Week 185 Review - Optibiotix soars again - will it last this time?

It's been a volatile week, but thanks to a great showing from OPTI:Optibiotix the portfolio climbed by £4,002 despite me taking £500 profit. The buffer between value and cost has recovered to £4,767 and the overall value is back above £100K at £102,826

Worst performer yet again was MTFB:Motif Bio dropping 10% and now losing £1,987 (79%). This is going to be a drag on the performance for a long time. I just hope they can negotiate a way to show there's no liver toxicity quickly before they run out of cash. A placing at this price will cause a lot of dilution.

CAML:Central Asia Metals lost most of last week's gains, dropping 7%. The general direction is still upwards though, so confidence remains high.

TLOU:Tlou Energy will likely continue to slip until they get some sort of Power Purchase Agreement signed. They dropped 7% this week and are 40% down. Let's hope they don't suffer the same problems as KIBO:Kibo Energy, as African governments all seem to be putting barriers in the way of these companies, which doesn't make sense if they want to gain energy security. I'm at the point where I don't really want to be investing in fossil fuels on environmental grounds, although I don't feel strongly enough to take a massive loss. I won't be a long term holder here though.

I took my opportunity to buy back into VRS:Versarien when the price finally went under 100p. I was so relieved, but also horrified as it continued to drop. If I'd waited until the end of the day I could have bought for 86p instead of the 98.9p I paid. However, under 100p was my target price so I'm still happy, but the dip, spread and commission mean I'm already down 6%.

TAP:Taptica are still struggling. I'm surprised, as I expected a fairly rapid recovery after their CEO resigned. They dropped another 5% this week. Good job I only bought £500 worth in my trading account.

IQE:IQE had a great week, climbing 7% in my SIPP and 9% of purchase price in my trading account. They are still 40% down but may have some upward momentum now.

OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 7p which is 9% and worth £5,600. Given the portfolio only climbed by £4,000 it shows how much I lost elsewhere this week. The news about GRAS certification for LP-LDL is absolutely massive. All those American dairy contracts have been sitting around waiting for this. Now they can get on with signing them, although sounds like everyone is out in India talking about Slimbiome to partners there. A few Indian contracts closely followed by American contracts, closely followed by retail launch of Go Figure, closely followed by Sweetbiotix deals could see the share price finally break out from this range it's been stuck in for the last three months.

Share of the Week goes to CEY:Centamin which has been very slowly climbing. My ISA holding climbed 10% this week and went 5% (£74) into profit. My SIPP holding was bought much cheaper, so that went up 13% of cost price and is now up by 30% and making paper profit of £598. This is a keeper though, as I'm convinced it will re-rate permanently and the dividend will be massive as a percentage of the price I paid for the shares.

Phew - back in the right direction.

Still below the trendline so need another push next week.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£28.03		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,246.22		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£57,495.59	(0.4%)	+£2,687.53
Potential profits	£11,441.69		+£3,110.52
Yr 4 Dividends	£60.50		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,077.60		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£166.70	(3.5%)	-£5.95
Total Dividends	£1,298.83		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,774.72		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£489.65	(10.3%)	-£2.67
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Great week for increasing profits, but some big losses, particularly MTFB:Motif Bio meant about £420 of those were eaten by deepening losses. Still above the target 10% long term average profit, so looking good.

Back in the black - but only just

Still well below the trendline so must do better.

Here's the SIPP after week 169

			Weekly Change
Cash	£119.23		-£3.53
Portfolio cost	£38,324.88		+£499.70
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£43,645.29	(13.9%)	+£1,299.97
Potential profits	£9,171.17		+£1,250.87
Yr 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.04		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£496.15		+£496.15
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£154.97	(4.9%)	+£166.25
Total Dividends	£1,342.25		+£0
Total Interest	£0.07		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£11,041.07		+£496.15
Average monthly cash profit	£309.49	(9.7%)	+£10.96
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The key event was the sale of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and re-investment in VRS:Versarien. That earned £496 profit and I added a few quid from cash reserves to increase the portfolio cost by £499. Potential profits went up, but not as much as they might have done if CAML:Central Asia Metals hadn't dropped so much. The banked profits didn't get me back up to 10% target. I suspect at some point the risk/reward status of PAF:Pan African Resources will see me sell at least some of those to get back above target performance, but 9.7% is still pretty good.

Zoom!

Back above the trendline. This has always been a very will behaved account.

The trading account looks like this after week 135

			Weekly Change
Cash	£18.80		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,519.49	(-34.5%)	+£15.42
Potential profits	£0		-£12.99
Year 3 Dividends	£17.33		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£27.17	(14%)	-£0.91
Dividends	£18.48		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.47	(-0.8%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Although CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped back to loss and wiped out the potential profits, IQE:IQE did well enough to counter that and leave the portfolio slightly up on the week.

Slowly does it.

Above the trendline at last - but it's still bloody awful.

That's it from a week of exciting news for OPTI:Optibiotix to counter last week's terrible news, and jumping jigs of joy to be able to call myself a VRS:Versarien investor again. So much excitement to come with that one.

Back in Versarien, but as usual my timing sucks

Today saw a rare convergence of two targets.

I've been waiting for SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to hit 20p bid price in order to sell my SIPP holding. After missing out on 19.75p on Friday I thought my chance had gone, but this morning it came back and the limit sell order triggered, selling for 20.11p making a profit of £496.16 (49%) and liberating £1,496.10.

At exactly the same time, VRS:Versarien dipped bellow 100p, which has always been my target to buy back in. I really thought I had missed the chance, as resistance seemed to be at around 124p and it never got near my target. As soon as it went below 100p I bought some, convinced it was about to head north again as others like myself spotted a good deal.

I bought 1,505 shares at 98.85p costing £1,499.64. There was much celebrating, until close of business when the price had plummeted to a purchase price of 86p. So I managed a 15% loss of £232 on day one!

Never mind eh.

I'm just really happy to be back in VRS:Versarien as I didn't really want to sell. With hindsight I'm glad I did, as I made £4,000 profit in a very short period of time. There's a hell of a lot going on with them, and they have so many divisions developing the next most important tech that we're likely to see. They are doing it with global players, which takes time. They may decline further, which will be annoying, but from reading the bulletin boards it's clear there is active shorting and a concerted attack on the share price. That won't last.

I waited 3 years for OPTI:Optibiotix to become profitable for me. I'm very happy to wait as long for VRS:Versarien, and if they can stay this low for another month I'll have £2,000 from my pension transfer to add some more.

Meanwhile the portfolio is up by £1,544 on the week so far, despite cashing in £500 paper profit from the sale today, with OPTI:Optibiotix and CEY:Centamin being the main risers.

I really can't express just how happy I am to be back in VRS:Versarien, especially coming just a week after getting back into CWR:Ceres Power, another of my favourites. I've been watching for a long time yearning to be able to call myself a shareholder in both.

Week 184 Review - Big week for bad news

I wrote a short blog on Thursday detailing the misery of "Bad news day", and that day single-handedly dragged the whole portfolio down this week. It was heading for a modest gain, but ended up with a £1,263 reduction in value, with the buffer between value and cost only £765 and total value down to £98,327.

It will come as no surprise that the worst performer this week was MTFB:Motif Bio. The FDA rejection caused a 27% potential profit to drop 96% of the amount I payed for the shares end up at a 69% loss. That's paper loss of £1,745 from what was around £600 paper profit on Wednesday. There is one tiny glimmer of light in this disaster. I've been watching CWR:Ceres Power for ages, and vowed to buy back in if the price went below 150p which it did on Monday. In order to buy some, I sold 25% of my MTFB:Motif Bio holding. That was 2,530 shares sold at 42.7725p making profit of £263.08 (32.1%). I used the proceeds to buy 733 shares of CWR:Ceres Power at 145.9p costing £1,081.40. They slipped a bit lower and so are 7% down including commission, but I'm still happy I bought when I did and glad to be back in.

KIBO:Kibo Energy waited until later in the day to deliver the bombshell that TANESCO have suddenly decided KIBO:Kibo Energy don't qualify to apply for a Power Purchase Agreement. This follows years (literally) of discussion and "close cooperation". The share price pretty much halved, but as it has already dropped so far, the drop against my original purchase price was 12%. These are now down by 89% and losing £2,343. I have a horrible feeling this is going to go south and I'll end up with a big loss which will have a dire effect on my performance stats.

N4P:N4 Pharma was another big loser, falling 7% possibly in sympathy to MTFB:Motif Bio. I may give up investing in junior pharma companies. It seems to me everything is stacked against them.

There was some nice price action this week. OPTI:Optibiotix yo-yoed quite a bit but ended up 1p ahead. It's only a tiny percentage but worth £800.

CEY:Centamin gave a very upbeat statement about gold reserves at their Ivory Coast property, which helped the price climb by 6%. That leaves my ISA holding only 5% (£81) down, and my SIPP holding 17% (£343) up, so looking good and some nice dividends not too far away.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics had a great week, climbing 7% of my purchase price in the ISA and 12% in the SIPP. That leaves the ISA holding down 9% (£162) and the SIPP holding up 38% (£375). On Friday morning I almost sold them at 19.75p which would have made £469 (47%) profit, but it was below my target of 20p so I didn't accept the offer. I really wish I had, as it dropped to 18.5p by the end of the day. I wanted the cash to buy VRS:Versarien, which is dropping to my target price of under 100p. I need to be ready with the cash if it happens, as I don't think it will stay there for long. Shame it didn't drop earlier in the week else I may have sacrificed some more MTFB:Motif Bio shares, which would have been a great move!

CAML:Central Asia Metals had a great week, climbing 9% and going to paper profit of £2,111 (39%). This year's dividend is going to be massive - I'm very excited!

Share of the Week is once again IKA:Ilika, which has at last shown some signs it may be able to sell its tech. The price climbed an impressive 20 and is now only 21% down on my purchase price. I think this was one of my worst timed purchases, but patience may yet be rewarded, unlike with most of my disasters which all seem to be getting worse.

Ouch - that's no gap at all!

Well below the trendline. It's not good.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£28.03		-£11.21
Portfolio cost	£57,246.22		+£274.28
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£54,808.06	(-4.3%)	-£2,307.79
Potential profits	£8,331.17		-£389.08
Yr 4 Dividends	£60.50		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,077.60		+£263.07
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£172.65	(3.6%)	+£35.82
Total Dividends	£1,298.83		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,774.72		+£263.07
Average monthly cash profit	£492.32	(10.3%)	+£3.54
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Portfolio cost went up as a result of re-investing profits from MTFB:Motif Bio in CWR:Ceres Power and cash went down £11 as I wanted as many shares as I could buy so included some of the ISA cash. Portfolio value savaged by £2,307 as a result of MTFB:Motif Bio and KIBO:Kibo Energy crashing, but potential profits hardly affected, as OPTI:Optibiotix increased a little, so just the remaining MTFB:Motif Bio profits were lost. The sale increased the average performance for year 4 by £35 a month, but had a tiny effect on long term performance, improving it by just £3 a month. The percentage would have dropped from 10.3% to 10.2% this week, but the sale kept it at 10.3%.

I forgot to add the increase in cost to the chart, but it will be there next week. Too busy being depressed about the drop in value to notice that.

Into the red and well below the trendline.

The SIPP looks like this after week 168

			Weekly Change
Cash	£122.76		+£0
Portfolio cost	£37,825.18		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£41,845.62	(10.6%)	+£1,031.23
Potential profits	£7,920.30		+£1,022.71
Yr 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.04		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	-£11.28	(-0.4%)	+£1.02
Total Dividends	£1,342.25		+£0
Total Interest	£0.07		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£298.53	(9.5%)	-£1.79
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Excellent week with nearly all shares increasing in value and a very different picture to the ISA.

Still a nice gap here, but there needs to be to offset the ISA woes.

Back on the trendline, so I'm happy

The trading account looks like this after week 134

			Weekly Change
Cash	£18.80		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,504.07	(-35.2%)	+£13.42
Potential profits	£12.99		+£12.99
Year 3 Dividends	£17.33		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£28.08	(14.5%)	-£0.97
Dividends	£18.48		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.48	(-0.8%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A rare sight to see positive potential profits in this account! CAML:Central Asia Metals is on a roll, and hopefully can keep climbing to my target of 300p when I may consider selling and getting this portfolio into profit. Everything else in this account is desperate, so all my hopes are pinned on CAML:Central Asia Metals keeping up the good work.

That's what I call a sustained rise!

We're above the trendline, which is about as positive as I can get about this chart.

That's it for another week. A week of much turmoil. I'm very concerned with the behaviour of the FDA towards MTFB:Motif Bio. They had plenty of opportunity to mention they wanted more information on potential liver toxicity, so why wait until after the submission? All this does is cripple the MTFB:Motif Bio share price and makes them a perfect target for an aggressive buy-out - hmm - by an American pharma company maybe? Nah - that's me being cynical - must behave!

As for TANESCO - I really haven't a clue what's going on there, but I'm tempted to be a hell of a lot more cynical. Years of effort has been pretty much wasted. If they never had any intention of granting a PPA then they should have said so from the outset. It's cost millions to get this far, and much of that is debt hanging around KIBO:Kibo Energy's neck, so I'm really concerned about the viability of the company without this agreement.

I hope we don't get another day like Thursday for a long, long time...

Worst news day ever

What a disastrous day for news!

MTFB:Motif Bio had its new drug application for Iclaprim turned down by the FDA because they require the application to "further evaluate the risk for liver toxicity".

The share price crashed 73% and my holding with around £500 paper profit now has paper loss of £1,704.

Aaaaarrrrghhhh!!!!!!

The only ray of sunshine is that I sold 25% of my holding on Monday to buy some CWR:Ceres Power shares.

I was sulking all day about that, but came home to an RNS from KIBO:Kibo Energy to say that TANESCO have rejected their Power Purchase Agreement application, saying Kibo "did not qualify to compete in the next stage of the bidding process" but giving absolutely no reason.

KIBO:Kibo Energy shares crashed 50% as a result, so my holding is now down 89% with paper loss of £2,343.

Meanwhile OPT:Optibiotix slipped another 3p which cost me £2,400

Absolutely bloody horrible

The combined portfolios hover on the very cusp, being just £27 in the black 

The week had been so wonderful up to today - now it's all gone to hell in a handcart.

I'm no longer looking forward to writing tomorrow's review and I'm off to the pub to drown my sorrows! 
 

Week 183 Review - Promising start obliterated over last two days

The week was going pretty well aside from a slight slip in OPTI:Optibiotix, but CAML:Central Asia Metals was going great, and even the trading account holding went into profit. However the last 2 days were a disaster, with OPTI:Optibiotix slipping further and most of the gains made early in the week wiped out. Portfolio value dropped by £3,162 so the buffer between value and cost is down to £2,028 and overall portfolio value dips back below £100K at £99,327. All rather upsetting.

Worst performer was N4P:N4 Pharma which has seen a mini rally over the last few weeks, but a placing announced today caused the price to plummet down to the placing price, so it's down 15% and losing 56%.

RED:RedT Energy dropped another 8% for no apparent reason, and is sliding relentlessly as holders continue to doubt they can turn a profit, despite having a great product. These are 59% down after looking like things might be improving a few weeks ago.

MMX:Minds + Machines is being played by traders if the recent invasion of the bulletin board by trolls is anything to go on. I still believe this is a very cash generative company - they just need to prove it and dish some out as a dividend. Another 7% drop this week sees it losing 36% now.

IQE:IQE is also under continued shorting pressure, and lacklustre results from the chip manufacturers has hit them badly this week, dropping 6% in my SIPP and 8% in my trading account.

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped 4p (6%) the same as last week, despite more good news. I fear these are set to drift until either news of revenues or one of the anticipated big deals. I still have paper profits of £12,000 which are the only things keeping my portfolios in the black.

There was some good news this week. PAF:Pan African Resources continues a very slow and steady rise, which is the way I like to see it, and the way I made a lot of money from this company in the past. Up 5% this week they are now up 38% altogether and making £544 potential profit. I think they can double from here based on the new project that has recently come on line.

TAP:Taptica announced a merger and soared, but at the end of the week plummeted again. That averaged out as a 7% rise for the week, but they are still 30% down.

IKA:Ilika won Share of the Week 2 weeks ago, then lost a big chunk last week, but this week got it back by climbing 9%. Still a long, long way to go before making up the 61% deficit and breaking even.

Share of the Week is TRX:Tissue Regenix, which issued a very healthy trading statement early in the week and climbed 11%. This still leaves them 61% down, but I am now getting more hopeful of a rally here.

A desperate plunge over the last 2 weeks looks pretty bad

Trendline looks like it will stay up for a while, but in a couple more months the peak will dominate and we'll be in trouble.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£39.24		-£3.67
Portfolio cost	£56,971.94		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£56,841.57	(-0.2%)	-£1,939.78
Potential profits	£8,720.25		-£1,920.54
Yr 4 Dividends	£60.50		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£136.83	(2.9%)	-£5.26
Total Dividends	£1,298.83		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£488.78	(10.3%)	-£2.68
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash was just a correction as I checked my account and it was slightly out. I suspect I missed a monthly ISA fee one month, although that's £3.75. This month's fee was covered by a £20 cash bonus I got for transferring some pension money, which I'm just going to take off the fees rather than treat as actual income.

Once again nearly all the drop in value was down to falling profits as the rest of the portfolio stayed pretty stable. OPTI:Optibiotix does rather control the performance week by week.

Drat! The buffer is gone

It's tricky to see, but the accounts have slipped to a loss. I have so much trouble keeping these ones in the black.

The SIPP looks like this after week 167

			Weekly Change
Cash	£122.76		-£0.08
Portfolio cost	£37,825.18		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,814.39	(7.9%)	-£2,236.29
Potential profits	£6,897.59		-£1,034.85
Yr 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.04		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	-£12.30	(-0.4%)	+£1.20
Total Dividends	£1,342.25		+£0
Total Interest	£0.07		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£300.32	(9.5%)	-£1.81
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash would normally drop by about £16 with the monthly fees, but most were covered by the transfer bonus. Half the impact was reduced profits, and half was deepening losses. I'm getting a bit edgy - I feel the need to bank some profit, but can't bring myself to sell anything just yet.

Cripplingly bad news about the pension transfer. Legal & General have refused to do it, stating the minimum amount they are willing to transfer is £2,000. They really are bloody useless! It took them almost 2 weeks to come up with that. This means I have to wait another 2 months before I can do the transfer, so may as well forget all my plans as things will be very different then. I've changed the investments in the pension so the go into a safe bonds fund which should guarantee I get the £2,000 every 4 months for my SIPP. It's very frustrating, but the only way I can get my employer contribution, which is half the monthly injection.

It's not dipped far below the recent dips, so still hopeful the buffer can be maintained.

We're below the trendline which is a worry.

The trading account looks like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£18.80		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,490.65	(-35.8%)	+£13.68
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 3 Dividends	£17.33		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£29.05	(15%)	-£1.03
Dividends	£18.48		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.49	(-0.8%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

That's a surprise - the trading account out-performing the other accounts. There were a few decent rises this week, and it would have been even better if CAML:Central Asia Metals had held on to the mid-week price, which saw it go into profit of £12. If trade talks with China would stop being so volatile there may be a chance for copper prices to sustain their rise. I'm sure it's got nothing to do with the Americans manipulating the market as they alternate between positive and negative statements week after week. I suspect that would be highly illegal - and I'm sure none of them are making any money off the back of it...

Still creeping upwards.

We'll be above the trendline if this continues.

That's it for another week. There's a big probiotics conference next week where OPTI:Optibiotix are presenting three papers. That's going to result in some pretty massive industry exposure, and hopefully yet more deals. Surely these back-to-back 6% declines have to turn around soon? If they don't then we'll be back in top-up territory. 70p would see me sell a few other shares even at a loss because I really can't see it staying down there for long - if it ever gets there at all.

Week 182 Review - Fairly flat apart from a little Optibiotix dip

A relatively flat week for most of the portfolio, but a 4p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix was enough to bring the combined value down by £2,473, reducing the buffer between value and cost to £5,190 and the portfolio value down to £102,493.

Worst performer was last week's Share of the Week IKA:Ilika, which dropped 8% after climbing 20% last week. Not surprising that people would take profits. A long time till I'll be in a position to consider that as these are 50% down.

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped the 4p it climbed last week and so fell 6%. That is worth £3,200 so the fact the combined portfolios only dropped £2,473 suggests there were some big gains elsewhere.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy had a mini revival a few weeks ago, but is starting to slip again. It fell 5% this week and is now 72% down. Still no sign of when revenues might come in, so not one I would add to even at these low prices.

MAIS:Maistro climbed 6% this week. I still think it's doomed, but now my average price has reduced massively to 6.34p I may yet salvage something. To think these once traded at 800p. Someone will have lost a hell of a lot on this one!

CAML:Central Asia Metals finally seems to be heading back in the right direction as the China trade talks are getting more optimistic. They went up 8% this week and are now at 28% profit. This is a big holding, so the rise was worth quite a lot.

TLOU:Tlou Energy gave a robust update and climbed 9% so they are only down by 32% now. I've made over £1,500 profit from my previous holdings, so do like this company and am pretty sure they will come good again. However it's high risk and I'm becoming less willing to invest in these types of venture. Granting of the Power Purchase Agreement should see them soar.

TAP:Taptica wins Share of the Week after announcing a merger which will effectively see them take over another company. They climbed by 11% but are still down 37% after the resignation of their CEO. I belive that doesn't impact the company as badly as the share price suggests, so am confident I'll be able to sell these at a profit sometime soon.

Still bouncing every week, but didn't drop as low as 2 weeks ago.

I think I have a few more months where the trend line will point upwards, but the big spike six months ago will start to have an increasing influence so the portfolio needs to get back up there.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£42.91		+£0
Portfolio cost	£56,971.94		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£58,781.35	(3.2%)	-£1,811.75
Potential profits	£10,640.79		-£1,889.55
Yr 4 Dividends	£60.50		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£814.53		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£142.09	(3%)	-£5.68
Total Dividends	£1,298.83		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,511.65		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£491.46	(10.4%)	-£2.72
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The drop this week is pretty much all down to OPTI:Optibiotix, which isn't a surprise as it's about half my portfolio. None of the other shares stand much chance competing for attention. Losses were reduced by around £80 and performance is clinging above 10%.

Still the right side of the line

These accounts have a long history of being on the red, so this is a great sustained period of profit now. Will it become the norm?

The SIPP looks like this after week 166

			Weekly Change
Cash	£122.84		+£0
Portfolio cost	£37,825.18		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£42,050.68	(11.2%)	-£723.33
Potential profits	£7,932.44		-£676.83
Yr 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.04		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	-£13.50	(-0.4%)	+£1.50
Total Dividends	£1,342.25		+£0
Total Interest	£0.07		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£10,544.92		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£302.13	(9.6%)	-£1.83
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Good gains by the likes of CAML:Central Asia Metals and small gains from both PAF:Pan African Resources and CEY:Centamin helped reduce the impact on the profits from the OPTI:Optibiotix drop, but the rest of the portfolio lost an additional £50.

The pension transfer still hasn't shown up, but should arrive next week. Unfortunately CAML:Central Asia Metals may have climbed too much for me to want to put it there. It was a definite buy at 225p but 239p getting a bit much with it being so volatile. I might get back into CWR:Ceres Power as a lack of news has caused them to drift from over 200p to 158p. I still believe there's massive potential in using their technology for distributed power generation, so if the price stays low maybe now is the time to strike.

I'm still gutted that VRS:Versarien won't drop to a price that I'm willing to buy back in. They are so far away from being profitable that I can't justify 130p. It's just like when I got carried away with OPTI:Optibiotix being the next great thing and bought at an inflated price 3 years before they would be profitable, only to see it plummet when this sank in. I'm pretty sure the same will happen to VRS:Versarien, but it hasn't yet. My target to buy back in is when it dips below 100p, but I doubt this will coincide with a pension transfer so I may have to sell something when (or if) the time comes. I do desperately want to be a long term VRS:Versarien shareholder though.

Still looking healthy

A long history of profitability continues.

The trading account looks like this after week 132

			Weekly Change
Cash	£18.80		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,476.97	(-36.4%)	+£61.39
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 3 Dividends	£17.33		+£0
Year 3 Profit	£177.06		+£0
Yr 3 Average monthly cash profit	£30.08	(15.6%)	-£1.12
Dividends	£18.48		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.50	(-0.8%)	+£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The best week for a while, mainly thanks to a big rise in CAML:Central Asia Metals which is now incredibly close to being in profit, and TAP:Taptica which is recovering fast. Target price for selling CAML:Central Asia Metals is 300p and it's at 238p now and was around 348p less than a year ago, so I'm confident the target is in sight. Meanwhile TAP:Taptica needs to get to 300p just to break even, and that's only at 197p so could take a while. Target price to sell IQE:IQE is 130p and that's only 73p at the moment so a long way to go there. The other two (LION:Lionsgold and TEK:Tekcapital) are a waste of space so no point in even mentioning them.

Oooh - there's definitely a change in direction going on.

A long, long way from changing the direction of the trend line, but there's hope.

No news from OPTI:Optibiotix this week, so fingers crossed for next week. The most worrying thing was the remarkably small number of trades in OPTI:Optibiotix shares during the week. It's ripe for manipulation at the moment, so there is a little part of me that is considering sitting on the £1,000 pension transfer in cash for a bit so I can strike should there be a sudden dip in OPTI:Optibiotix or VRS:Versarien - although the CWR:Ceres Power option is going to be difficult to resist.