Week 159 Review - The dreaded spike is formed

A second really bad week on the run has wiped out a significant chunk of my paper profits as the inevitable trading of OPTI:Optibiotix stocks continues. I guess there was no reason why it should be different this time, but it's rather depressing. The combined portfolios dropped by £6,393 narrowing the buffer between value and cost to £16,004 and dropping portfolio value to £103,396. Dropping below £100K is suddenly a real possibility and may just crush my morale.

There was only one really poor performer all week, but it was OPTI:Optibiotix dropping 9p, which was a loss of 13%. The spread was really wide at the end of Friday, with bid price 100p and offer price 105p so I'm hoping the bid price was artificially low and the drop wasn't quite as bad. We'll find out next week.

TAP:Taptica had another good week in my trading account, climbing 5% this is now making paper profit of £34 (7%). I'm planning to hold it up to results in the hope of a significant re-rate.

CAML:Central Asia Metals finally had a decent week, climbing 5%, but that wasn't even enough to recoup last week's losses. I'd still buy a pile of these if I had the cash.

RED:RedT Energy wins Share of the Week. The order from Anglia Water is just for one site, but they have hundreds of sites. If the first can be delivered quickly and successfully, then the scope for re-orders is massive. There's a real chance the volume orders required to be profitable are materialising as vanadium redox flow machines become accepted as the most appropriate technology for grid level storage. The share price climbed 31% this week and is now only down by 9%.

Ouch! Damn you spike!!

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£10.36		-£1,863.95
Portfolio cost	£56,958.55		+£1,863.95
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£66,994.78	(17.6%)	-£4,369.22
Potential profits	£17,075.81		-£4,546.92
Yr 4 Dividends	£29.56		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1,213.82	(25.6%)	-£606.91
Total Dividends	£1,267.89		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£562.22	(11.8%)	-£3.56
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped as I re-invested in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics. The timing was good, as spread and commission have been cleared and they are up 4% making £68 potential profit. I'm loathe to sell them again, but if there is another spike and we're still a way off revenue then I might. The fact I managed to increase my holding by 1,774 shares by selling high and buying back lower makes it a tempting, if somewhat risky option. With OPTI:Optibiotix being played so blatantly and my determination to stay long and strong there, I could consider my "bonus" SBTX:SkinBioTherapuetics holding as expendable.

Most of the losses were reducing OPTI:Optibiotix profit, but value fell by around £200 less than profit dropped, so there were a few small gains away from that. We've only had 3 weeks of year 4, so the projected average is still daft, and overall performance dropped as a percentage a bit more than usual thanks to the increase in portfolio cost this week. 11.8% is still healthily above my 10% target though.

Charts are looking rather similar these days.

Here's the SIPP after week 143

			Weekly Change
Cash	£56.00		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£34,198.16	(22.6%)	-£2,047.12
Potential profits	£9,276.49		-£1,994.41
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£201.63	(8.7%)	-£5.31
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£348.73	(15%)	-£2.46
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Pretty much the same story as above, but the CAML:Central Asia Metals rise meant potential profits didn't drop as much as overall sell value.

Snap

Trading looks like this after 109 weeks

			Weekly Change
Cash	£650.93		+£0
Portfolio cost	£1,821.83		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,485.92	(-18.4%)	+£23.35
Potential profits	£34.08		+£23.52
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£153.45	(101.1%)	-£38.36
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.51	(-1.7%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The rise in TAP:Taptica has improved paper profits by £23 and if it can just get above £65 profit then I can sell and finally get this account into the black!

Not really showing any pattern, but lots of pretty colours!

Bank holiday week next week so not much happening. However, OPTI:Optibiotix are due to announce interim results on Thursday. They have been very coy about giving any form of forecasts, but surely there must be some revenue coming in now? The results don't have to identify who has been buying product, but product must have been bought to supply Seed Health and for getting Slimbiome into cereal products. Nobody is expecting fireworks at this stage, but if there is a pleasant surprise then my portfolio value may be able to stay safely above £100K.

I'm actually in a better all-round position than in ages, with 6 shares in paper profit. It's been only 2 for a long time now. AMYT:Amryt Pharma, MTFB:Motif Bio, OPTI:Optibiotix, SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, CAML:Central Asia Metals and TAP:Taptica. Well done chaps!

Quite a few shares are only down by a few percent too. MMX:Minds + Machines, PAF:Pan African Resources and RED:RedT Energy are very nearly in profit.

Unfortunately I'm being weighed down by some hefty positions in companies that just can't get the share price up. The likes of JLP:Jubilee Metals, KIBO:Kibo Energy and TRX:Tissue Regenix all have great potential, but are not getting anywhere fast. I'll never sell them at a loss though. They either go under and take everything or bounce back and do themselves proud. I know this game is for the patient, but sometimes that level of patience is really hard...

Back into SkinBioTherapeutics

It's been rather stressful waiting on the sidelines after selling my SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics shares a few weeks ago.

I was questioning the decision to enjoy a spell of trading with them, and putting my decision down to avoiding the pain of watching others successfully trading OPTI:Optibiotix for all those years while I held at a loss.

I had a stroke of luck when a positive RNS was inexplicably misinterpreted and the price dropped.

I decided the time had come to get back in, because the drop was over-done and it was unlikely to go much lower, especially with human trials starting very soon.

I purchased 9,260 shares at 20p costing £1,863.95 which gave me 1,774 more shares than I had last time.

I'm liking this as a potential model for increasing my holding. Not for gaining actual profit, but for trying to increase the number of shares each time I buy back in. It would be amazing if I can get my holding in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics anywhere near the size of my OPTI:Optibiotix holding, but unlikely as I'd need another 65,000 or so. It would have to be the most volatile share in history to pull that off.

Part of me is thinking I got away with it this time. Stick with being a long term investor and leave the trading account for playing around. Part of me still wants to trade it based on the fact I still have a stake via my OPTI:Optibiotix holding so surely these are expendable?

One to ponder as the price goes back up...

The summer blues are getting to me, with OPTI:Optibiotix last announcing a commercial deal on 26th June. That's nearly 2 months without one!

Interesting that the share price has increased more in those two months than in the last three years.

Maybe I shouldn't be wishing for more news after all.

Not much stirring this week. RED:RedT Energy have a UK order but it's only for 4 units so that won't turn them into a dividend-paying share overnight. If Anglia Water like them though, it could be massive when further orders come through.

So far the portfolio is down £783 on the week, but that's a 1p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix so not getting too flustered yet. It would be nice to send the chart upwards again as I don't want to end up with a big spike. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Week 158 Review - Worst ever week

I suppose it was too good to last. This week was wretched on every front, with losses across the board, but the pummeling taken as traders offloaded OPTI:Optibiotix caused a £8,171 drop in portfolio value, reducing the paper profit to £22,397 and overall value to £109,789, slipping bellow £110K.

OPTI:Optibiotix was clearly the worst performer, with a 16% drop but maintaining healthy profits of 64%.

My second largest holding CAML:Central Asia Metals had yet another dreadful week as all the miners got hammered by the falling copper price. The share price dropped 10% and is now only 22% up on my original purchase. What investors fail to realise is that CAML:Central Asia Metals were making big profits and paying big dividends last time the copper price fell, as they are a low cost operation and can ride these dips comfortably. I'm almost certain I will find a way to increase my holding in the run up to results on September 19th, because there should be a very rapid correction.

TEK:Tekcapital is one of my trading account shares, and dropped 11% this week to go 26% down. I vowed I would sell quick if this happened, but with great big spreads and ultra-volatile prices, it's just not possible to avoid these large short term losses, unless I choose more liquid shares. Maybe that's my mistake.

CEY:Centamin had another bad week as the price of gold continued downwards. Another 6% down means they are now losing 19%. Not quite the quick win I thought this was going to be!

TLOU:Tlou Energy also dropped 6% and is now 32% down. This was another knife I managed to grasp as if fell past me!

IQE:IQE is still in the grips of shorters, and dropped 5% this week as it nudges closer to the 99p range when I'll buy with my trading account.

There were only three significant risers this week, although I should mention AMYT:Amryt Pharma climbed a small 3% but it was enough to take them into profit, albeit by only £26.

MTFB:Motif Bio climbed 6% and are back in potential profit of £109 (3%) with rising confidence now the FDA have accepted the NDA for Iclaprim. Just six months to wait for approval now, but any news of manufacturing or commercialisation agreements could cause a significant rise in the share price.

MMX:Minds + Machines are also brimming with confidence after an agreement with Etherium to use their .luxe for crypto currency exchanges. Apparently it stands for "lets you exchange easily" and can be used to replace a complex Etherium key URL. This week they climbed 7% and are only 3% down now.

TAP:Taptica wins Share of the Week in the trading account, climbing 8% and going £10 into profit. I'm hoping to be able to sell these following the results, or in the lead up to results if there's a spike.

I was hoping when the reversal came it would be a little flatter

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,874.31		+£0
Portfolio cost	£55,094.60		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£69,500.05	(26.1%)	-£5,241.30
Potential profits	£21,622.73		-£4,923.00
Yr 4 Dividends	£29.56		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1,820.73	(39.7%)	-£1,820.73
Total Dividends	£1,267.89		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£565.78	(12.3%)	-£3.60
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Not a lot to say other than losses deepened even more than OPTI:Optibiotix profits dropped in a week showing very few highlights. Year 4 average profit will be skewed for a while due to the big week 1 sale being extrapolated over the whole year, but I'm happy for long term average profits to be only dropping by about £3 a week.

The cash from the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics sale is still there waiting to be spent. I almost got back in on Thursday at 20p but missed out and there was a recovery to 21p on Friday. 20p would have secured me over 1,000 more shares than when I sold them. Maybe traders will attack it again next week and give me another chance. If not, it's destined for a CAML:Central Asia Metals top-up.

I think all the charts will look the same this week

Here's the SIPP after week 108

			Weekly Change
Cash	£56.00		+£50.00
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£36,245.28	(29.9%)	-£2,883.94
Potential profits	£11,270.90		-£2,759.45
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£206.94	(8.9%)	-£5.59
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£351.19	(15.1%)	-£2.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I transferred £50 from my trading account into the SIPP to cover monthly fees. I figure that's a legitimate use of profits. Elsewhere it's the same story as the ISA, with losses deepening even more than paper profits fell.

Similar to the ISA chart. Next week I'll tweak the scale to lose the £15-20K white space.

The trading account looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£650.93		-£50.00
Portfolio cost	£1,821.83		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,462.57	(-19.7%)	-£44.80
Potential profits	£10.56		+£10.56
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£191.81	(126.3%)	-£63.94
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.53	(-1.7%)	+£0.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

TAP:Taptica went into profit and £50 got robbed for the SIPP, leaving £150 left over in cash when I buy my next £500 of shares. It might very well be IQE:IQE if they drop below 100p as KOD:Kodal Minerals didn't drop like I expected. Mostly bad news elsewhere, with portfolio dropping by £44.

I've added a line for the injections. I might do that for SIPP as well, as I should be able to calculate them. Might be harder for the ISA as I bought a lot in the old Brewin Dolphin account.

That's it for week 158. I'd quite like to forget about it as soon as possible and see what happens next week. Please can we have news of a deal OPTI:Optibiotix?

Week 157 Review - Sold SkinBioTherapeutics - Was it a mistake?

A flat week resulting in the gap between cost and value worsening by £674, but that was due to selling SBTX:SkinBioTherapueutics otherwise there would have been a small rise. The portfolio value plus cash climbed by exactly £300 to £117,960 after dallying above £120K for a few days, and the gap between cost and value now stands at £30,568 in the black.

There was very little movement in any shares this week

TND:Tandem Group was the only one that dropped by 5% or more - in fact it dropped 5% and is now 40% down. That was on virtually no trades, so this one continues to quietly under-perform.

The only riser above 5% was KIBO:Kibo Energy which climbed 7% to Share of the Week and is now only 31% down. It's been very slowly climbing, and I wonder if this is in anticipation that the Power Purchase Agreement might actually get signed. I expect a doubling if it does, so fingers crossed.

A very flat week.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,874.31		+£1,863.29
Portfolio cost	£55,094.60		-£1,052.50
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£74,741.35	(35.7%)	-£1,778.25
Potential profits	£26,545.73		-£862.48
Yr 4 Dividends	£29.56		+£29.56
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£814.53
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£3,641.46	(79.3%)	+£3,641.46
Total Dividends	£1,267.89		+£29.56
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£814.53
Average monthly cash profit	£569.38	(12.4%)	+£19.69
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A complicated week!

Cash rise due to the proceeds of selling off SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics. I was concerned that it had climbed above its value on the tails of the OPTI:Optibiotix rise, and although human trials are due to start next month, they won't be reporting back for some time, so there will be plenty of time for shareholders to get bored.

I watched OPTI:Optibiotix being traded for years and didn't partake because I didn't want to risk losing any rights to dividends. That's why I'm keeping every single share in OPTI:Optibiotix. However, my SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics holding was more of a bonus. I retain a large holding courtesy of my OPTI:Optibiotix shares anyway, so I'm willing to risk dipping in and out on price movements. I don't want the share price to go down, but if it does I'll be retaining my profits from the sale to buy back in, despite massive temptation to buy CAML:Central Asia Metals or IQE:IQE following recent dips!

So I sold my 7,486 shares at 25.1p which gave me a £814.53 (76.5%) profit. It liberated £1,867.04 and my plan is to transfer £67 into my SIPP to cover account charges for the next 6 months, and use the £1,800 to buy back into SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics if there is a dip. If not, then hurray! I'll buy something else instead.

The sale reduced the portfolio cost by my original purchase price and the portfolio sell value reduced by that plus some of the profits, but not all so there was a slight improvement elsewhere.

A nice surprise arrived in the post - PUR:Pure Wafer have finally sorted out their tax dispute and been allowed to pay off their final dividend. I was expecting £18 but a cheque arrived for £29.56 which was nice, especially as it's week 1 of year 4 so I don't start the year on zero.

Year 4 performance looks stupid as it's anticipating the same amount of sells every week. That will drop rapidly assuming I don't sell anything else. Long term average profits increased by £19 per month which is great over 3 years and takes me to an average of 12.4% of the current portfolio value, which is now around double what I've invested. One day I really need to calculate exactly how much I've put in, but that could be a challenge.

Flat, with a wee dip in cost until I buy something else.

The SIPP looks like this after week 141

			Weekly Change
Cash	£6.00		-£14.03
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,130.22	(40.3%)	+£86.43
Potential profits	£14,030.35		-£51.38
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£212.53	(9.1%)	-£7.59
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£353.68	(15.2%)	-£2.96
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Hardly anything happened. The monthly charge reduced my cash to dangerously low levels so I'll need to top up a bit from my ISA next week. Small rises in IQE:IQE and PAF:Pan African Resources helped reduce losses, but another drop in CAML:Central Asia Metals reduced potential profits by £51. I'm seriously thinking about selling my PAF:Pan African Resources shares in order to buy CAML:Central Asia Metals at these ludicrously depressed prices, as although PAF:Pan African Resources is also massively under-valued, it is a much more risky company. I do like them both though, so it's a tough decision. If my poxy pension transfer would hurry up and come through I'd pile about £10K into CAML:Central Asia Metals as it's an utterly superb company and the current price is baffling and a bargain of the century.

Even flatter than the ISA - but I remembered to adjust the scale so the chart looks a bit nicer

The trading portfolio looks like this after week 107

			Weekly Change
Cash	£700.93		+£178.77
Portfolio cost	£1,821.83		-£1.70
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,507.37	(-17.3%)	-£36.88
Potential profits	£0		-£33.52
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£177.06
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£255.75	(168.5%)	+£255.75
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£177.06
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.56	(-1.7%)	+£7.26
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Yes - that's more like it. Action at last. If in doubt, chuck some money at it!

I sold KOD:Kodal Minerals after an inexplicable price rise, and just in time as they issued an RNS shortly after my sale to say they didn't know why the price had gone up, and announcement of their JORC results isn't until next month. That dropped the price, although it still ended well up. I sold my 287,088 shares for 0.24p after buying at 0.17p last week and made £177.06 (34.5%) profit. That's what a trading account is supposed to be like! I'll now watch them like a hawk for a chance to buy back in.

Needless to say my other trades have been less successful, with CAML:Central Asia Metals 9% down, and TEK:Tekcapital 15% down. I also bought 168 shares in TAP:Taptica for 289.49p costing £498.29. This is a company I've been watching very carefully and could be a great trading share. The price is astonishingly volatile, and I believe severely undervalued at the moment. Needless to say, it's 6% down, but most of that is spread and commission.

The effect of the sale and profit was to improve my long term performance dramatically. I'm still not making a profit, but the loss is only £2.56 a month now, so one more good sale should get me into the black. At the moment I still would have been better off putting it in a building society.

I ought to put a line in at £2,500 as that's the cash injection. Otherwise it looks like it's doing better than it is. I'll add that next week.

I haven't really mentioned OPTI:Optibiotix as much as I would like. The price was unchanged at the end of the week, but did get much higher mid-week. The ShareProphets tipster site recommended their followers top-slice some profit during the week, which is utterly mental in my view, but I guess they need to be able to say they helped people make some money - just a lot less than if they hold for their dividend and the next inevitably huge announcement.

Speaking of which, there have been no announcements of new deals for weeks. This is most unusual. Granted, it hasn't mattered as the share price has behaved beautifully, but I'm missing reading those exciting RNS alerts.

Given the recommendation to sell, the price did very well to hold onto last week's gains. I don't know how much steam it has left in it. Maybe we'll linger around this level for a while - it would be a bit of a relief as my expectations were starting to get ahead of themselves. It's crucial that we back up this momentum with some revenue figures, so hopefully in the next few months we will be in a position to do that.

Week 156 Review - Best ever week obliterated

I'm having to pinch myself.

Two weeks ago I had my best ever week by miles. The portfolio value increased by £13,318, beating my previous record by about £8,000. I wrote "A new benchmark to judge other weeks by. How long till this record gets broken?" I honestly believed it could be years before seeing that kind of rise again.

Well I was wrong!

This week the portfolio value increased by a flabbergasting £18,442 and completely smashed the record from 2 weeks ago. It was nearly all thanks to a meteoric rise in OPTI:Optibiotix which has left me giggling hysterically and wondering when it will stop.

The rise took the combined portfolio value to £117,660 so not only punched through the £110K barrier but came perilously close to £120K. The buffer between cost and value has increased to £31,243. It was in the red a few weeks ago!

There were a few poor performers this week, but nothing desperately bad. Both RED:RedT Energy and TRX:Tissue Regenix dropped 5%. I think both these companies are very similar. They have extremely exciting products, but are yet to demonstrate they can make any money out of them, as their cash burn may always be greater than their revenues.

There were a couple of 5% risers this week, with both JLP:Jubilee Metals and KIBO:Kibo Energy (re-named this week from Kibo Mining) climbing after recent drops. The former probably due to a chance to increase their stake in the big-money Kabwe project following the de-listing of BMR:BMR Mining. The increase in KIBO:Kibo Energy may be due to a successful placing at 5.25p which is a significant premium to the current 4.35p share price.

TLOU:Tlou Energy rose by 6% and hopefully this will continue as it's still 26% down, and IKA:Ilika climbed by 8% despite the share price dropping, as my open offer shares were added and bought at a discount.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics would normally have won Share of the Week with a 32% climb taking them 80% up overall, but that accolade is reserved for an even better company.

OPTI:Optibiotix climbed a staggering 24p which is a 36% increase and worth £18,000 of this week's rise. There was no news to drive the rise, simply a decision by lots of people who have been waiting in the wings that this is the time to buy. The rise took the market cap past £100 million and into the sights of bigger institutional investors, so absolutely anything could happen now.

I keep banging on about the three years of misery and frustration, and consoling myself with the fact it allowed me to divert the majority of my portfolio into OPTI:Optibiotix while it was cheap, but I was only able to do that because of the unwavering confidence in the BoD and their IP. A company with shareholders interests at the root of everything they do is hard to find. I think CAML:Central Asia Metals are the other example, and I'm determined to re-build my larger stake in that company while the price is depressed.

So OPTI:Optibiotix goes to paper profit of £39,436 (80%) and a total value if I flogged the lot now of £88,853. I don't intend selling a single share. Things have only just got started here, and with such a low cash burn, once profits start coming in there are likely to be regular dividends. If the share price by the time regular dividends are issued is around 250p at 3% return, that would be 7.5p. 7.5p is 11.36% of the 66p I paid. That's a pretty good return for the long term! It would also be worth £5,625 a dividend, so this is a long term hold for income as well as growth.

No need to have worried about the spike reducing by Friday - it just kept getting bigger!

Here's the ISA and share portfolios as we come to the end of year 3

			Weekly Change
Cash	£11.02		-£100.00
Portfolio cost	£56,147.10		+£100.00
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£76,519.60	(36.3%)	+£12,956.30
Potential profits	£27,408.21		+£12,479.91
Yr 3 Dividends	£59.28		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£11,984.62		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£1,000.22	(21.4%)	-£19.61
Total Dividends	£1,238.33		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£18,697.12		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£549.69	(11.7%)	-£3.55
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

£100 went into the IKA:Ilika open offer, and not much change other than that - apart from the £12,479 increase in potential profits!

Year three has ended, and it was a good year resulting in realised profits plus dividends of over £12,000 so a nice average of £1,000 a month. Much of that was from selling off most of my IQE:IQE holding and all my VRS:Versarien. Now would be a great time to buy more IQE:IQE and I wish my pension transfer would hurry up so I can.

Now is possibly not a good time to buy back into VRS:Versarien as I still think they will do the same as OPTI:Optibiotix and trade within a range until the commercial deals start to bear fruit. As the collaborations are still R&D developing potential new products, I think the herd will get bored and the price will drop back below £1. If they don't, then I miss the boat, but avoid another 3 years of misery like I had with OPTI:Optibiotix. The main difference is I already made £3,950 profit from VRS:Versarien which lessens the misery substantially.

Deficit? What deficit?

Here's the SIPP after week 140

			Weekly Change
Cash	£20.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,043.79	(40%)	+£5,600.25
Potential profits	£14,081.73		+£5,712.32
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£220.12	(9.5%)	-£6.29
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£356.64	(15.3%)	-£2.57
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Similar story to the other accounts, with OPTI:Optibiotix dominating the rise. Most of the other shares went down, especially TRX:Tissue Regenix, so portfolio value increased less than potential profits.

The chart looks a bit odd now - I think for next week I need to adjust the scale so it doesn't start at £0

I can start talking about the trading account again now it's kick-started in week 106

			Weekly Change
Cash	£522.16		+£522.13
Portfolio cost	£1,823.53		+£1,477.88
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,544.25	(-15.3%)	-£113.85
Potential profits	£33.52		+£33.52
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£241.35		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£9.82	(-6.5%)	+£0.09
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I injected £2,000 into the account and bought three lots of shares, leaving just over £500 in the account. The shares lost £113 in the first week, but some had significant spread. KOD:Kodal Minerals is up by 7% which is the £33 profit. It has reasonable momentum so I'll hang on to them for a while. TEK:Tekcapital have dropped 22% but have 15% spread, and CAML:Central Asia Metals have dropped 8%. LION:Lionsgold is still suspended. Ideally I need £241 profit so I can zero out the losses and start making some money in year 3 after a very crappy 2 years.

This chart will look a bit odd for a while

So, the best ever week. I'm almost scared to think about next week. My ultimate nightmare would be something that removes all my paper profits, but I'm determined to hang onto as many OPTI:Optibiotix shares as possible pretty much forever, and use the dividends from spin-offs or profits to fund purchases of other shares.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy a nice bottle of Rioja tonight and toast all the good folk at OPTI:Optibiotix, and the amazing BB community on Advfn who, aside from the odd troll, help massively in spotting stories about OPTI and the microbiome, or in Elrico's case actually writes the stories!

Optibiotix zooms past Mars

It just won't stop!

Every time I think I've had the best ever day for OPTI:Optibiotix, along comes a better one.

Today started off fairly quiet, but after 1pm the shackles came off and it went up 12.5p. The bid price is a bit behind, as there's a 4p spread, but it still added 10p and now sits at 116p. That's perilously close to a market cap of £100m when bigger institutions are allowed to join in.

My humble holding is now making potential profit of £37,195 (75%).

Bloody hell!!

Am I going to top slice any profit?

Am I 'eckers like

This rise is on no news. It's merely the product of 3 years being held back and traders and one major seller keeping the price in a tight range.

Although I was miserable for much of the 3 years, it gave me a chance to keep pouring profits from other shares into here.

Now it's all paying off - or at least starting to pay of.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics has also taken off in parallel, now 70% up making £732 potential profit. Every penny this share goes up increases the value of the OPTI divi. Happy days!

Should we look at the chart?

The scale has had to re-rate rather significantly.

Total portfolio value has smashed through the £110K barrier and hit £114,804 with a £28,287 buffer between cost and value.

I feel I should temper all this jollity with the more usual grind of misery, and what better place than my trading account.

I found a couple of shares last night that had been on hard times, appear oversold, and which had spiked upwards yesterday. My thinking was that the momentum would carry them forwards.

I bought 287,088 shares in KOD:Kodal Minerals at 0.17p costing exactly £500. These didn't do too bad, rising 7.6% today so the bid price is now the same as I paid, and I'm only down commission.

Meanwhile my other penny share purchase was TEK:Tekcapital where I bought 3,486 shares at 13.4p for £479.07. These did much less well, dropping 15.4% and with a 17% spread are already down 30%. That's more typical of my trading account performance!

CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped a penny and so are down 7% in 2 days.

IQE:IQE dropped, but not far enough to trigger my 99p limit order. Maybe tomorrow...

So after 2 days, including my existing losses from LION:Lionsgold, my trading account is down £365 which is 20%. Wow - I'm so good at this!

Let's not focus on the negatives. At £15,586 up on the week, this week is beating my previous record of £13,318 2 weeks ago, so will Friday hold up and let me celebrate over the weekend, or will I slip back below the record?

Stay tuned to see how it all plays out tomorrow...

Rocky re-boot for trading account

My second attempt at a trading account had a dodgy start, with CAML:Central Asia Metals dropping 6% in the first day. That's partly due to spread and commission, but also the fact my limit order for 203 shares triggered at 239.83p as the share price was dropping to an offer price of 237p.

Note to self - next time don't put a limit order for first thing in the morning.

Having said that - next time it will probably shoot up while I'm on the way to work and I may miss my chance to buy.

Actually - missing my chance to buy shouldn't matter.

I forgot who said it - probably Warren Buffett because he says just about everything else. "Better to be out of a stock wishing you were in, than in a stock wishing you were out"

So if I'm applying the rule that it's OK to swing at a load of pitches and miss in order to save it for the pitch that hits the sweet spot (that definitely was Buffett), then I need to be in control when I buy and sell.

On the other hand, if a share is above what I want to pay but I know I'm willing to pay a set figure below that, then it makes sense to leave that limit order to take advantage of any tree shakes.

Which is why I will leave the limit order for IQE:IQE at 99p despite it climbing to 103.7 offer price today.

I still haven't a clue what to buy with the rest - none of my cheaper shares are volatile enough to trade, except SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which is at the top of it's recent spike so not a good time.

The other cheapies are either dropping like a brick or mired in a never-ending pit!

Time to do some swotting and see what I can find...