dividends	£44.15		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£8,387.31		+£353.54
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£846.28	(19.4%)	+£16.33
Total Dividends	£1,223.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£15,099.81		+£353.54
Average monthly cash profit	£477.08	(11%)	+£7.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The top-slice of VRS:Versarien profits accounts for the £353 sales profit and improvement of long-term monthly performance to 11%. The proceeds were re-invested in CEY:Centamin which hasn't borne fruit yet, although VRS:Versarien did end the week lower than when I sold them, so the timing was ok as long as they don't shoot up next week. The increase in potential profits is mainly OPTI:Optibiotix and would have been more without the big drop in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics robbing some of them.

Almost back to where we were a few weeks ago, but still with a big gap to make up.

The SIPP looks like this after week 131

			Weekly Change
Cash	£235.54		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,612.67		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,938.87	(4.8%)	+£909.37
Potential profits	£3,048.45		+£953.35
Yr 3 Dividends	£205.50		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£282.97	(12.3%)	-£10.89
Total Dividends	£1,121.60		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£378.97	(16.5%)	-£2.92
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Most of the rise was thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, and a 3% rise in CAML:Central Asia Metals also helped. No sign of my hoped for rebound in MMX:Minds + Machines. LGEN:Legal & General have kindly crashed from 282.8p when I sold them to an offer price of 272.3p so I don't need much extra to be able to increase my holding when I buy back in - as long as they stay low for a few more weeks.

The buffer is getting a bit more healthy, but I'd be happier if the portfolio value could get above £30K again.

I'm starting to wonder if I should limit the charts to the last 12 months, and maybe just keep the long-term charts in the right hand panel. That's a good idea - I'll try it next week.

Seed Health launch their new product on 6th June which may draw the eye of a new band of OPTI:Optibiotix investors. I've also got my LGEN:Legal & General dividend to look forward to on the same day.

I'll be watching VRS:Versarien with some trepidation. I expected it to drop back to the 70p range this week but it actually sneaked up a bit instead. No sign of a rebound from CEY:Centamin so my cunning plan to get more VRS:Versarien shares may end up with me losing 25% of my holding long term. I'm still happy that I took a little bit of profit, and I kept enough to benefit nicely if they continue to climb.

I'll also be watching the price of gold more closely now I'm back in gold mines again with CEY:Centamin and PAF:Pan African Resources. Neither were purchased as particularly long term holdings, so I'll be willing the gold price higher for the next few weeks.