Week 251 Review - Disappointing drop as Optibiotix results fail to inspire

There was a severe reversal in fortunes this week as the OPTI:Optibiotix optimism hit a bit of a wall and the price fell, followed soon after by SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics when a 4.5m share sale went through at the end of the day. The result was a drop in portfolio value of £5,725 and half last week's gains gone. The deficit between cost and value went up to £28,812 and total portfolio value is now £86,105.

Biggest loser was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which crashed 17% in my SIPP and 13% in my ISA. I'm so frustrated that I didn't sell the lot at 20p when the order was in but I just couldn't get it dealt before the price fell. I would have been able to significantly increase my holding now they are 14p. It looks like the reason for the drop is a thumping great 4.5 million share sale. That would be exactly what OPTI:Optibiotix need to dispose of to get below 30% and no longer have to report SBTX losses in the accounts, and to enable a Nasdaq listing. I'm still miffed, but there's a good chance they will head back up from here.

 OPTI:Optibiotix fell 5p which is 8% and made up most of my losses this week. I still haven't had a chance to report them being in profit, but they were looking good on Tuesday. The results were a disappointment, mainly because some of the revenue quoted in the trading update couldn't be accounted for in this year due to new reporting regulations, and costs were higher than I expected. I was expecting a £1.5m loss but it was a £2m loss. It's taking a lot longer than expected to get to break-even. This is still looking bright for the future though.

IES:Invinity Energy had another good week, climbing 6%. They are now only down 82%, which given I thought they would go bust a few weeks ago gives me a glimmer of hope.

Share of the Week picked a really bad time to put in s stellar performance, seeing as I wanted to buy some. CAML:Central Asia Metals climbed 7% and that cost me dear when my pension transfer finally appeared. I am very, very happy to say that I have increased my holding to 5,000 shares and am now waiting for news that the dividend will be re-instated, as it's going to be £400 with my enlarged holding.

Not what I wanted to see - especially as there was a big hike in the cash injection.

This shows the size of the drop more accurately, as it's not been flattened by the cash injection. Last time we had 2 weeks of drops before the up-turn. Hopefully that won't happen again this time.

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts:

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£43,272.85	(-27.7%)	-£3.281.91
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.20	(-0.4%)	+£0.48
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£368.45	(7.4%)	-£1.47
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

Very quiet and all the drop down to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and OPTI:Optibiotix.

Big drop, very bad.

Still flattening the line, but slowly.

The SIPP looks like this after week 235

			Weekly Change
Cash	£656.78		+£626.77
Portfolio cost	£51,935.21		+£2,266.55
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,574.40	(-21.9%)	-£2,458.70
Potential profits	£0		-£239.14
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£13.10	(-0.3%)	+£0.50
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£256.75	(5.9%)	-£1.09
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.9%		-0.8%
Compound performance	40%		-4%

Lots more happening here. First of all my transfer of £2,800 came through on Friday afternoon, so I immediately purchased CAML:Central Asia Metals to achieve my ambition of having 5,000 shares. I bought 747 shares at 153.372p costing £1,157.64. I'm frustrated that when the transfer should have happened these were 132p, so it has cost me £159 more to buy the shares than it should have done, and I've lost out on a 16% gain which would have had knock-on benefits to the size of my dividend. However, I did reduce my average holding price to 186p so they were still a bargain.

I also instigated my magic formula experiment with 562 shares in FXPO:Ferrexpo at 177.695p costing £1,015.59 with commission and stamp duty. I know I have a real share when I have to pay stamp duty! These were 140p when I should have had the transfer, so rather than costing more money (I fix it at £1,000 of shares), I could have bought 714 shares instead of 562, which would have been an extra 152 shares. That's also very annoying, but I still consider these to be very cheap. I've just got to hope their ex-CEO doesn't dump all his shares to pay a big fine, and hope the Ukrainian government don't confiscate the mine for his crimes. I think that's why the shares are so cheap, so I just need to hope.

That leaves me with £656 cash, which was meant to be added to the £500 tax rebate to buy my second magic formula share. Unfortunately I spent that one one of my amazing short term can't fail companies which has since dropped, so I'm stuck waiting until I can get the money back. It's not the end of the world as I need to completely re-do my spreadsheet to find which company is now number 2 on the list. The alternative would be to stick £356 in the account and keep JLP:Jubilee Metals for a while. Given the amount I'm saving during lock-down, that may be a nice option.

Potential profits vanished as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics crashed thanks to the 4.5 million share sale. Performance has also tanked due to the increase in cost and injection amount. Even compound performance lost 4% because of the increase in capital invested.

Big hike in cost and injection, but much smaller hike in value. At least the drop in value was less than the injection so it didn't drop.

That's a more realistic chart, but I'm fairly relaxed about it.

Here's the trading account after week 201

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,593.72	(-36.0%)	+£15.18
Potential profits	£65.01		-£22.63
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£12.90	(6.2%)	-£0.29
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.25	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

Sell value improved largely thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals, and JLP:Jubilee Metals dropped, rather drastically reducing the potential profit. I now have two accounts with a short term JLP:Jubilee Metals holding I want to get rid of.

Creeping higher...

I do believe there's a risk this line may flatten!

The virtual magic formula pension is now down 15.2% compared to 18.36% last week, so getting better. PLUS:Plus 500 is still the top performer, but FXPO:Ferrexpo is now 2nd at 19.36% improvement. I could shudder with incandescent rage! It will be interesting to see which company comes 2nd on the list. It was PLUS:Plus 500 when I first started this, but with the price rise they should be well down the list now. I'm hoping it's not CARD:Card Factory as they are 59% down and that might put them in bargain territory. However, will they survive the lock-down?

I'm not writing any more today, as the sun is glaring through the window and I need a pot of tea and a comfy chair.

Week 250 Review - Almost a record week but Fridays are rubbish

By the end of Thursday I was £16K up on the week and OPTI:Optibiotix was flying, but predictably it hit the dreaded 70p resistance and the traders all sold on Friday, dropping the price 7p from the morning high and robbing me of my best-ever week. I still can't complain as the portfolios put on £11,768 which narrowed the deficit between cost and value to £23,086 and increased total value to £88,937.

The only significant drop was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which fell 5%. It wasn't even allowed to get to the normal 20p resistance level this time, peaking at 18.5p before falling back to 16.5p bid price. The pricing confirms that you can't believe a word of the buy/sell stats as it showed practically all buys for the whole week and the price still dropped 5%.

IES:Invinity Energy had a surprising spurt this week, with many people making big profits as it rose 50% from the recent low. However, for me it was a 6% rise on my purchase price and it's still 88% down. I'm pretty happy though, as I'd written this off as bankrupt when RED:RedT Energy ran out of cash. The reverse takeover may mean I get to salvage something.

CAML:Central Asia Metals has had a miserable time lately, not helped by low metal prices and suspending the dividend. This was always my guaranteed "in the black" share that I'm holding for the long term, so it has been a shock to see it fall so far. There was a 6% recovery this week, so we are only 26% down now. The problem is, I need the recovery to stall until Legal & General get their arse into gear and complete my pension transfer. If it had come through after the usual 10 days I could have bought CAML at 132p, but now I'll have to pay 142p. Thanks a bunch Legal & General!

TRMR:Tremor were the 3rd share that rose by 6% this week. Buying these was the biggest mistake in my sorry trading account history. They are still 55% down despite the rise.

JLP:Jubilee Metals continue to frustrate, as they manage to shoot themselves in the foot every time the price looks like recovering. This time they announced that the fine chrome plant is to be dismantled and moved from DCM to an operation that's generating a lot more chrome tailings. That's a sensible thing to do, but it caused the price to drop to what it was a few weeks ago. I did take advantage of the drop to spend my £500 SIPP tax rebate on some of these. Fortunately there was a rally at the end of the week, so my ISA finished 8% up and my trading account climbed by 13%.

Share of the week was OPTI:Optibiotix, which despite causing me much misery on Friday as I watched £7,700 wiped off my weekly gain, still climbed 10p which is a healthy 15% and was responsible for £11,000 of the £11,768 rise this week.

Good news, but we have hit the point that has triggered a big dip 3 times over the last 6 months. Funnily it just happens to be the OPTI:Optibiotix trading resistance point. Can we finally break through it this time, or are we about to see another 6 weeks of misery?

If I can get above -£20k then the trend line should reverse in about 14 weeks time.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£46,554.76	(-22.2%)	+£6.631.32
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.68	(-0.4%)	+£0.50
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£369.92	(7.4%)	-£1.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.3%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

It's great to see a £6,631 improvement. If the market had closed at Friday lunchtime it would have been a £10,600 rise and I would have been able to report £3,525 potential profits, but as the traders took their toll I ended up with no potential profit and OPTI:Optibiotix still down, but only by 1%. That's still £600 though. Not much activity aside from that. I should clobber myself with a brick for being such an idiot and moping about because of the Friday fall - this was still one of my best ever weeks and I should be celebrating!

Healthy bounce

This account has the most difficult trend line to reverse I think.

The SIPP looks like this after week 234

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.01		+£7.51
Portfolio cost	£49,668.66		+£492.49
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,766.55	(-17.9%)	+£5,005.66
Potential profits	£239.14		-£142.49
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£12.60	(-0.3%)	+£0.55
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£257.84	(6.2%)	-£1.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.7%		-0.1%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

A flurry of excitement as my £500 tax rebate arrived. I was going to combine it with my £2,800 transfer, but there's no sign of that arriving soon so I took advantage of the dip in JLP:Jubilee Metals and bought 14,485 shares at 3.3175p costing £492.49. That left the £7.51 added to the cash to keep me at the suggested minimum of £30. The new JLP shares are down 7% due to the wide spread and commission, but I'm hoping this will be a short term investment as I can see them hitting 5p quite soon. That will give a 45% profit so I can further my magic formula plans.

Similar story to the ISA, with a fantastic £5,005 increase, but SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics big drop cost me all last weeks gains in potential profit as it fell £142. I could do with a quick profit from JLP to fix my struggling performance stats.

Halfway between injection and cost - I'm feeling it won't get back into profit before the previous profitable weeks disappear of the left side of the chart.

Less than £10k deficit to make up - that starts to give me hope.

The trading account looks like this after week 200

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,578.54	(-36.6%)	+£131.19
Potential profits	£87.64		+£79.22
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£13.19	(6.4%)	-£0.31
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.26	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

A great week, with all shares climbing a little. JLP:Jubilee Metals extended potential profits by £79 to £87 and if this is a trading account I really should be thinking about taking the profits, but I have a feeling there's quite a lot more to come over the next few weeks.

Aaargh! See - I'm a rubbish trader - I'm thinking long term when I have a stack in my ISA for that - I'm meant to be following momentum and there is a risk this will drift on no news for the next few weeks. I should be planning to buy and sell within the same week in this account.

I should sell it next week whatever happens and get my 14% profit. I forgot until I checked my spreadsheet, that I initially had 9,120 JLP shares in this account but sold them at a £84 loss in order to move them to my ISA. I should have known then that I wasn't cut out for trading! So I'm only £3 up if you balance the 2 out. With that in mind, maybe I should let it go a teensy bit higher before selling.

Nice to see last week's blip removed

That trend line could be flat in a few weeks time. It would be great to have one account pointing in the right direction.

Last week the virtual magic formula account was down 21.17% and this week it's only down 18.36%, so an improvement of 2.81%. Top performer is still PLUS:Plus 500 at 58% up, with IGG:IG Group still up 15%. What really, really hacks me off is that the next best performer is FXPO:Ferrexpo up 10%, which was my number one target if Legal & General weren't so utterly useless. It's so frustrating that they are denying me a rare chance to buy a long term holding at a great price. Absolutely gutted.

It's a bank holiday on Monday so a short week next week. It will be a massive test for OPTI:Optibiotix to see if we can beat the traders and break out of the 70p resistance.

Week 249 Review - Third drop in a row is a worry

A pretty depressing week, with almost everything down slightly, and still no sign of my pension transfer request being delivered to benefit from these bargains. The combined portfolios dropped by £1,826 and the gap between cost and value widened to £34,854, with overall value dropping to £76,669.

Biggest losers were TLOU:Tlou Energy and IKA:Ilika, both fallong 7%. TLOU has been drifting ever since they suspended operations due to Coronavirus. IKA are just drifting on lack of news. I'm reasonably confident both of these will get into profit eventually.

N4P:N4 Pharma dropped 6% as people began to realise what a load of rubbish they really are. I probably should have salvaged £350 last week as I think I'll end up losing everything, but I feel I may as well risk losing a few hundred quid in the hope they manage to do something useful.

JLP:Jubilee Metals almost got into profit, but has slid over the past couple of weeks. I think despite generating millions of dollars in revenues, most people simply don't trust the directors as they have zero success in generating shareholder value, but huge success in lining their own pockets. I think there is hope if our CEO can control the grasping instincts of our Chairman, but I fear any revenues will be thrown away bailing out his other failing companies.

Only one share rose by 5% or more this week, so Share of the Week goes to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which rose 5% in my ISA and 7% in my SIPP. I'm surprised that they are going up while OPTI:Optibiotix go down, given they are 2 years from revenue whereas OPTI are earning revenue now. I think people are yo-yoing between them to trade the peaks and troughs.

Oh dear - at least the decline isn't as steep as last time, but it feels a bit relentless

The downward slide is steeper than the trend line, so not much hope of flattening it.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£39,923.44	(-33.3%)	-£1.020.66
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£21.18	(-0.4%)	+£0.12
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£371.41	(7.4%)	-£1.56
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.3%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

OPTI:Optibiotix wasn't the only one to blame this week as most shares dropped, and £1,020 was taken off the value.

Still on the right side of the orange line but only just. Hopefully it's a pause for breath after the meteoric rise over the previous 4 weeks. We're still not back to the pre-coronavirus level.

At least we're still above the trend line

The SIPP looks like this after week 233

			Weekly Change
Cash	£22.50		+£0
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£35,268.40	(-28.3%)	-£728.55
Potential profits	£381.63		+£142.49
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.15	(-0.3%)	+£0.59
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£258.95	(6.3%)	-£1.12
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.8%		+0%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

Not as bad a drop as the ISA, and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics was Share of the Week so potential profits grew by £142. I've decided 20p is going to take some breaking through as the traders all sell at that point. If it hits 19.5p I'll sell and wait for the drop in the hope I can increase my holding. I may even buy some more if my pension transfer ever arrives.

Very similar to the ISA, but a much bigger buffer above the orange line.

Also very similar to the ISA, which isn't a surprise given the OPTI:Optibiotix bias in both accounts.

The trading portfolio looks like this after week 199

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,447.35	(-41.9%)	-£77.25
Potential profits	£8.42		-£45.27
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£13.50	(6.5%)	-£0.32
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.27	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

A bad week across the board, much of which was JLP:Jubilee Metals dropping and wiping out most of the potential profit.

It was looking so much better for a short while.

Is it my imagination or is that trend line getting distinctly flatter!

I've started reading a book to try and help with my so far feeble attempts at trading. It's called "The market Maker's Edge - Day Trading Tactics" by Josh Lukeman.

It's not an easy read, and he uses a lot of trader jargon without explaining it, but there are some good pointers. My hope was to find out more about what market makers get up to so I could try and explain what's happening with share prices. What's clear from the book is that market makers are actively trading the stocks, as in shorting as well as buying and selling, and that they rely on the psychology of private investors quite extensively.

I've been scratching my head wondering who has been trading some of the shares I own so aggressively, and now I realise it's been the market makers all along.

The first read hasn't sunk in, especially as I've been reading it in bed with a wee dram. I'll need to do a second read during the day and take some notes, with pauses to look up what his jargon means.

One key message is the importance of candlestick charts. I was always very skeptical of technical analysis, as my feeling was that the share price went up with good news and down with bad, but now I realise there are not many days with news, so on all the other days traders are watching those charts and acting on what they think they should do. The chart becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Learning to read that should make a huge difference.

The first thing I'm watching on a few shares is what happens on days when the share price breaks higher than the previous day's high. That's meant to be the best signal that it's about to go higher. I want to test that theory before using it to choose when to buy. It would certainly be a lot easier than learning all the candlestick patterns.

The other take-home from the book is that when trading, you should aim to be selling the shares on the same day you buy them, unless there's a sound reason to keep them. That's a very different mindset that I've not managed to develop yet.

The virtual magic formula portfolio is -21.17% this week, compared to -18.09% last week, so it's been a bad week all round with a 3% drop. The shares that had gone into profit last week have gone back to loss, leaving just PLUS:Plus500 and IGG:IG Group Holdings in profit. CARD:Card Factory is now 65% down, which if they stay in business until the end of the lockdown and make changes so they are less vulnerable next time, could suggest quite a bargain.

I'm not going to rant at length about the utterly pathetic performance of Legal & General at fulfilling my pension transfer request. I don't believe their reason is to do with staff shortages or anything like that - I believe they are holding the cash for as long as they can get away with. It's despicable and is going to cost me as all the stocks I wanted to buy bounce back. Some already have, but soon they will have bounced too far for me to want to buy them any more. I can't plan what I'm going to do as I have no idea when the cash will arrive.

I'm really hoping we have an OPTI:Optibiotix trading update this week. I was expecting it last week, so can only hope the delay is due to another deal being imminent. If the share price stays this low I will be buying more when the pension transfer arrives. Part of me hopes I don't get the chance.

I suspect at some point CAML:Central Asia Metals will announce the reinstatement of the dividend, as I don't think their production has been affected by Covid-19. I want to get my holding to 5,000 shares before that happens. I'm considering using the proceeds from selling SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to do that if the pension transfer still hasn't arrived. Then buy back using the transfer money if the price drops. That's actually a genius idea - given it only arrived due to me writing this. There may be some action tomorrow!

Week 248 Review - Another dip, but almost a flat week

Very little happened this week, but a 1p drift from OPTI:Optibiotix contributed to a drop of £1,255 in portfolio value, widening the gap between cost and value to £33,028 and reducing overall value to £78,496

My run of 4 weeks with no significant faller was broken this week, as TLOU:Tlou Energy drifted down by 5%. I think lack of news and a shutdown in de-watering operations means a slide is inevitable, but I think the chances of this getting somewhere are better now than they were when the share price was 4 times this level. My holding is 64% down and losing £1,737. I won't invest any more even at this level, as my days of backing high-risk startups are over. I think this one is well managed though, and doing everything right. It's just taking a lot longer than I and the market hoped.

Share of the Week was the only one that had a significant rise. IKA:Ilika climbed 5% and is only 11% down now, so hope is re-kindled. I still intend to bail as soon as I've made a decent profit as I think the Board are scientists and not commercial managers. I reserve the right to change my mind if there's big news though...

An extension to last week's slight drop

Still well above the trend line, which is still firmly down.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£40,944.10	(-31.6%)	-£678.59
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£21.30	(-0.4%)	+£0.55
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£372.97	(7.5%)	-£1.51
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.4%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

Cash dropped by the ISA charge, and I consider anything less than £1,000 difference to be flat.

Still just above the orange line





The trend line should flatten out quite quickly over the next few weeks as the "highs" from 12 months ago disappear, and hopefully as the performance improves.

The SIPP looks like this after week 232

			Weekly Change
Cash	£22.50		-£13.94
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£35,996.95	(-26.8%)	-£555.99
Potential profits	£239.14		+£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	-£14.74	(-0.4%)	-£1.99
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£260.07	(6.3%)	-£1.38
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.8%		+0%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

Monthly charges reduced the cash pot by £13 and hammered year 5 performance, which is suffering as I haven't sold anything in the last 6 months. Pretty flat apart from that.

Note the absence of the £2,800 injection following the Legal & General transfer. 10 days after the re-submitted transfer request and the funds haven't been sold to facilitate the transfer. I'm rapidly losing my patience and have asked Hargreaves Lansdown what regulatory threats we can hit them with.

I reckon the trend line will reverse in about 16 weeks - if there's a recovery.

Here's the trading account after week 198

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,524.60	(-38.8%)	-£20.67
Potential profits	£53.69		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£13.82	(6.7%)	-£0.34
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.28	(1.1%)	-£0.02
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

Slight dip as most things in the portfolio dropped a little, especially TRMR:Tremor. JLP:Jubilee Metals stayed still so potential profits remained at £53. Operations have re-started there, so hopefully this will climb quite quickly, as metals prices are recovering and cash is flowing. I'm feeling so enthused about JLP at the moment I may consider adding some in my SIPP!

This is starting to look a bit more promising

Even this chart is looking significantly better. It could flatten out in 9 weeks. Such a long way below £0 though.

The virtual magic formula portfolio is down by 18.09% compared to 19.81% last week, so slowly sneaking up. PLUS:Plus 500 is still top performer at 55% up, but DGOC:Diversified Oil & Gas and JLG:John Laing Group have now joined IGG:IG Group Holdings in the black. CARD:Card Factory and ITV:ITV are still the worst performers.

It's possible there will be a trading statement from OPTI:Optibiotix next week. If there is, I desperately hope it's a good one as I've convinced 2 friends to invest. I've been banging on about OPTI the same way I used to bang on about Game of Thrones after I first read the book, and obsessively told everyone what a great TV series it would make if anyone was brave enough to attempt it. I hope I've called this one as right as I did that! The recent China deal has helped calm any nerves about being wrong. I'm still targeting a 600p share price with a 5% dividend churning out £34,000 dividends a year and enabling me to retire.

IF my £2,800 pension transfer turns up I'll be able to put my SIPP plan into action. I still plan to increase my CAML:Central Asia Metals holding to 5,000 shares despite the price having gone up, and I still intent to get my first magic formula purchase of FXPO:Ferrexpo as it remains top of my ranking table by miles. That ought to leave around £500 over, so I will wait for 21st May when I get my tax refund and either buy some JLP:Jubilee Metals if they are still around 3p, or some more OPTI:Optibiotix if they are still below 60p, or re-visit my magic formula table, which will have had a bit of a shake up and see what's number 2 in the ranking. I know I ought to do the latter option whatever happens, but sometimes it's better the devil you know...

Week 247 Review - Pause for breath or reversal of recovery?

I notice a trend when it's been a down week, I tend to write the blog late. Most shares were either flat or slightly up this week, but OPTI:Optibiotix fell 2p which was enough to negate all the gains and result in a loss of £1,657. Given that OPTI fell by £2,200 it was reasonably good elsewhere. The drop widened the deficit between cost and value to £31,773 and reduced the overall portfolio value to £79,769.
 
 Amazingly there were no big losers for the 4th week in a row. When I think back to the long list of huge falls during the Covid-19 slump, that's a welcome relief.

JLP:Jubilee Metals climbed 5% in my ISA and 7% in my trading account, but is increasing much slower than I had hoped given the cash that's flowing in. Miners all seem to be down, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. My ISA holding is still 30% down but my trading account is 8% up.

RDT:Rosslyn Data rarely does anything, but this week climbed 7%. It appears they have teamed up with a company called Achilles to identify supply chain risk as a result of Covid-19. It would be nice to get a bit of the bubble here, but my holding is still 74% down so I'm not holding my breath.

Share of the Week for the second week in a row is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which climbed 8% in my ISA and 10% in my SIPP. I would have been really happy with that, if it weren't for the SIPP holding being 34% up on Wednesday. I tried to sell at 20p so I could take advantage of any drop, but I acted minutes too late. The sale was refused despite the bid price being 20p when I placed it. By the end of the week it was down to 16.5p and I had once again failed to trade anything successfully. Maybe I should give up and just hold what I have!

Hopefully just a little blip

Still the right side of the trend line

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£11.73		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,622.69	(-30.4%)	-£993.18
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£21.85	(-0.4%)	+£0.58
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£374.48	(7.5%)	-£1.52
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.4%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

A drop of less than £1,000 is actually a reasonable week compared to March.

Still above the dreaded orange line

Still above the trend line, but no sign of it getting much flatter.

The SIPP looks like this after week 231

			Weekly Change
Cash	£36.44		+£0
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£36,552.94	(-25.7%)	-£705.87
Potential profits	£239.14		+£213.74
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£12.75	(-0.3%)	+£0.58
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£261.45	(6.4%)	-£1.14
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.8%		-0.1%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

A much smaller drop, mainly thanks to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics doing so well, and increasing potential profits by £213. Unfortunately if I had sold at 20p I would have made £750 profit which would have really helped my performance stats, and I could have bought a load more SBTX when they dropped. Never mind eh.

Pretty similar to the ISA

At least the left hand side of the trend line is almost positive.

The trading account looks like this after week 197

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,545.27	(-37.9%)	+£41.34
Potential profits	£53.69		+£45.27
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£14.16	(6.8%)	-£0.35
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.30	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

JLP:Jubilee Metals increased potential profit by £45 but the loss in TRMR:Tremor meant value only increased by £41. How far do I let JLP rise before cashing in? I must remember this is a short term trading account so I don't want to wait too long. I have my ISA holding for the long term gains. I guess I should bear in mind that I lost £84 selling JLP when I first set up this account, as I wanted to transfer the shares to my ISA. 3.3p would cancel out that loss, but then I'd want at least 25% on top of that. I really need to hang on for 4p before selling.

It's looking a bit better, but I'd love the chance to take some money out and drop the orange line a few hundred quid.

Could this be the first line to flatten out?

The virtual magic formula holding is down 19.81% compared to 20.96% last week, so is recovering slowly. PLUS:Plus500 would have been a top investment, having climbed 45%. CARD:Card Factory would have been worst performer, down 56%. ITV:ITV is down 48% and VTY:Vistry Group down 46%. It would have been a very bad time to invest £30,000, unlike now.

Speaking of investing in the SIPP, Legal & General have now taken 5 weeks and I still haven't had my pension transfer, despite Hargreaves Lansdown sending them a message asking for a 2-day turnaround. We had to make the request again from scratch in order to up the transfer amount from £2,000 to £2,800, so it could take 10 days from then. However, I really don't know how long it's going to be, and every day is seeing the shares I want to buy get more expensive. I'm pretty angry! You would think that they might feel a tad guilty about taking so long the first time and process this quicker, but I suspect they are doing everything in their power to hold on to capital in these troubled times. It's really shoddy customer service and re-enforces my determination to prevent them managing my money.

I was thinking about the debacle that cost me around £600 when they sold my gold fund against my will and re-invested it in a general stock fund, just before the gold price soared. What would have happened if I had my pension with them for 20 years? I could have had £30,000 in that gold fund, and selling at the bottom of the market could have cost me an absolute fortune. It's utterly despicable. The whole point of investing is it's long term, and you only lose money if you sell at the wrong time. For them to think it's acceptable to sell against the will of the customer at what is just about the worst time possible, eliminates all trust I have in their ability to manage my money. Now I have it all in a bonds fund and take it out as fast as I'm allowed. That turned out quite well in the recent crash, as the fund was unaffected.

There were no new OPTI:Optibiotix deals announced last week, but hints a few weeks ago that there are some imminent announcements, and lots of speculation about goods going on sale in Walmart and Costco. Let's hope we get some news next week so the recovery can continue.