Week 242 Review - Another drop but could be worse

I'm not going to get upset by dropping portfolio values any more, as things are far worse for a lot of people and it seems a bit crass to whinge. At least I still have a job. This week's loss was £2,945 taking the deficit between cost and value to £65,627 and dropping overall value to £45,809.

No massive falls this week, but OPTI:Optibiotix dropped 3p which is 5% and cost me £3,300m so I would have been £300 up without that.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics fell 7% in my SIPP and 5% in my ISA, and TLOU:Tlou Energy also dropped 5% after putting operations on hold.

IQE:IQE had a good week, climbing 6% in my ISA and 9% in my SIPP but I'm still down £4,500 on these, and I doubt they will get back to 100p+ for many years now.

N4P:N4 Pharma climbed 13% but is still 79% down. They announced trials at using Nuvec to deliver a Covid-19 vaccine, but I don't for a minute think it will come to anything.

TEK:Tekcapital wins Share of the Week, climbing 15% after some promising announcements from three of its companies.

The rate of decline has slowed, but it's still firmly downwards.

Four weeks of abject misery.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£55.48		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,787.80		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£22,882.60	(-61.7%)	-£1,738.31
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£24.59	(-0.5%)	+£0.74
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£382.29	(7.7%)	-£1.58
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.7%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

A similar week to last week. I suspect it will be a few months before this stops looking desperate.

Getting dangerously close to my lowest axis.

Almost £40K in the red now.

The SIPP looks like this after week 226

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.51		+£0
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£21,832.00	(-55.6%)	-£1,311.03
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£13.39	(-0.3%)	+£0.78
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£267.47	(6.5%)	-£1.19
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.1%		+0%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

Absolutely the same story as the ISA. Some hints of recovery, but blown away by continued decline in OPTI:Optibiotix.

The account that was always in the black has been in the red for over 6 months and is now about £10K lower than what I've put in.

Let's just hope it can go back up as fast as it fell.

The trading account looks like this after week 192

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£942.97	(-59.4%)	+£103.92
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.59	(0.8%)	-£0.04
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.37	(-0.2%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

A surprisingly good week, with all non-suspended shares climbing except TRMR:Tremor which didn't drop enough to cause a problem. Could this be the start of the big recovery? I suspect not!

A very welcome sight

I didn't need to adjust my lower axis after all.

Although I'm not reporting on the virtual magic formula portfolio in detail any more, I do still maintain it, and it is down 29%. That's better than my real portfolio, which is down 50% since the time I set up the magic formula portfolio.

I applied for my pension transfer of £2,000 last week, so it should come through next week. I'm a little annoyed, as the value was only £2,300 and I always leave £300 in the account, but it's now £2,595 so bond prices must have improved and I could have transferred an extra £200. Never mind, that will just have to wait for another 4 months. In fact it would be great if there was enough to do a transfer after 3 months instead of the usual four.

I've had a long time to think about how I spend the £2,000, and I'm wavering now. I'm still absolutely definitely increasing my CAML:Central Asia Metals holding to 5,000 shares, which will cost pretty much bang on £1,000 at the current price of 134p. Even if it increases before the transfer comes through, I'll still do this and add any extra cash needed so I still leave £1,000 for something else. If it goes up to 150p before I get my transfer, I'll have to add £120, so I'm hoping the market stagnates for a while. My average purchase price is 189p so I'll buy for anything under that, but that price would mean me having to add £411 which is too much, so I'd use the transfer and then hold the rest for May when I get a £500 tax rebate to bring me up to £1,000. It would be quite upsetting if CAML:Central Asia Metals decide to postpone their dividend like others have done. I'm hoping they have enough cash to ride out the current crisis, but it wouldn't be a shock if they did postpone it.

So that brings me on to the other £1,000, which I have earmarked for FXPO:Ferrexpo. Their results were excellent, but they have postponed the dividend. I still really want to invest in them, and I still want to start my magic formula experiment. However, I can't ignore the fact that OPTI:Optibiotix can be bought for 32p, which is less than half my 65.9p average in the SIPP. I'd be able to get £3,087 shares and that purchase would lower my weighted average from 65.9p to 63.9p which is quite a significant drop. I think FXPO:Ferrexpo may stay low enough to be good value until May when I have another £1,000 to play with, but I fully expect OPTI:Optibiotix to be back around 67p by then.

So assuming there isn't a big surge in OPTI:Optibiotix before the money hits my account, I'll be buying yet more of those, else I'll stick to my plan with FXPO:Ferrexpo.

I'm almost tempted to stick more in JLP:Jubilee Metals, as their recent results were really encouraging. They will be impacted in the short term by the lockdown in South Africa, although there is a suggestion that producers of platinum group metals may be exempt due to the consequences of a world shortage. I still regard these as too risky to sink more than my current £4,600 though.

Week 241 Review - Huge rally to only lose £3.5K

This was shaping up to be another £14K losing week, but a rally at the end saw losses reduced to just £3,550. That counts as a really good week at the moment. The deficit between cost and value now stands at £62.682 and the portfolio is only worth £48,755.

Joint biggest loser was IQE:IQE, dropping 14% despite the shorters jumping at the chance to close their positions.

Also dropping 14% were JLP:Jubilee Metals which has gone from almost in profit to 50% down, and MMX:Minds + Machines which has also gone from almost in profit, but to 33% down.

WRES:W Resources dropped 12% but I've hardly got any and I wrote them off years ago.

IKA:Ilika were almost in profit and dropped 9% this week to go 27% down. I've also got the misery of having signed up for some more shares on open offer at 40p when I could buy them for 35p now. However, there's no commission on the open offer so given the small number of shares available, it's still cheaper paying 40p.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics dropped 10% in my SIPP and 8% in my ISA to go 56% and 68% down. Can't believe I was planning to trade these thinking I was getting a bargain. It's not been terribly successful, although I shouldn't complain at the £2,425 profit I've made from trading SBTX up till now. It might just be a while before I get to do it again! My aim has always been to trade them with a view to increasing my holding, as I think they have a great future and should be profitable within 2 years.

CAML:Central Asia Metals dropped 7% this week and has gone from my only profitable share to 31% down within a month. I'm determined to take advantage of this to increase my SIPP holding to 5,000 shares and reap a massive annual dividend.

TRMR:Tremor fell another 5% this week and are now 67% down, but I still think their fundamentals are good. It was however meant to be a quick win in my trading account.

OPTI:Optibiotix only dropped 1p this week, but that cost me £1,100 and puts my biggest holding 50% down, just 4 weeks after nearly going into profit and despite announcing 3 big new deals since then.

I'm happy to say that we do have a Share of the Week, as one company increased in value. TEK:Tekcapital climbed 6% after news one of its holdings is developing a home testing kit for Covid-19. They are still 70% down on my purchase price though.

I've given up caring any more.

Yeah, whatever


Here's the ISA and shares portfolios

			Weekly Change
Cash	£55.48		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,787.80		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£24,620.91	(-58.8%)	-£1,864.01
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£25.33	(-0.5%)	+£0.79
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£383.87	(7.7%)	-£1.60
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.7%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

Pretty uneventful apart from losing loads more money, but that's become the norm now.

I'm still happy with my OPTI:Optibiotix purchase at 42p last week. They may only cost 34p now, but 42p is still insanely cheap. 34p is madness!

£35,000 in the red - ooh goody.

The SIPP looks like this after week 225

	Weekly Change
Cash	£48.51		+£0
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£23,143.03	(-52.9%)	-£1,612.62
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.17	(-0.3%)	-£0.89
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£268.66	(6.6%)	-£1.20
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.1%		-0.1%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

Same story as the ISA.

I never thought I'd see this account in such a bad way.

£25,000 in the red. My only consolation is that if it can drop that far that quickly, it ought to be able to climb almost as quickly when the madness ends.

The trading account looks like this after week 191

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£839.05	(-63.9%)	-£73.82
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.63	(0.8%)	-£0.05
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.37	(-0.2%)	+£0
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

Yet another big dip. 191 weeks of abject failure where I've made an average loss of 37p a month. You could say that's cheap for the lessons I've learned while doing it. Will I ever get any good at it though? Not looking too promising at the moment.

A picture tells a thousand words

I am going to have to adjust the lower chart range if we get another negative week.

One teensy ray of sunshine in the misery is that my March pension contribution got paid in, and because my pension is in a bonds fund it hasn't been too badly affected by the crash. There was £2,300 in the account which was enough for me to put in a £2,000 transfer request to my SIPP.

I'm still planning to top up my CAML:Central Asia Metals holding to 5,000 shares with half of it, even if I have to add a few hundred quid of my own money, and although massively tempted to get more OPTI:Optibiotix shares at this price, I have to start buying dividend-paying shares, so I'm sticking with FXPO:Ferrexpo for the other £1,000. Their recent results were good and they are way ahead of all other shares in my ranking spreadsheet. They have postponed making a dividend announcement, but have massive free cash flow, so I think there will be a boost to the share price once this is announced. Their share price climbed a little following the results, but should double in short time, resulting in a stunning dividend yield for many years to come. My only fear is that it will take 10 days for the transfer to come through and they may not be so cheap then.

Week 240 review - Another massive drop

This week wasn't as bad as 2 weeks ago, but it was very nearly as bad. Add to that buying a load of shares on Monday and Tuesday thinking they were bargains, only to find they were about to get a lot cheaper. The combined portfolios dropped by an eye-watering £16,073 and the deficit between cost and value increased to £59,131. What's really depressing is the total value of the portfolio is only £52,305 which is less than half what I paid for it.

Worst performer was TRMR:Tremor which fell 19%, but is only in my trading account so didn't cost me much.

More serious was the 12p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix which is an 18% dip and cost me £13,200 of the £16,000 lost this week. The share price is down 48% just a few weeks after it came within a whisker of breaking even. My purchase on Tuesday was at 42.78p. If I'd waited 3 days I could have got them for 35p. It's really quite shocking this has dropped so far given the profits that are going to be made in 2020. It looks like there's a lot of private investors that had spread bets open and had to close their positions after margin calls, causing a domino effect. I still think traders are in control and able to manipulate the share price. Somebody's doing something very clever with it, but there's no transparency whatsoever. Even my purchase on Tuesday was shown as a sell, so the system is set up with smoke and mirrors. That's why they will never report sales and purchases properly, as this sort of price manipulation would be much harder to get away with.

IQE:IQE and JLP:Jubilee Metals both dropped 17% and are both in my top 5 major holdings. I can't believe that even precious metal prices and mining shares are dropping. That's meant to be a safe haven!

MMX:Minds + Machines was within 1% of getting in the black 3 weeks ago, but a 10% fall this week means it's 19% down now. Looks like I'll be waiting to get that maiden dividend.

CAML:Central Asia Metals is my 2nd largest holding, and my purchase on Monday at 158.6p could have been made at 145.6p if I had waited. I could howl with frustration! It dropped 7% this week, which compared to the other shares isn't too bad. If the price stays like this for another 10 days I'll be putting half my pension transfer in here to get back to my target 5,000 shares. The other half will start off my magic formula experiment.

IKA:Ilika reversed last week's Share of the Week performance and dropped 6%, which is about half last week's gains, so not too big a drop.

There is no Share of the Week, as nothing increased in value.

Good grief!

Nearly £60,000 in the red could be regarded as a bit of a disaster.

Here's the ISA and share portfolios

			Weekly Change
Cash	£55.48		+£45.79
Portfolio cost	£59,787.80		+£2,004.22
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£26,484.92	(-55.7%)	-£8,708.70
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£26.12	(-0.5%)	+£0.84
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£385.47	(7.7%)	-£1.62
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.8%		-0.7%
Compound performance	54%		-3%

I added £40 cash to take part in an IKA:Ilika open offer, as I'm always in favour of buying shares with no commission if the chance arises. Portfolio cost went up due to the OPTI:Optibiotix purchase and portfolio value plummeted by £8,708. The increase in portfolio cost and the extra injection of cash means my performance based on injection value dropped by 0.7% but is still above 10%. Performance against portfolio cost dropped to 7.7%. There was also a reduction in the compound performance of 3% due to the increased injection.

Not much I can say other than "bugger!"

Huge deficit, and I suspect it will be around for a while yet.

Here's the SIPP after week 224

	Weekly Change
Cash	£48.51		+£0.79
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£2,180.86
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£24,755.65	(-49.7%)	-£7,156.89
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£15.06	(-0.4%)	-£1.00
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£269.86	(6.6%)	-£1.21
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.2%		-0.7%
Compound performance	44%		-3%

Cash is up a fraction due to some of the £2000 injection not being spent. I can't work out why the portfolio cost is calculated as having risen by £2,180 when the shares were just under £2,000, but the current figure is right so maybe the previous one was slightly under what it should have been.

Another massive drop, and the injection has also damaged my performance, with the performance over injection about to drop below 10% when I add £2,000 in 10 days time.

The account that had never dropped below injection amount has now done exactly that, and by some.

A familiar vision of misery.

The trading account, which was starting to look promising, is now looking less promising after week 190.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£912.87	(-60.7%)	-£207.93
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.68	(0.9%)	-£0.05
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	-£64.29		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£0.37	(-0.2%)	+£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	-0.2%		+0%
Compound performance	-1%		+0%

A huge 10% drop, with everything falling.

Hmm - I think I need to adjust the chart axis for next week so we can see under £1,000

It was looking hopeful 3 weeks ago. Less hopeful now.

I've decided to give up reporting on the virtual magic formula portfolio. I'll just keep an eye on it and report on the real magic formula shares as part of the SIPP roundup. At the moment CAML:Central Asia Metals is a magic formula top 30 share, so I'll be adding more as I'd rather get that to 5,000 just before the dividend and while I can guarantee the dividend will be huge for the tiny price I'll be paying.

The other share I'll buy is still FXPO:Ferrexpo as it's way above everything else in my ranking. If the mine gets confiscated then I'll lose my £1,000, but I think there's more likely a 200% climb in the offing, and at this price a big dividend which will help my average performance figures get back on track. I'll gradually move all my SIPP shares to dividend paying companies once I sell the existing holdings. Fortunately I'm anticipating OPTI:Optibiotix becoming a dividend paying share in the not too distant future, as I'm hanging onto them.

The American stock market waited for the UK stock market to close before putting on a huge 9.4% rally. The UK market has been hit much harder by this crash, which always seems to happen. I'm really hoping we get a bit of recovery next week, as I hate to see the portfolio value less than half what I paid for it. On the other hand, I don't want it to climb too much before I get my pension transfer...

Bargain shopping

I feel much better about the stock market crash after a spot of bargain hunting over the last two days.

I mentioned in my last blog that I had decided to use some of my spare cash post-mortgage to take out an interest free loan for £4,000 payable in September 2021.

The cash came through today, but I had enough in my account to spend half of it yesterday and the other half today.

My purchase yesterday was in my SIPP, where uploading £2,000 means I get £500 from the tax man in May. I bought 1,253 shares in CAML:Central Asia Metals at 158.6p costing £1,999.21 with commission. The bid price is already up to 162.6p so these are starting to pay their way.

This takes my overall SIPP holding to 4,253 shares and reduces my weighted average cost from 196.6p to 189.7p. They cost £8,090 altogether and are now losing £1,187 (15%), but there's a dividend due soon, and last year it was 8p. Production has been good so I'm hoping it will be maintained, which would give me £340 and is due around the same time as my tax rebate.

An 8p dividend is 4.2%, but this is just the 6-month dividend. Total is likely to be 14.5p which is £616 or 7.6%.

When the share price goes back up to where it's meant to be at 340p, I'll be sitting on £6,357 paper profit, and even a 6% dividend at 340p would be 20.4p, which for me would be a dividend of £867 (10.7%).

I really shouldn't dismiss the beauty of buying a good dividend paying company cheap, as the annual return on the initial investment just gets better and better. Unfortunately I have precious few stocks like this, but aim to increase them as I ditch the more risky shares.

My second purchase was this morning, when I loaded the other £2,000 into my ISA and bought 4,657 shares in OPTI:Optibiotix. I had to at these prices, even though I'm already so heavily exposed. They cost 42.78p each and were registered on the trading stats as a sell, which is ridiculous. Cost including commission was £2,004.21.

So, my holding has increased to 109,989 shares costing a weighted average of 64.66p. This purchase reduced the average price in my ISA from 65.38p to 63.56p. I really, really hope this is the last opportunity I get to buy them cheap!

They only climbed 1p on the bid price today, so I'm still down on the ones I bought, although it's more expensive to buy them now than it was this morning. Now it's just a case of battening down the hatches and waiting for the current madness to blow over.

The portfolio isn't doing great after the first 2 days of this week. It's down £4,109 right now, but that's better than the £6,000 down at the end of play yesterday. It's worrying that the FTSE100 lost all its early gains to finish slightly in the red, particularly when the US markets are on the rise.

I don't usually time these purchases very well, but both these are at multi-year lows, so given both companies are doing so well, it's hard to think it won't be a good long term buy.

Week 239 Review - And still the slide continues

Generally this wasn't such a bad week, with some small recoveries in shares affected by last weeks crash. In fact on Wednesday evening I was £1,500 up. However, OPTI:Optibiotix lost 4p at the end of the week which cost me £4,200 and my second biggest holding CAML:Central Asia Metals also had a bad week, so I ended up down by £4,465. That widens the deficit between cost and value to £43,058 and reduces the portfolio value to £64,147.

Worst performer was CAML:Central Asia Metals, which along with other industrial metals producers got hammered for a second week and lost 8%. They now have a P/E ratio of 8.2, which is crazy for such a reliable company. It means their dividend yield is now 8.45%, and will be at least that forever if you buy at these levels.

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped 4p, which is 6% and was really annoying. You can buy these for 49p now - that's crazy - I want some more!

Those were the only big fallers this week, so there was definitely a bit of a pause from last week's sell-off.

TRMR:Tremor climbed 5% and I'm quite hopeful, once the market sorts itself out. They are in the trading account so not meant to be a long term hold, but they do pay a reasonable dividend.

JLP:Jubilee Metals bounced back 7% this week, but are still 19% down after going so close to being in the black a few weeks ago. My levels of frustration are quite high.

Share of the Week is IKA:Ilika, which would have been almost in profit if they hadn't announced a placement on Friday and generated a dip. They still climbed 11% and are only 12% down. I think things are starting to happen here, so when the open offer arrives I will be taking my share. If they can crack the big car battery development, then this could turn out to be a better investment than I first imagined. There's still a sliver of doubt that they are more interested in the science than the commercials, but with the right business partner they could pull it off.

Looks like my worst ever position. Never mind 'eh.

Yep - biggest ever deficit.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£9.69		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£57,783.58		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£33,189.40	(-42.6%)	-£2,018.61
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£26.96	(-0.6%)	+£0.36
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£387.09	(8.0%)	-£1.69
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.5%		+0%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

The OPTI:Optibiotix drop was mitigated a little by rises elsewhere, particularly JLP:Jubilee Metals. Cash dropped a little thanks to the monthly fees. Not much else to say.

Abject misery.

Equals the worst ever deficit.

The SIPP looks like this after week 223

			Weekly Change
Cash	£47.72		-£11.69
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£29,731.68	(-36.7%)	-£2,454.19
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£16.06	(-0.4%)	-£2.47
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£271.07	(6.9%)	-£1.45
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.9%		-0.1%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

This account has been hit worse due to the CAML:Central Asia Metals drop in addition to OPTI:Optibiotix. Monthly charges were also paid, so the year 5 performance is looking pretty bad as I haven't sold anything or had any dividends yet, so we're just seeing the monthly fee.

Yes, the green line has gone just below the orange for the first time ever.

Worst ever deficit by over £2,000

The trading account looks like this after week 189

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,120.80	(-51.7%)	+£7.63
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.73	(0.9%)	-£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%

Incredibly, this account went up! Rises in TEK:Tekcapital and TRMR:Tremor were enough to make up for the losses in CAML:Central Asia Metals and IQE:IQE. Still no sign of TALY:Tally re-listing.

I hope the recovery gets steeper than that!

Total rubbish.

Here's the fantasy magic formula account

			Change
Cash	£748.50		+£0
Portfolio cost	£29,846.39		+£0
Portfolio sell value	£26,675.83	(-8.9%)	-£4,751.83
Potential profits	£381.16		-£895.50
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£678.96		+£0

This is the change over the last 2 weeks, as I was unable to take a snapshot last week. The fall in value is around 10% which matches that of the FTSE. Potential profits have been hammered, but at least there are some.

Nearly everything is down, with the only shares in the black being PLUS:Plus500, PSN. Persimmon, IGG:IG Group Holdings, ASY:Andrews Sykes Group, RDW:Redrow and BWY:Bellway. Everything else is making a loss.

I started my in-depth research of FXPO:Ferrexpo, with my main priority trying to work out why the shares are so cheap given their fundamentals. I soon found out why! Their CEO is being charged with all sorts of stuff by the Ukrainian government. They have frozen all his assets, including his enormous shareholding in FXPO. That wouldn't be a worry on its own, other than the potential of a forced sale, but you would expect lots of institutions to take those up in a controlled manner.

The problem is how FXPO came to own their mine in the first place. The ex-CEO is accused of driving the mine into bankruptcy so he could buy it cheap on behalf of FXPO. So the risk is that the Ukrainian government will regard the ownership of the mine to be void, and seize the whole lot.

Would they though? I honestly don't know. It's a very successful mine and bringing lots of tax revenue, so would they risk losing that to punish the ex-CEO, when now it's part owned by thousands of shareholders? I think the potential rewards are high enough to risk adding this to my pension in a few weeks.

Next on my list for research is PLUS:Plus500. I'll take a look at them during the week. I'm suspecting there's fear of regulators curtailing their spread betting as people can lose so much money, but their share price has been increasing rather than decreasing, so I'll just need to dig deeper into the figures to see what's causing them to be so high up my rankings.

I've done something quite rash while writing this blog. I shouldn't allow myself to get incensed at the injustice of a big market crash when I have no cash to take advantage, but I am incensed and I have acted in order to get some bargains.

I had a special offer come through from Barclaycard for £4,000 at 0% interest until September 2021. Given that I've now paid off my mortgage and have no other loans, and given it's 18 months away, I've accepted the offer. I may come to regret it in September 2021. I only need to pay back £222 a month to get it interest free, which is quite a lot less than my mortgage was.

My aim is to add £2,000 to my SIPP to buy CAML:Central Asia Metals, and get £500 back from the tax man. The other £2,000 will go in my ISA, and you guessed it - I'll get bargain OPTI:Optibiotix shares at 49p. That's assuming the money arrives on Monday and there isn't a gigantic surge in share prices before I can act.

If I do this, then I'll feel the crash was an opportunity rather than a complete nightmare. Both these companies are superb, and I won't sit by as they get hammered without taking advantage.

Buying CAML:Central Asia Metals with cash means I can still launch my magic formula experiment, as I don't want to delay starting that by another 4 months to use the pension transfer for CAML.

Let's hope we see a recovery next week - but not until after I've bought my shares!

Week 238 Review - Coronavirus-led collapse

A late update this week after gallivanting around the Lake District at the weekend. I needed the tranquility of the hills to try and forget the worst ever week for my portfolio. Everything tanked, and I ended up £17,040 worse off. That undid all the recent gains and widended the deficit between cost and value to £38,593, with the portfolio value reduced to £68,628.

Worst performer was OPTI:Optibiotix, which dropped 13p and so accounts for £13,650 of the losses. That's a 19% fall in a week. I wish I could come p with some way of buying more at this price, but everything else is now loss making, and my pension transfer doesn't come through for another 3 weeks. Part of me hopes that will be too late, but part of me wants a bargain, but another part of me doesn't want to delay my magic formula experiment by another 4 months, so I really can't use it for bargain OPTI.

One of my other largest holdings is JLP:Jubilee Metals, and that also lost 19% just as I thought they were about to go into profit. That seems a long way off now.

CAML:Central Asia Metals is another of my largest holdings and fell by 15% and into the red, taking away my only profit making share.

IKA:Ilika dropped 14%, IQE:IQEdropped 13%, SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics dropped 14% in my SIPP and 11% in my ISA so average drop around12.5%, TRMR:Tremor dropped 11%, TEK:Tekcapital dropped 9%, TLOU:Tlou Energy dropped 8%, MMX:Minds + Machines dropped 7% and WRES:W Resources dropped 6%.

I can't have a Share of the Week as not a single share increased in value.

Back below the injection line. What did I say last week about not wanting to yo-yo?

Well, we seem to be back on trend. No danger of flattening the line now.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£13.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£57,783.58		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£35,208.01	(-39.1%)	-£9,156.85
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£27.32	(-0.6%)	+£0.94
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£388.78	(8.1%)	-£1.64
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	12.5%		-0.1%
Compound performance	57%		+0%

What can I say? Absolute carnage. I'm too sad to write any more.

Well below the injection line. Oh building society, why did I shun thee?

Just awful.

The SIPP looks like this after week 222

			Weekly Change
Cash	£59.41		+£0
Portfolio cost	£46,995.31		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,185.87	(-31.5%)	-£7,678.40
Potential profits	£0		-£362.97
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£13.59	(-0.3%)	+£1.05
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£272.52	(7.0%)	-£1.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.9%		-0.1%
Compound performance	47%		+0%

Same story as the ISA, but also lost all potential profits

As usual, this account manages to stay above the orange injection line, but is closer now than it has been for 6 months.

Back down almost to the lowest value in 12 months. Let's hope it doesn't continue downwards.

Here's the trading account after week 188

			Weekly Change
Cash	£48.24		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,321.29		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,113.17	(-52.0%)	-£205.21
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£0		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£1.79	(0.9%)	-£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%

A huge loss compared to normal weeks.

Just as it was sneaking up.

It's hard to be optimistic about this one.

No review of the fantasy magic formula account this week, as I forgot to take a snapshot. I suspect I wouldn't like what I saw so will wait for next week in the hope it bounces back.

I'm off to continue being sad now, especially as after Tuesday I still haven't recovered more than £460. It could be a long, painful wait...