Week 220 Review - A good week but a down week

It was generally a good week, with a nice dividend and some of my bigger holdings doing really well. Even a 2p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix could only result in a £1,143 drop in portfolio value, so there were significant gains to offset that loss. The deficit between cost and value has widened to £19,136 and the total portfolio value is £85,176.

Only one big loser this week but it was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which I think suffered some profit taking after last week and dropped 8% in my ISA and 10% in my SIPP. I'm still around £160 up on my combined holdings though.

IQE:IQE had a great week, with my SIPP holding gaining 7%, my trading account gaining 9% and my ISA gaining 11%. The ISA is only 8% down now, so it would be nice to get a slow move up to around 90p for £400 (19%) potential profit. My traget for these is 120p which would give me £1,261 (58%) profit and ease my falling average profit performance.

Share of the Week is JLP:Jubilee Metals, which six months ago looked like it was never going to get anywhere. An announcement that they have bought out the rights to all PGM profits at Hernic for $5.1 million gave the share price a good kick, and most people won't be aware of it yet. With earnings of over $1 million a month from Hernic, and with Kabwe not far from production, there could finally be a re-rate. They climbed 11% this week and are only 6% down. Given I own over 100,000 shares and invested £4,639 this is one of my largest holdings and has been in the red for a long, long time. I'm hoping they will do a SLP:Sylvania Platinum and get to 30p, as that will give me £26K profit, and I will take that!

Compared to some weeks over the last few months that's not a bad chart. It does seem odd that I'm starting to consider a £1,000 drop as a flat week! It looks quite flat on the chart though.

Still above the trend line which is very important.

Here's the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£3.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,768.95		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,447.53	(-21.3%)	-£378.88
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£62.89	(-1.3%)	+£5.72
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£420.88	(8.7%)	-£1.93
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

The big gains for IQE:IQE and JLP:Jubilee Metals almost cancelled out the drops in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and OPTI:Optibiotix. IQE:IQE is now looking my best bet for a sale and a return towards my 10% target.

There will be a tiny tweak upwards on the injection line next week as I need to add £20 to the ISA to cover fees. Meanwhile the value is still nearer the injection amount than the cost so a severe under-performance.

Although the right side of the trend line, it needs to be much higher above it than this.

The SIPP looks like this after week 204

			Weekly Change
Cash	£206.17		+£200.00
Portfolio cost	£43,965.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,113.45	(-13.3%)	-£830.48
Potential profits	£808.65		-£134.74
Yr 4 Dividends	£556.99		+£195.00
Yr 4 Interest	£0.10		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,161.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£142.00	(3.9%)	+£14.95
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£195.00
Total Interest	£0.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£11,706.87		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£279.93	(7.6%)	+£2.79
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Cash increased thanks to £195 dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals and £5 from the tax man for a small injection I made a few months ago. The value was hit by the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and OPTI:Optibiotix drops, and the small rise in CAML:Central Asia Metals wasn't enough to mitigate it. Long term performance didn't flinch, with the dividend only moving it up by £2.79 a month. 7.6% is way too low and I need to do something about that soon. I'm still counting on MMX:Minds + Machines for that, but it steadfastly refuses to increase in value despite director purchases and a buy-back scheme.

A bit of a steeper dip, but not too far from getting back into the black.

This account has far fewer toxic shares than the ISA so the recovery should be much faster.

Here's the trading account after week 170

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£13.20
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,358.02	(-41.5%)	+£65.96
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£13.20
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£4.09	(2.1%)	+£4.09
Dividends	£47.92		+£13.20
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.42	(-0.2%)	+£0.34
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

I bet not many people get dividends in their trading account! It was a great week, with nearly all the shares up and IQE:IQE up a lot. The £13 dividend gave me something to put in the year 4 profit rows, and I'm one sale away from getting into overall profit. I'm pretty certain that sale will be CAML:Central Asia Metals as it's like a coiled spring.

Still a hell of a big gap to make up.

At last we're on the right side of the trend line. I so desperately want to see one of these lines pointing upwards.

So what might happen next week?

There are strikes in the copper mines in Chile, where 25% of the world's copper is produced. The copper price is so low that no companies are exploring for new mines, but demand is still high and set to increase, with things like electric cars having large amounts of copper. Copper is also being heavily shorted, so at some point the shorters will close and the price should rise sharply. When it does, CAML:Central Asia Metals should return to the price it was at before the slump in prices. That was 340p, and with my enlarged holding that would give paper profits of £4,277 (72%). I'd like to buy back the 2,000 shares I sold last month so hope they can hang on at these levels till late November when I get my next £2,000 SIPP transfer.

It's possible something is going on at BLU:Blue Star Capital, one of my more disastrous shares in my trading account. They are 88% down but there was a 6% rise on Friday following a placing earlier in the week to allow them to invest in e-sports. Add to that some stirrings on Twitter from Satoshipay and there's a vague possibility things may turn around. There's a lot of turning round to do if I'm going to see any profit though.

Nothing else happening that I'm aware of, so just keep everything crossed we get news of some exciting deals.

Week 219 Review - The bounce back continues

I wrote a blog on Wednesday because I was afraid by today things wouldn't be so great. I was right, as both Thursday and Friday saw sizable drops. It's still an upbeat blog though, as the combined portfolios climbed by £11,677 and narrowed the deficit between cost and value to £17,993. Overall value has increased to £86,106.

There were no big losers this week, but quite a lot of small losers. Fortunately some of my biggest holdings did well.

JLP:Jubilee Metals continued it's journey upwards, climbing 7%. This is now down by 17%, but there's an excellent chance good profits will be announced this year, and when Kabwe starts production the share price should be due a re-rate.

OPTI:Optibiotix is on one of its rolls, and one bit of decent news could cause a big spike. We're getting hints at sizable retail deals for our own products and for products formulated specially for the retailers, so although the margins will be low, the revenue could be huge. The shares climbed 11p which is 16% and accounts for most of this week's gains.

16% isn't good enough for Share of the Week though. OPTI's off-shoot company SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics soared by 21% in my SIPP to go 27% up with potential profits of £655. Shame this is my long term holding, as my trading shares are in the ISA and are still 9% down.

Looking good. Around half of the banked profits I had re-invested have been clawed back. A couple more weeks like this one would see me back in the black.

Above the trend line and lets hope it stays there.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£3.24		-£3.12
Portfolio cost	£57,768.95		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,826.41	(-20.7%)	+£6,690.62
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£68.61	(-1.4%)	+£6.86
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£422.81	(8.8%)	-£1.94
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

On Wednesday I had paper profit again as OPTI:Optibiotix climbed to 69p, but by Friday it was back down to 64p and a loss. The reduction in losses of £6,690 was fantastic though, as OPTI:Optobiotix, SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and JLP:Jubilee Metals all climbed significantly higher.

This account is still closer to the injection value than the cost, so a way to go yet.

The right side of the trend line, but can I drag it above zero?

The SIPP looks like this after week 203

			Weekly Change
Cash	£6.17		+£0
Portfolio cost	£43,965.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,943.93	(-11.4%)	+£4,982.46
Potential profits	£943.39		+£344.49
Yr 4 Dividends	£361.99		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.10		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,161.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£127.05	(3.5%)	-£2.76
Total Dividends	£1,704.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£11,706.87		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£277.14	(7.6%)	-£1.38
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Similar story to the ISA, but this time we also have an increase in paper profits of £344 thanks to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics. There was a slight drop in CAML:Central Asia Metals which reduced this a little, but next week the dividend will arrive so that will inject a few hundred quid. I need a big sale as 7.6% is way too low for long term average profit, but it's going to need something quite big to get back to 10% and I want to hold this batch of SBTX.

Pretty close to going back into the black, which is where this account traditionally sits.

Well above the trend line and with more chance of pivoting above the zero line.

The trading account looks like this after week 169

			Weekly Change
Cash	£35.04		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,292.06	(-44.3%)	+£4.39
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£34.72		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.76	(-0.4%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

Tiny increase this week, but better than a drop. Still miles off being able to sell anything.

Good job it was an interest free loan to prime this account as I've not returned very much to my bank account! I was hoping the injection line would be down to zero by now as I pulled out profits and just kept the £2,500 cost stable by buying £500 worth each time I sold. Epic fail!

Just about back on the trend line but needs to be well above it.

There's so much happening with OPTI:Optibiotix at the moment I'm really excited. The momentum is building and so many of the deals have the potential to bring in bug revenues. It's the sheer quantity of deals that is so amazing, and now we are seeing the ingredients inside actual products. If we can just ensure that H2 meets income expectations, then there should be a surge to our broker target of 97p.

It's great being invested in a company where there's a thrill of excitement every morning wondering if today will be the big news. We've had tons of small news, quite a bit of medium news, but as far as I can see there is potential for at least 6 or 7 items of massive news. Sweetbiotix supply contract, LPGOS deal, retail deal, Probiotix IPO, SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics dividend, SBTX deal with multinational and LP-LDL pharma trial results.

I guess I shouldn't lose sight of the rest of my portfolio. Most of that has been trashed recently so it's depressing to look at it.

I have so many companies that are over 80% down on when I bought them, and I fear for their ability to turn such a drop around.

BLCC:Block Commodities emerged from AFPO:African Potash and is only listed on NEX. That's down 101% thanks to commission and I have no hope of getting back my £707.

BLU:Blue Star Capital is down 91% as it appears Satoshipay is never going to get anywhere. Fortunately I'll only lose £520 on that.

KIBO:Kibo Energy had so much promise and I bought into the story, but they are down 95% and I'll lose quite big on this one with a £2,635 investment.

MAIS:Maistro was formed from BLUR:Blur Group and they have de-listed and are down 108% if you include commission so that's a puny £122 loss as I bought them very early in my investment career.

MTFB:Motif Bio is probably the most upsetting disaster as I bought a load more after successful phase III trials, not expecting the FDA to screw them over. The chances of them going bust are very high now. My holding is down 99% and I stand to lose £2,521

RED:RedT Energy looked like it had nailed the future of power grid storage with its vanadium redox flow machines, but you have to sell them to make any money, and with gigantic cash burn they are pretty much doomed. They are down 91% and I stand to lose £1,092.

TRK:Torotrak went bust, but the shares still sit in my account. I hardly bought any so will only lose £106 when I fanally write them off.

N4P:N4 Pharma had a diverse range of products so I thought I was investing in a relatively low risk company, until it turned out none of their re-formulations worked and they trashed that whole side of the company. Now they are a one-trick pony with a potential vector for delivering cancer treatments, and these sort of things don't have a great track record of success so I suspect I will wave goodbye to £1,244 as these are down 85%.

I bought SAE:Simex Atlantis Energy because I was sold on the benefits of tidal electricity, but they don't seem to be making any money out of it and are spending lots. These are down 88%, but I have a little hope for them. I will lose £659 if they go bust.

TRX:Tissue Regenix was another great promise, but again they are spending way more money than they are making, and it hasn't helped that Neil Woodford was heavily invested and has been offloading. They are down 88% and I'll lose £1,800 when they go bust.

So I make that a total of £11,406 that I'll most likely have to write off as a loss. My total realised profits over the 4 years are £31,931, so it looks like I'll lose a third of that. I'd still be making around 6% long term average profit though, so even with these disasters it's better than a building society.

You never know - some of them may yet turn things around...

Optibiotix back in the black!

I couldn't wait until weekend to post as I'm bouncing up and down like a bouncy thing.

There's always a risk it will have turned around by weekend so I want to make sure I get an opportunity to sing from the rooftops that after plunging to horrible lows 3 weeks ago with a paper loss of £20,000, OPTI:Optibiotix is today sitting at a bid price of 69p and paper profits of £2,783.

In those three weeks my portfolio value has gone from £64,907 to £91,102. That's an increase of £26,000.

I do believe I was saying that I was sure when the craziness was over, OPTI would rocket, and it has.

That's why I bought a load more at 46p, which have increased by exactly 50%.

Given the relentless great news that has been flowing over the last few months, and the industry awards being won on a regular basis, even now the shares seem ridiculously cheap.

The thing that's most exciting about being an OPTI shareholder is that we've not yet seen the really big news. Despite everything that we already have all over the world, we've not even started commercialising LPGOS or Sweetbiotix.

LPGOS has been found to improve the performance of existing probiotics, including our own LP-LDL and the most widely sold probiotic LGG.

Sweetbiotix is a calorie-free fibre that tastes like sugar and has none of the dodgy aftertaste or potential side-effects of artificial sweeteners.

Even if we didn't already have Slimbiome and LP-LDL winning awards, getting kite marks, being certified as safe in foods and with production facilities suitable for pharma, we'd still justify the current share price on LPGOS and Sweetbiotix alone.

Oh - and we own about 37% of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which is on the verge of signing a commercial deal with a global corporation, and have been promised a percentage of this as a dividend payout when some of those shares are placed with an institution.

It's been very distressing watching my portfolio being utterly hammered, especially when it sank to below the amount of cash I'd put in. At no point in that difficult period did I want to do anything other than buy more OPTI:Optibiotix shares. I didn't have that much ammunition, and had to sell 40% of my holding in CAML:Central Asia Metals at a small loss to do it, but the last three weeks have seen that loss well and truly recovered.

I only needed 3,000 to get past 100,000 shares, so my purchase at 46p was £1,391p. Even so, making £684 on these shares in a few weeks is a lot better than the £103 I would have made on a 14p increase in CAML:Central Asia Metals since then.

Add to that the remainder of the CAML sale went on SBTX and is £400 up.

I don't usually time things very well, but that seems to have worked out.

Let's look at the charts for the combined accounts...

What a climb! Much nearer to cost of portfolio than it is to initial cash injection.

The trend line is smashed through and is being tugged back towards the flat.

They do say pride comes before a fall, so I may still end up writing Friday's post in a state of utter misery, but I don't care because I've waited a long time to be happy about something in my portfolio, and I want to enjoy being happy even if it's just for a day.

Week 218 Review - Has the bounce back begun?

A good week for OPTI:Optibiotix meant a 6p rise and gains for some of my biggest holdings. This left the combined portfolios £6,799 better off than last week. The deficit between cost and value reduced to £29,670 and my shares are worth £74,429.

There were no big losers this week, which is something I virtually never get to say. The biggest drop was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which lost 4%. I think some people sell this to buy OPTI:Optibiotix when it's going up, then sell and put it back in SBTX. This one quite often drops when OPTI gains and vice versa. Doesn't make sense really, because when SBTX goes up, OPTI's holding increases in value so OPTI should go up too.

IQE:IQE climbed 6% in the long slow road to recovery. Even the shares I thought I was buying dirt cheap are down by 17% and my SIPP is down by 52%.

JLP:Jubilee Metals has been creeping upwards ever so slowly. It climbed another 6% this week but is still 24% down. I'm satisfied that the prospects are better now than they were when I first bought them, so hoping they can make that push to profit in the next 12 months.

CAML:Central Asia Metals has been on a bit of a roll since the dividend date, and climbed 8% this week. The dividend lands in 9 days time and will be a nice boost to my pension pot prior to next month's £2,000 top up from my work pension.

Share of the Week for the second week in a row is OPTI:Optibiotix. The 6p rise was 10% and leaves it 19% down. There was great news on formal GRAS certification (Generally Regarded As Safe) from the FDA, and the LP-LDL production facility was certified as the required grade for pharmaceutical manufacture. Lots of potential deals have been waiting for this, so the flood gates could open now.

Trial adverts for Slimbiome have been appearing in papers as BioEnergiser step up the publicity, and a new flavouring product is about to be launched. That was a complete surprise, and shows there is much more going on behind the scenes that we're not aware of. Can't wait for the day they announce the discovery of a new strain of bacteria that does something cool.

Boing!

Still below the trend line but offers a glimmer of hope.

Here's the ISA and share portfolio performance

			Weekly Change
Cash	£3.24		-£3.12
Portfolio cost	£57,768.95		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£39,135.79	(-32.3%)	+£3,726.69
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0.63
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£75.47	(-1.6%)	+£6.88
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0.63
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£424.75	(8.8%)	-£2.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

Cash dropped due to £3.75 monthly charge but gained 63p from when AMYT:Amryt Pharma consolidated their shares, which I've counted as a dividend. Big boost for the portfolio value but a long way to go till break-even

Back above the injection line thank goodness

Still well below the trend line

The SIPP looks like this after week 202

			Weekly Change
Cash	£6.17		-£11.79
Portfolio cost	£43,965.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£33,961.47	(-22.8%)	+£3,034.63
Potential profits	£598.90		+£368.05
Yr 4 Dividends	£361.99		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.10		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,161.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£129.81	(3.5%)	-£4.02
Total Dividends	£1,704.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£11,706.87		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£278.52	(7.6%)	-£1.64
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Charges have reduced cash to below what I need for next month's charges, but the CAML:Central Asia Metals dividend will fix that. Great big surge in value and good increase in potential profits of £368 thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals which mitigated the losses from the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics fall. Average performance well below the 10% target now, but still no prospect of selling anything.

Still closer to the orange line than the red

Nearer the trend line than with the other account

Here's the trading account after week 168

			Weekly Change
Cash	£35.04		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,287.67	(-44.5%)	+£38.28
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£34.72		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.76	(-0.4%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

An increase, but it's less than last week's drop. Two increased and two dropped this week and none are anywhere near the point where I can sell

Nearly back above the trend line which is flattening as the higher value of 12 months ago vanishes off the left of the chart. Unfortunately the whole line needs to move up £750 just to get to zero.

Nothing expected next week so jut hope the OPTI:Optibiotix recovery will continue. Lots of announcements are expected so maybe we'll get one next week.

Week 217 Review - Value increases but misery continues

I should be happy this week as OPTI:Optibiotix climbed 4p. That should have given me a £4,000 increase in portfolio value, but all I have is a £2,737 increase thanks to some big drops elsewhere. At least it is an increase! Deficit between cost and value has reduced to £36,470 and total value is £67,644.

Biggest loser was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which dropped 10% in my ISA and 14% in my SIPP, the latter fall wiping out all paper profits. I wish we'd get the "imminent" announcement of a major deal that was promised a long, long time ago.

IQE:IQE is one of my biggest holdings and dropped 8%, wiping out most of last week's gains. I am still optimistic in the long term future of this company, but there's no sign of any improvement in the near term.

MTFB:Motif Bio confirmed that everything has gone tits up and they're going to flog off their rights to Iclaprim and become a shell company hoping to reverse into something. That's pretty much what I expected to happen. Well done FDA - your mates can swoop in for a bargain now you've screwed us over.

OPTI:Optibiotix wins Share of the Week because nothing else climbed by more than 5%. The 4p rise was 6% of purchase price and means these are now down by 29% and losing £19,221. The fragment of good news is that 47p is now above the price I paid for my last lot, so something to smile about. Go Figure muesli pots also won the Grocers best breakfast product of the year award, so that may help get the product in stores around the world.

Much joy as we cross back to the right side of the orange line. Scant pleasure seeing as it's the red line I should be above!

Still dragging the trend line in a steeper drop.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£6.36		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,768.95		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£35,409.10	(-38.7%)	+£1,659.16
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£82.35	(-1.7%)	+£10.29
Total Dividends	£1,342.30		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£426.77	(8.9%)	-£1.97
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

Very little change. In terms of getting something with potential profits, my smallest loss is IQE:IQE on 23%. That was meant to be a short term holding area for guaranteed quick gains. How wrong was I?

Fairly simple really. I need OPTI:Optibiotix to stage a massive recovery, and my small caps to start making a profit if I want to turn around this bleak picture.

In about 3 months I'll lose all evidence this was ever in the black from my 12 month chart.

The SIPP looks like this after week 201

			Weekly Change
Cash	£17.96		+£0
Portfolio cost	£43,965.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£30,926.84	(-29.7%)	+£1,125.49
Potential profits	£230.85		-£447.63
Yr 4 Dividends	£361.99		+£0
Yr 4 Interest	£0.10		+£0
Yr 4 Profit from sales	£1,161.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£133.83	(3.7%)	-£3.04
Total Dividends	£1,704.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£11,706.87		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£280.16	(7.6%)	-£1.40
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics got hammered and all paper profits were wiped out, and CAML:Central Asia Metals not only fell, but went ex-dividend too which lopped off another 6.5p. That led to the £447 drop in potential profit.

My average profit is slowly dwindling and there's not much prospect of turning that around any time soon.

If this one ever goes below the orange line I'll be devastated.

It's going to take a £5,000 increase just to get back to the trend line.

Here's the trading account after week 167

			Weekly Change
Cash	£35.04		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,249.39	(-46.2%)	-£47.56
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£34.72		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.77	(-0.4%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

A bad week for this account, with no prospect of a turn around.

Back below the trend line.

I'm feeling in a state of abject misery as I write this, as I feel so helpless watching the share prices of just about everything I hold collapse. I guess that's a risk of supporting pre-profit AIM companies, where the rewards can be so great, but the risks so high. My dabble into pharma has proved that. You'd think successful phase III results would be enough, but the world is stacked against the little guys and what seemed like a dead cert with MTFB:Motif Bio now looks like a dead duck and a £2,500 loss.

I still retain hope. When asked if deals announced over the last 12 months were still ongoing, the OPTI:Optibiotix CEO responded that they were, and more in addition to those. There are so many irons n the fire that surely one of them must trigger a rise in the share price.

Let's see what next week brings...