Week 167 Review - The decline continues

Generally it wasn't a bad week, at least compared to the last few. It was certainly a lot less volatile, but the 2p drop for OPTI:Optibiotix was enough to undo small gains elsewhere and result in a drop of £998. That widens the deficit between cost and value to £3,337 and reduces the overall portfolio value to £83,893.

I was hoping it would have increased by the £8,000 I'm transferring out of my work pension, but Legal & General have excelled themselves with their incompetence. The transfer was supposed to happen within 10 days, but rather than get it out of the way before force selling my funds as I had planned, they have decided to go ahead with that sale and re-investment even though I never wanted it. Bloody useless. As a result they are delaying the transfer until 30th October, by which time all the current bargain shares will probably have recovered. Based on this performance I'll be transferring cash out of that pension as frequently as possible, just using it as a way of getting the employer contributions. I have absolutely no confidence in them not to cock things up even more than the £600 they've already cost me.

Worst performer this week (other than Legal & General) was KIBO:Kibo Energy which is on very shaky ground now. The fact that their "great working relationship" with the authorities has metamorphosed into a request to submit tenders suggests that it's not such a cosy relationship after all. Endless delays had been tolerable because of the potential benefits, but now it's looking like the delays are just stalling and nothing is ever going to happen. I'm preparing myself for the worst now, and may have to wave goodbye to £2,000 which will have a heavy impact on my performance figures. These dropped 6% this week and are 66% down on my purchase price.

That was the only big drop this week, at least percentage wise as OPTI:Optibiotix only fell 3% but it cost me £1,500.

CAML:Central Asia Metals may have started a gradual climb, up 5% this week and one of the target shares for when my pension transfer arrives.

IQE:IQE were also up 5%, and I'm tempted to get some at sub 90p as those shorts have got to close some time, and 5g is getting nearer. The announcement that they are producing from the new reactors could see a bit of a re-rate.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics usually follows OPTI:Optibiotix, but climbed 7% this week probably in anticipation of imminent news on the human trials.

Share of the Week was PAF:Pan African Resources which climbed 8% and is now 16% in profit. I have high hopes that this can double quite quickly when the announcement is made that the new project is producing. It's always been a well run company, but with a few recent issues and suspension of the dividend has been hit hard. They seem to be through that now, and given the generosity of the dividend in the past, I'm confident there will be a good re-rate.

I guess a shallower decline is an improvement!

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£25.99		+£0
Portfolio cost	£56,958.55		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£53,612.09	(-5.9%)	-£991.28
Potential profits	£5,801.37		-£1,011.92
Yr 4 Dividends	£52.69		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£337.20	(7.1%)	-£33.72
Total Dividends	£1,291.02		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£535.69	(11.3%)	-£3.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Profits down due to OPTI:Optibiotix, but a few quid in improving losses means the overall vaue dropped a little less. Not much else to talk about.

Same shape as the combined chart.

The SIPP looks like this after week 151

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.16		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,445.11	(2%)	-£67.29
Potential profits	£4,142.93		-£157.60
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£164.93	(7.1%)	-£3.58
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£329.52	(14.2%)	-£2.19
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The increase in potential profits for PAF:Pan African Resources and CAML:Central Asia Metals was almost enough to nullify the losses from OPTI:Optibiotix, but not quite. I think we can regard this as a flat week compared to recent ones.

That's such a narrow gap!

The trading account looks like this after week 117

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1.47		-£150.00
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,779.08	(-23.4%)	+£60.40
Potential profits	£18.96		-£8.40
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£59.02	(30.5%)	-£4.92
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.34	(-1.2%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Coo - an account that actually increased in value! It seems like a long time since I was able to write that.

Cash reduced as I banked £150 profit after deciding I need the money. For now I won't grow the size of this account but keep the ability to have 5 shares on the go. Given the value is way below the £2,500 needed, that could be easier said than done!

Most of the gains were thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals and IQE:IQE, but TAP:Taptica dropped in value again so potential profits are down and it's looking like I won't be selling anything in a hurry. They are quite volatile though, so could climb quickly. LION:Lionsgold issued an RNS suggesting I shouldn't hold my breath for their suspension being lifted.

Although the value increased, the removal of £150 means the green line takes a dive, but the orange line also drops as I try to take out the capital I started the account with. Once that gets to £0 I'll keep the cash in the account and allow it to grow. "If" might be the word rather than "When"!

I now know there will be no pension money next week, so not much to look forward to. I'd hoped to buy more OPTI:Optibiotix while the price was low, but can tolerate keeping my existing holding and investing in something else instead. CEY:Centamin and CAML:Central Asia Metals are the two main candidates at the moment, with maybe a small top-up of IQE:IQE.

Week 166 Review - Carnage as portfolio crashes into the red

The best thing I can say about this week is that it wasn't as bad as last week. However, it was nearly as bad, with the combined portfolios losing £8,004 in value and going into a paper loss. The deficit between cost and value is £2,339 and total portfolio value has dropped to £85,042. It was £117K just 9 weeks ago. £32K vanished in 2 months. That makes me sad!

The list of major fallers is huge so I won't go into detail, as there's no reason for the drops other than a general crash of the AIM market.

CAML:Central Asia Metals was the worst performer, dropping 16% and as one of my biggest holdings it had a big impact. TAP:Taptica had a much smaller impact dropping 14% is it's a small holding in my trading account, but I'm kicking myself that I didn't take the £100 profit when I had a chance as I could have bought them back now.

OPTI:Optibiotix released more amazing news this week, including the wife of a director buying 125,000 shares, but whenever good news is announced it's a disaster for the share price, and true to form it lost another 12% and was responsible for most of this week's decline.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics was also a double-digit loser, falling 10%, RED:RedT Energy and MTFB:Motif Bio dropped 9%, with MTFB:Motif Bio going into loss. TEK:Tekcapital dropped 8%, AMYT:Amryt Pharma dropped 7%, MMX:Minds + Machines and KIBO:Kibo Energy dropped 6%, and JLP:Jubilee Metals dropped 5%.

Only two shares went up this week. PAF:Pan African Resources was a negligible gain, and Share of the Week was CEY:Centamin which climbed 7% as the gold price rallied.

So - patronising Legal & General pensions "expert" that pointed out my gold fund is in mining stocks and so was just as susceptible to stock market crashes as other funds can go jump off a cliff. Good news is that the debacle with them forcing me to sell funds bought as long term investments has enabled me to see just how easy it is to transfer money out of my crappy Legal & General work pension and into my SIPP. It took 30 seconds to arrange for £8,000 to be transferred and I should get it within 10 days. Go stick that up your nether regions Legal & General! I shall now transfer out of my work pension every time it gets over £1,000 so I can keep receiving my employers contribution but don't have to trust a company that's screwed me over to look after my money. Fortunately the bulk of my pension is locked away in a final salary scheme so there are only 12 months contributions in the new one, so happy to put up with a bit of risk on that pot.

Looks like Mount Everest - and I just fell off!

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£25.99		+£0
Portfolio cost	£56,958.55		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£54,603.37	(-4.1%)	-£5,172.09
Potential profits	£6,813.29		-£4,116.32
Yr 4 Dividends	£52.69		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£370.92	(7.8%)	-£41.21
Total Dividends	£1,291.02		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£538.92	(11.4%)	-£3.27
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Take the OPTI:Optibiotix paper profits crash out of the equation and losses deepened by a further £1,000. Nothing more to say.

Looking at the longer term trend, the current value seems about in line - lets hope that means it won't drop any further.

Here's the SIPP after week 150

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.16		+£0
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£28,512.40	(2.2%)	-£2,667.04
Potential profits	£4,300.53		-£2,499.10
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£168.51	(7.2%)	-£3.75
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£331.71	(14.3%)	-£2.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Nearly all the losses were reduced paper profit for CAML:Central Asia Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix, with another few hundred quid of deepening loss elsewhere.

At least this account stayed in the black!

Here's the trading portfolio after week 116

			Weekly Change
Cash	£151.47		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,718.68	(-26%)	-£165.71
Potential profits	£27.36		-£67.20
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£66.94	(33.1%)	-£5.81
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.36	(-1.2%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Worst ever week for this account, with most of my un-banked profits wiped out for TAP:Taptica and the rest of the portfolio losing another £100. Still no sign of LION:Lionsgold ever coming out of suspension. I think I'm going to take out the £150 cash. I need it to go towards my holiday costs - I'm happy for this account to just hover around £2,000 and use it as a piggy bank - albeit not a very productive piggy bank so far!

My new target for this account is to get the injection line down to zero.

That's it for a horrid week. It could have been much more horrid if Friday hadn't recovered slightly. With the pension funds due soon I'm hoping the recovery won't be too swift, as I want to buy CEY:Centamin, CAML:Central Asia Metals - and yes - a few more OPTI:Optibiotix while they are madly cheap.

Week 165 Review - Utter and complete misery

This week's update is late, partly because I was away for the weekend and partly because it's too depressing for me to want to write it. The combined portfolios lost £8,888 and went from over £100K to £93,046 reducing the buffer between value and cost to just £5,665 and as we're already halfway through week 166 I can say that's all gone and Friday's update promises to be as bleak as this one.

Leading the fallers is OPTI:Optibiotix, falling 17% this has dropped from 130p to 88p in a few weeks and all the profits I was strongly advised not to top-slice by the CEO have gone. I still think he was right to advise that, and I'm sure this share price is being manipulated, so I can't blame him. It was my decision to keep them, and I stand by it, as I firmly believe they will be back at 130p soon.

RED:RedT Energy dropped 16% putting an end to their brief rise.

CEY:Centamin dropped 11% as they continue to plummet against all odds. I'll soon be getting £8,000 transferred into my SIPP from my work pension, as I've discovered it's rather easy and Legal & General have screwed me over. They are force-selling my Blackrock Gold fund at a really low price and buying a general fund at a high price. I believed I was investing for the long term, but they've absolutely buggered up my long term strategy and have no gold option to re-invest the proceeds in because they feel it's "too specialised". Is it bollocks!! So I shall be transferring my monthly contributions into my SIPP and managing it myself every time there's £1,000. £4,000 of the proceeds will be going straight into CEY:Centamin at these prices.

MTFB:Motif Bio, RDT:Rosslyn Data and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics all dropped 5% for no reason.

Only 2 shares rose by more than 5%. IKA:Ilika climbed 6% after news of a new research partnership (still years away from delivering anything) and Share of the Week is MMX:Minds + Machines which climbed 10% but is still 13% down.

Really, really depressing

Here's the combined ISA and share portfolio

			Weekly Change
Cash	£25.99		+£19.38
Portfolio cost	£56,958.55		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£59,776.46	(4.9%)	-£6,202.55
Potential profits	£10,929.61		-£5,794.38
Yr 4 Dividends	£52.69		+£23.13
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£412.13	(8.7%)	-£41.02
Total Dividends	£1,291.02		+£23.13
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£542.19	(11.4%)	-£2.79
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

There was a £23.13 dividend from CEY:Centamin but £3.75 was taken as ISA charge so cash is just up by £19. £5,795 paper profits evaporated and deepening losses reduced value by £6,202. Average profit should stay above 10% for another 14 weeks without me having to sell anything.

We seem to be in a very volatile phase.

The SIPP looks like this after week 149

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.16		-£12.67
Portfolio cost	£27,893.76		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£31,179.44	(11.8%)	-£2,670.64
Potential profits	£6,799.63		-£2,717.83
Yr 3 Dividends	£292.57		+£0
Yr 3 Profit from sales	£1,619.73		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£172.26	(7.4%)	-£5.16
Total Dividends	£1,208.67		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£333.94	(14.4%)	-£2.63
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash dropped by £12 due to monthly charges. Paper profits dropped by more than the value dropped, so some losses were reduced as MMX: Minds + Machines improved. Nothing else happened really.

Same story as above but with a slightly wider buffer to the red line

Trading looks like this after week 115

			Weekly Change
Cash	£151.47		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,884.39	(-18.8%)	-£15.62
Potential profits	£102.96		-£5.04
Year 3 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£76.73	(39.7%)	-£8.52
Dividends	£1.15		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.40	(-1.2%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The usual tick down in value and TAP:Taptica keeps dropping so it looks like I should have taken those profits a few weeks ago. No doubts I'll watch them dwindle away as everything else continues to get hammered.

At least the decline is slow, but relentless.

That's it - utterly fed up and it's getting worse. Not looking forward to Friday's update unless something very unlikely happens over the next 2 days.