Week 237 Review - Last week's gains are gone.

Not very much happened this week. Mid afternoon today it was looking like a completely flat week, but a 30,000 OPTI:Optibiotix sale took 2p off the share price and spoiled everything. As a result, almost all last week's gains were wiped out as the portfolio value dropped by £2,294 compared to last week's rise of £2,317. The deficit between cost and value widened to £21,552 and total value dropped to £85,668.

Biggest loser was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which dropped 10% in my SIPP and 7% in my ISA. It goes to show the short-term view of AIM investors, as the fall was caused by news of a deal to treat psoriasis. I think people were expecting a deal with earnings within 6 months, as this had been hinted at by SBTX CEO in an interview, but it was clear from the RNS that this will take at least 2 years to develop. At this price I really want to buy more, as the recent deal with CRDA:Croda is massive, and that alone will bring in huge revenues, but again in 18 months or so. Buy now and sit on them, but I have no ammo to make a purchase until the end of March, and that's promised to my pension magic formula project.

IQE:IQE were starting to look really good, with the shorts closing and the share price rising 8% a week. This week saw progress falter as Apple warned the coronavirus would impact iPhone production. There was a knee-jerk reaction which gave the shorters an opportunity to close more positions, which I think limited the drop to 5%.

Only one share increased by more than 5% and so Share of the Week goes to JLP:Jubilee Metals, continuing recent good form and rising 8%. They are only 7% down now, so another week like this will see them in profit. I've got 104,545 shares costing £4,639, making it my 4th biggest holding after OPTI:Optibiotix (£69,515), CAML:Central Asia Metals (£6,408) and IQE:IQE (£5,049). With the revenues soaring, I think there's a reasonable chance these could get to 15p, which would give £11,000 (238%) profit. The problem is their amazing ability to shoot themselves in the foot, and their seeming complete disregard for shareholders. It's a major red flag that the CEO owns practically no shares and the Chairman has used this company to help bail out one of his other failing companies, of which he has many. If JLP make any money, it could easily vanish into fixing other disasters without the shareholders seeing a penny. For that reason I don't see this as a long term holding as it's too risky.

Please don't let this be the start of another downward cycle. I'm fed up of bounce, bounce, bounce.

The drop keeps us well above the trend line

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£13.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,783.58		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£44,364.86	(-23.2%)	-£1,005.76
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£28.26	(-0.6%)	+£1.01
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£390.42	(8.1%)	-£1.65
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.6%		+0%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

The drop in value was around £200 less than last week's gain, and apart from that nothing much to say.

Back to being closer to the orange line than the red.

This is it - the last week before all the weeks in the black disappear. A whole year in the red. Desperate.

The SIPP looks like this after week 221

			Weekly Change
Cash	£59.41		+£0.01
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,864.27	(-15.2%)	-£1,273.59
Potential profits	£362.97		-£15.00
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0.01
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.64	(-0.4%)	+£1.22
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0.01
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£273.75	(7.0%)	-£1.24
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.0%		+0%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

The value dropped by around £200 more than the gains last week, which is bad. Nearly everything dropped in value. I discovered another 1p interest that I missed on the 9th February, so at least I made some money this week!

Not much change really, and still closer to the red than the orange, so moderately happy.

I can feel the trend line being dragged flatter every day.

The trading account looks like this after week 187

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,318.38	(-43.2%)	-£15.34
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.85	(1.0%)	-£0.06
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.38	(-0.2%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

I'm relieved that the loss was only £15, as nearly everything dropped in value.

T'is but a blip.

There's momentum, but then there has been momentum before, and it got clobbered in one week.

Here's the fantasy magic formula account, which will be very complicated as I made some big changes

			Weekly Change
Cash	£748.50		+£594.89
Portfolio cost	£29,846.39		+£84.07
Portfolio sell value	£31,427.66	(+2.5%)	+£128.91
Potential profits	£1,276.66		-£1,053.95
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£678.96		+£678.96

The portfolio value climbed a little, but is pretty flat given the cost also went up. Potential profits fell by £1,053, but that's largely because I banked £678. If only this account was real!!

The house builders are still doing best, with PSN:Persimmon (29%) and RDW:Redrow and BWY:Bellway (both 24%) leading the way.  ASY:AndrewsSykes Group is up 14% in a week, and III:3i Group is up 10%. Most of the biggest losers got sold, but DGOC:Diversified Oil & Gas is down 11% and ITV:ITV down 9% in a week.

I changed my formula to include the ratio of debt to earnings, and the dividend yield. Those were added to P/E ratio and return on capital employed (ROCE). I figure this gives me a cheap share (low P/E) combined with good return on capital, combined with high dividends, combined with low debt compared to earnings.

The company that came out on top was FXPO:Ferrexpo, and the company that came second was PLUS:Plus500. Those are the two that I need to research closely for the next month, as they are top candidates for the £2,000 pension transfer.

The change meant I lost all the dodgy AIM companies that don't pay any dividend, and most of the house builders as they have high debts. I sold anything that didn't come in the revised top 30, even if for a loss, and my net gain was £678 realised profit. I stuck to my rule of only spending £1,000 for each share and filled the gaps to make the new top 30. Here they are:

There are a few house builders still in there, and I'm really happy to say that CAML:Central Asia Metals comes in 14th out of 450. Given that I absolutely know that's a great company and under-valued, then it gives me a lot of hope for this formula. I've owned REDD:Redde, RDW:Redrow, JLG:John Laing Group and ASHM:Ashmore Group before, and all were good companies.

Unfortunately I can only buy 2 companies every 4 months, so it's going to take years to get the full 30 in real life. I may be able to accelerate the purchases if I can sell a few from the existing portfolio, and I already have CAML:Central Asia Metals so don't need to buy any more of them.

There are a few I won't buy on environmental grounds such as DGOC:Diversified Oil & Gas, so a big part of my research needs to be to ensure they are acceptable environmentally, and any where there are glaring red flags will be passed by.

Note that the account holds £748 cash. My rule is I can't buy another share until there is £1,000 to spend, and then I either buy a new company that has entered the top 30, or if there isn't one then I buy another £1,000 of whichever company is highest up the ranking and still has only had £1,000 spent.

It's quite frustrating that I don't have £30K to try this out for real, but I guess it's good to practice on a virtual portfolio for a while so I don't do anything stupid with real cash.

My target for next week is for just one of my shares other than CAML:Central Asia Metals to go into profit - it's not an awful lot to ask...

Week 236 Review - Another small notch upwards

This week started off really badly, but rallied towards the end with a nice rise of £2,317. That brings the deficit between cost and value to £19,257 and total portfolio value to £87,963.

The week was possibly the quietest ever for big movers. There were no shares that declined by 5% or more, and only one that increased by 5% or more.

Share of the Week goes to IQE:IQE, which climbed 6% for the second week running in my ISA as the shorts are closing fast. The rise isn't as rapid as I hoped, but I think that's because the short squeeze isn't panicked - they are just gradually closing their positions. If they can return to the 100p range that they occupied before the last shorting attack, I'll bank the £689 (32%) profit in my ISA and keep the SIPP holding for longer term. The ISA holding was meant to be a short term purchase anyway - it just went a bit wrong when the crash came straight afterwards.

Back to halfway between orange and red, but this has been the point of resistance several times over the last six months.

Here's the ISA and share accounts performance

			Weekly Change
Cash	£13.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,783.58		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£45,370.62	(-21.5%)	+£1,273.38
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£29.27	(-0.6%)	+£1.09
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£392.07	(8.1%)	-£1.67
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.6%		-0.1%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

A healthy rise of £1,273 in value, mainly thanks to a 2p increase for OPTI:Optibiotix and the 6% increase for IQE:IQE. There are still no shares in profit, but OPTI:Optibiotix is only 3% down now, so there is hope. IKA:Ilika is 12% down and very volatile, so that could come good soon. JLP:Jubilee Metals is 15% down and I feel still primed for something exciting, and IQE:IQE is 21% down and will be in profit within 4 weeks at the current rate of improvement.

There are now 3 shares in this portfolio that are down by 100%. BLCC:Block Commodities used to be AFPO:African Potash and has been an unmitigated disaster. They are a perfect example of falling for a sweet talking CEO who will never deliver anything other than a paycheck for himself. Not only have they abandoned any ideas of supplying potash to African farmers, there appears to be no movement whatsoever on their blockchain financing plans, and now they are talking about getting into medicinal cannabis! They are listed on NEX, but are standing at 0.007p a share after I paid 2.45p. It's £707 that I will be writing off as a loss at some point.

TRK:Torotrak have gone bust so I don't even know why my shares still exist. I guess once the liquidation is over there might be a few pennies left to return to shareholders, but I very much doubt it. My holding only cost £106, as it was one of the first shares I bought, and taught me a valuable lesson about fishing for shares at their lowest ever price.

The final share down 100% is my biggest investment mistake so far. I sank £2,521 into MTFB:Motif Bio because they had passed Phase III trials and I naively thought that was enough to market the product. Little did I know that the FDA would ruin all that and reject their drug application. Some company is going to make a fortune on the back of the work done by MTFB, while shareholders are left stranded with a vague hope that selling the rights to the product raises enough to reverse takeover into something else. My lesson from this? Stay well away from junior pharma as they don't have the cash needed to get a drug through the regulatory hurdles. Only the big boys can afford that.

Still closer to the injection line than the cost line, so a long way to go

Only one week in the last 12 months where this account was in the black, and it will be gone very soon. The very top of the trend line is still £2,000 in the red. All rather bad.

The SIPP looks like this after week 220

			Weekly Change
Cash	£59.40		+£0
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£41,137.86	(-12.5%)	+£1,034.08
Potential profits	£377.97		-£15.00
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.02		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£15.86	(-0.4%)	+£1.44
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.18		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£274.99	(7.0%)	-£1.26
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.0%		-0.01%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

Very similar story to the ISA, with the increases in OPTI:Optibiotix and IQE:IQE causing an increase in value of £1,034. Potential profits dropped by £15 after CAML:Central Asia Metals fell by 0.5p. I'm concerned about average performance dropping to 7%, but still can't see where my salvation is coming from.

There is some hope though, as OPTI:Optibiotix is only 4% down in this account - not that I will ever sell any. MXX:Minds + Machines is torturing me, as it's been only 1% down for the last 2 weeks but tends to stay still until there's news. I'm amazed that news of a dividend didn't attract more investors. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is only 19% down and very volatile, and I bought these with the intention of trading to try and get my ultimate number of shares up. My mistake was thinking 14p would be the low just before they dropped to 12p!!

There are no 100% losers in this portfolio, but TRX:Tissue Regenix isn't far off, with a 95% drop. I still can't fathom how a company with such a good product and potentially global sales can spend so much money that it keeps making a loss. If they can get someone with a commercial brain on the board then there may still be hope.

N4P:N4 Pharma is a candidate for going to 100% loss. I bought them around the same time as MTFB:Motif Bio before I learned my lesson about junior pharma. I thought my reasoning was sound - they were re-formulating and improving widely used drugs, and also had Nuvec for delivering cancer treatments. I figured that much diversity must lessen the risk. Unfortunately their re-formulation of Viagra failed miserably and revealed the whole process was flawed and they shut down that part of the business. All diversity gone in a day and now they are a one-trick pony, down 87% and with very limited chance of recovering the £1,244 I invested.

My other SIPP disaster is SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy, which I bought because I believed they were going to build a huge tidal power farm. They still have only 4 turbines!! They seem to be another R&D company with no commercial brain. They have now taken on the massively risky and expensive re-purposing Uskmouth power station to burn waste. I don't have high hopes, but only invested £659 so won't lose too much.

As with the ISA, this has reached the resistance point, but it's much closer to breaking even. I had a note from Hargreaves Lansdown with the projected value of my pension when I'm 65. They reckoned £50,000. It cost nearly that! I'm counting on it being worth £50,000 in 2020, not 13 years in the future.

Nice to know I still have 3 months before I lose all the above-zero weeks.

The dreaded trading account looks like this after week 186

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,333.72	(-42.5%)	+£10.05
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.91	(1.0%)	-£0.06
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.38	(-0.2%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

Another small rise, but I'm making the stunning profit of almost £2 a month this year, and still making a 38p a month loss overall. That's an utterly desperate return from 3.5 years. I might be the worst trader ever!

At this rate it's going to take 10 years to get to break even.

We're still just above the trend line, so lets remain positive.

Here's the fantasy magic formula account.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£153.61		+£0
Portfolio cost	£29,846.39		+£0
Portfolio sell value	£31,298.75	(+4.8%)	+£288.73
Potential profits	£2,330.61		+£534.21
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0

Well, it appears the magic formula is much better at picking stocks than I am. Potential profits increased an impressive £534, but some losses deepened as the overall value only went up £288. This account has gone up every single week!

The 7 house builders are doing the best, all up between 25 and 30%. WIZZ:Wizz Air is up 14% and GROW:Draper Esprit is up 12%.

BUR:Burford Capital is worst, down 19%, and BMN:Bushveld Minerals is down 16%, with SQZ:Serica Energy being the only other double-digit loser, down 11%.

My pension cash will come through at the end of March, so it will be interesting to see how the list pans out by then. I suspect all the house builders will have dropped off, as they will be 30% more expensive and I missed my chance. It takes a long time to prep the list as I have to check each company individually. I'm thinking of adding a few more criteria to the ranking system too. Dividend yield being the one that immediately springs to mind, but I think debt is also one I'd like to add.

No news anticipated next week, although the latest OPTI:Optibiotix interview on Proactive Investors was the most upbeat yet, and there were some very interesting hints about progress with Sweetbiotix development. It's only a matter of time before one of those lands, and we'll need to buckle up when it does.

Week 235 Review - A stunning start collapses to a whimper

By the end of Tuesday everything was looking pretty great. OPTI:Optibiotix continued to fly and was back in the black. I nearly wrote an excited blog post, but whenever I do that it drops back into the red again. Well, even without the blog post it dropped nearly all the way back to where it started, leaving the week up by £1,436 compared to the £8,000 is was up on Tuesday. The deficit between cost and value is now £21,575 and the total value is £85,645.

There was very little movement this week. The only big loser was TEK:Tekcapital which dropped 6% to go down to the placing price that was announced this week. I should have learnt my lesson with ALM:Allied Minds and avoided IP companies, as the inventions they invest in are rarely going to make a profit.

IQE:IQE has been making steady progress but is still a long way behind the companies it supplies. I think the market needs some convincing that they are capable of making a profit even when sales are good. I'm down 27% in my ISA, 50% in my trading account, and a horrible 59% in my SIPP. It's locked up £5,049 which I suspect will be trapped for some time yet. No share in my portfolio has fallen from grace quite so badly. I did however make £12,000 profit trading it during the shorting wars, so I have a lot to thank it for and can accept having a bit of that profit trapped for a few years.

Share of the Week is IKA:Ilika, which has been super volatile lately. It's a shame all the companies I own that are nearly back in the black seem to have a resistance point just below where I bought them, so I never seem to get into profit. I need another 9% for these to start earning money.

In the right direction, but it looked so much better on Tuesday evening.

Time to reverse that trend. I'd like to see a new line running from week 213 and heading upwards into profit.Just a matter of the 6 month wait for that to possibly happen.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

		Weekly Change
Cash	£13.44		+£1.45
Portfolio cost	£57,783.58		-£5.20
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£44,097.24	(-23.7%)	+£637.59
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£30.36	(-0.6%)	+£0.54
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£393.74	(8.2%)	-£1.75
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.7%		+0%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

I didn't get my requested allocation of MAIS:Maistro shares in the open offer, so returned £5.20 to the account, but £3.75 ISA charge came out of that. The portfolio value went up £637, but still nothing in profit. OPTI:Optibiotix is only 6% down after a 1p rise, IKA:Ilika is only 9% down and JLP:Jubilee Metals is only 16% down and looking ready for a re-rate, so I'm hopeful there will be something in profit soon.

Still way too close to the orange line

If OPTI:Optibiotix can get to 100p this will be back in the black. It's got 3 weeks until I lose my last positive submission and we have a whole year in the red.

Here's the SIPP after week 219

			Weekly Change
Cash	£59.40		-£15.35
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,103.78	(-14.7%)	+£789.16
Potential profits	£392.97		+£225.00
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.02		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£17.30	(-0.4%)	-£4.92
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.18		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£276.25	(7.1%)	-£1.57
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.1%		-0.01%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

Cash went down due to monthly fees. A bigger rise here than the ISA as CAML:Central Asia Metals went up a few percent on top of the OPTI:Optibiotix rise, so potential profits also went up as CAML is my only share in the black.

I should probably start to worry that my average monthly performance will soon slip below 7%. There's only MMX:minds + Machines and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics that can possibly help resolve this, as the others are either long term holdings or completely useless. However it's going to take quite a big profit in either of those to give me an average of 3% over 4 years. I'll need well over £1,000 which is 100% for MMX and 50% for SBTX. That's not going to happen any time soon.

What makes things worse it that I get my next injection of £2,000 next month, which will lower the performance percentage even more. I guess I could just focus on the performance based on injection, which is 11% so above target, but I set the target based on portfolio cost, so should really stick to that. In summary, I need to sell something soon with a big profit.

I'm about to hit the point where the value has crashed back down 3 times now. I really hope that doesn't happen again.

I'm the right side of the line so should be moderately happy.

Here's the trading account after week 185

		Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,323.67	(-43.0%)	+£5.01
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.97	(1.0%)	-£0.07
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.38	(-0.2%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

This account was meant to be fun, but it's not. Rises in several companies were blatted this week when TEK:Tekcapital went and did a placing. At least it went up a little bit. CAML:Central Asia Metals is only 17% down and the closest to enabling a sale. There's still no sign of TALY:Tally re-listing.

I think we can safely call that a year of inactivity in an account I thought I'd be buying and selling with weekly. The big mistake was buying shares with such a big spread that they were 15% down the second I bought them, or buying some of my favourite shares despite the fact that there was no evidence I was getting them cheap enough to have a likely quick rise.

The one glimmer of hope - we're the right side of the trend line.

Here's the fantasy magic formula account

			Weekly Change
Cash	£153.61		+£0
Portfolio cost	£29,846.39		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£31,010.02	(+3.4%)	+£460.48
Potential profits	£1,796.40		+£150.06
Year 1 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 1 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 1 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

Not a bad week, with value increasing by £460, £150 of which was increased paper profits.

The house builders are still doing best, up around 20%, and the dodgy AIM shares are still doing the worst, down around 14%. Friday was a pretty awful day, with only 3 of the 30 companies increasing in value.

At the moment, this method of picking shares would be doing very well for me, as long as I avoid AIM companies. It's going to be realy difficult next month though, as with CAML:Central Asia Metals still really cheap, and almost in the top 30 anyway, how am I going to resist buying those instead of holding my nerve and starting to build a magic formula portfolio for real?

Week 234 Review - Big gains for Optibiotix

A great week for OPTI:Optibiotix, climbing 8p. That would have been worth £8,400 but the portfolio only gained by £7,268 as there were some big drops elsewhere. It was still a great week, with the deficit between cost and value cut to £23,012 and total portfolio value rising to £84,227.

JLP:Jubilee Metals was the biggest loser, dropping 12% on profit taking and losing about £500 value. Now those sells are out of the way I anticipate a steady rise into profitability, unless they shoot themselves in the foot like they usually do.

IKA:Ilika kept going up and up, but is now going down and down. There was a 7% drop this week so they are 16% down now after getting within a whisker of being in the black.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is suffering as people sell them to buy OPTI:Optibiotix, or at least that's what seems to happen when one of the two companies does well. This will languish until the next deal turns up. It was meant to be "imminent" before Christmas, so hopefully there won't be too much longer to wait.

TRMR:Tremor almost recovered last week's losses and climbed 8% this week. Things are looking fairly good for this going into the black in the next 6 months so I can actually make a trade in my so-called trading account.

Share of the Week is my beloved OPTI:Optibiotix. The 8p climb is 12% and I just need the same again next week to get into profit.

Rather volatile I think.

The trend line is quite steep now, so it's going to take some turning around.

Here's the ISA and share accounts

		Weekly Change
Cash	£11.99		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,788.78		+£19.83
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£43,459.65	(-24.8%)	+£3,770.93
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£30.90	(-0.6%)	+£1.24
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£395.49	(8.2%)	-£1.70
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.7%		-0.1%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

The cost went up by £19.83 as I foolishly applied for MAIS:Maistro shares in their open offer. The shares are no longer traded on the AIM market, but I figured the risk of flushing £20 down the drain to take my holding to 200,000 shares was worth it, just in case they manage to salvage anything from the mess. I don't hold out much hope, but the most I can possibly lose is the £142 I've put in so far, which isn't going to break the bank.

Aside from that, most of the rise is down to OPTI:Optibiotix, and there's still nothing in profit after IKA:Ilika and JLP:Jubilee Metals decided to go into reverse just before they went green.

Still a long way below the red line, but thank goodness we didn't cross the orange.

Still £15K in the red and it's almost been in the red for a whole year.

Here's the SIPP after week 218

			Weekly Change
Cash	£74.75		+£0
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,314.62	(-16.3%)	+£3,490.11
Potential profits	£167.97		-£195.00
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.02		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£12.38	(-0.3%)	+£1.38
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.18		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£277.82	(7.1%)	-£1.28
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

Great increase thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, but CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped by another 3% and slashed my potential profits by £195. This is now at the level where I feel I should buy some more.

Nearer the red line than the orange - very good.

Only about £8K in the red, but for over 6 months now.

The trading account looks like this after week 184

		Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,318.66	(-43.2%)	+£7.54
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£2.04	(1.1%)	-£0.08
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.39	(-0.2%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

Hardly any change, as the increase in TRMR:Tremor was almost zapped by drops in everything else. Things are going on with TALY:Tally beta testing their app, so hopefully we won't have too long to wait for them to lift the suspension so I can see whether it's going to be possible to get rid of them.

Just bumbling along in a state of desperation.

The right side the the trend line, and it's a shallow one - but trapped rather a long way below the zero line.

Here's the fantasy magic formula account

			Weekly Change
Cash	£153.61		+£0
Portfolio cost	£29,846.39		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£30,549.54	(+2.4%)	-£620.08
Potential profits	£1,646.34		-£252.08
Year 1 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 1 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 1 Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£0	(0%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

A pretty dreadful week, dropping £620 on value, £252 of which was reduced profits. The house builders are all still doing very well, around 20% up. Lots of shares have tanked though, with KAZ:Kaz Minerals and BUR:Burford Capital both down 14%, BMN:Bushveld Minerals down 12% and DGOC:Diversified Gas & Oil down 11%. Those are all AIM shares or shares I would avoid on environmental grounds, so when I put this into practice for real I should be a bit safer.

That's it - I'm just hoping OPTI:Optibiotix has some momentum behind the share price now, as  there's visibility of cash coming in and some gigantic deals ramping up. A Sweetbiotix announcement would light the blue touch paper.