Week 255 Review - Lots of small losses across the portfolio, but magic formula progress

I can always tell when it's been a disappointing week, as I wait until Sunday to write my blog. This week had small losses across nearly all shares, and a 2p drop in OPTI:Optibiotix provided £2,200 of the £3,130 drop in value. That widened the deficit to £35,219 and reduced total value to £80,498.

MMX:Minds + Machines fell 6% and I suspect will continue to drift until they confirm they are generating cash and are going to pay a dividend. That announcement would see the price double in no time. This week they dropped 6% and are now down by 29%.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics suffered a huge sale from an institutional investor, so the fact it only dropped 5% in my ISA and 7% in my SIPP was a relief. Hopefully that overhang will clear soon and we can get up to 20p so I can sell my trading holding. I did sell a few from my SIPP this week, more of which later.

WRES:W Resources had a good week, which was surprising as all my other metals companies dipped. They climbed 8% but are still 71% down so I won't hold my breath.

Share of the Week was SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy which climbed 13%. I'm still 73% down, which shows just how much they did climb. I think there's a feeling they could get as big as some of the big power companies, but I'll believe it when I see it. I bought them for their tidal energy production, so not overly happy they are now proposing burning plastic to generate power.

Last week's gains erased, and some more

Still the right side of the line, but way too close to it.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£14.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£60,070.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£40,354.07	(-32.8%)	-£1,633.09
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-14.48		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£4.71	(-0.1%)	+£0.11
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,376.93		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£365.21	(7.3%)	-£1.43
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.1%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

Generally bleak, and still no prospect of anything getting into profit.

Back almost on the injection line

Back to £20K in the red.

The SIPP looks like this after week 239

			Weekly Change
Cash	£33.68		+£3.87
Portfolio cost	£53,058.85		+£112.58
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,439.17	(-27.6%)	-£1,459.84
Potential profits	£189.29		-£252.81
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£116.44		+£116.44
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£2.65	(0.1%)	+£16.74
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,665.54		+£116.44
Average monthly cash profit	£254.27	(5.8%)	+£1.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		+0%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

Generally the same misery as the ISA, but lots of exciting things happened. I sold my JLP:Jubilee Metals shares at 4.0015p which was a good move as they ended the week 3.8p. I made £75.18 (15%) profit and liberated £567.67.

The reason I did this was that I noticed POLR:Polar Capital Holdings had dropped unexpectedly, and they also confirmed their dividend ex-date in early July. They also increased their stake in CAML:Central Asia Metals by 1% last week, which gives me great confidence that they know what they are doing. I've wanted these for my magic formula experiment, as they were third in my rankings, but needed a bit more cash to have £1,000 to spend.

I sold 2,700 of my SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics shares at 16.625p. It was much less than I wanted for them, but allowed me to liberate the £436.93 I needed to buy POLR:Polar Capital Holdings. I made £41.27 (10.1%) profit on the sale. Not a lot, but better than nothing.

This allowed me to buy 197 shares in POLR:Polar Capital Holdings at 501.92p costing £1,000.73. Tragically they dropped to 495 bid price so are currently 4% down on spread and commission. However, I am really pleased that I now have 4 of my magic formula shares, and will be getting quite a few dividends in July.

As my total profits from the sales was only £116 it made £1 a month difference to my long term performance, which is about what I normally lose each week I don't sell anything. My annual performance was much improved though, as it covered all my fees and instead of being negative, I'm now up by £16 a month to £2 profit. Certainly not enough to retire on!

A little dip and a slightly worrying longer term decline

Way too close to the trend line, and following it!

The trading account looks like this after week 205

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,470.75	(-37.5%)	-£37.30
Potential profits	£30.72		-£33.61
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£29.55	(15.1%)	-£0.62
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£6.44	(3.3%)	-£0.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

Most of the losses were the halving of potential profit for SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics. Nothing much else to say other than my disappointment at not having been able to offload them at 19.5p yet.

I'm not troubled by this chart.

I think we may have a flat line by the week after next!

The virtual magic formula portfolio is down by 14.60% compared to 13.68% last week, so a similar story of small losses here too. No real difference in top and bottom performers to last week.

None of my wishes came true whatsoever from last week, so I'm still wanting a Sweetbiotix deal from OPTI:Optibiotix, a dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals, FXPO:Ferrexpo back in the black, SBTX:SkinBoioTherapeutics hitting 19.5p so I can sell my trading account holding, and JLP:Jubilee Metals getting to 4.5p to my ISA is in profit.

I'll throw in one more wish - that Hargreaves Lansdown allow me to partake in the TLOU:Tlou Energy offer so I can get another 8,809 shares and take my holding to 40,000. I'll need to inject £200, but I think it's a bargain at this price as my faith in this one delivering is improving despite my holding being 76% down. I've made over £1,500 profit selling TLOU in the past, but my current holding cost £2,723 so I'm at risk of losing £1,200 if it goes belly up. However, they are planning the transmission lines now, which makes me think they are serious about selling electricity.

Week 254 Review - A great week but only a small climb

It was a great week for many of my shares. The rise was a relatively small £2,335, but with OPTI:Optibiotix only climbing 1p, it accounted for less than half the rise, so the others combined did better. That narrowed the deficit between cost and value to £32,089 and increased overall portfolio value to £83,512.

There was only one big faller this week. FXPO:Ferrexpo went ex-dividend, but also announced that the injunction on selling some of its shares lifted a few weeks ago has been re-imposed by a district court, so the appeal process will have to start all over again. I think fear of doing business in the Ukraine is what's holding these back, as all other performance is great. The dividend will pay out in early July, but there is a Swiss withholding tax, so 35% will be taken off me. It should still be worth about £35.

BLU:Blue Star Capital climbed 6%. There seems to be renewed interest since their venture into e-sports. Good job really as Satoshipay is looking like a dead duck.

JLP:Jubilee Metals went on a mini charge, climbing 7% in my ISA and 9% in my SIPP. They did a new deal to get access to a massive copper tailings resource, which should double income within 2 years. I'm starting to waver on taking profits too early now, as although we have the threat of Colin Bird looming over us, there are increasing institutional investors, and they don't take kindly to their company being used to bail out other companies. That might make a big difference to the long term prospects here. The more institutional investors appear, the more pressure there will be to start paying a dividend.

IQE:IQE is on a roll, climbing another 8% this week. I'm only 29% down in the ISA now, but 51% down in my trading account and 60% down in my SIPP.

IES:Invinity Energy almost made it to Share of the Week with a 12% climb. Some people have made a lot of money buying these at their low, but my holding went from 84% down to 72% down. Since the reverse takeover from RED:RedT Energy, there seems to be much more commercial momentum. Given I thought they were going bust a few months ago and I'd lose everything, now I'm feeling some degree of hope.

Share of the Week is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, climbing 15% in my ISA and 20% in my SIPP and trading account. I now have the decision whether to trade these as I said I would, or sit tight. I'll definitely trade the ones in the trading account as soon as they hit 19.5p, as that will give £131 (25%) profit, which is all I ask from the trading account. The tricky account is the SIPP, where 19.5p would give me £666 (32%) profit. However, there is the risk they will carry on up. The exchange market size for SBTX is only 7,500 and I hold 14,654, so one option would be to sell 7,154 to bank some profit, but keep 7,500. If the price drops back, I can use the proceeds of the sale to buy back in and increase my holding, but if it carries on upwards I won't miss out.

A very tiny tick up, but at least it is actually up this week.

In 3 weeks time the trend line could be a lot flatter as we lose the big peak. I think the deficit needs to get below £20K before we see a change of direction though.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£14.63		+£0
Portfolio cost	£60,070.42		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,987.16	(-30.1%)	+£1,437.05
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-14.48		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£4.82	(-0.1%)	+£0.10
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,376.93		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£366.64	(7.3%)	-£1.45
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

A very quiet week, but the deficit was narrowed by £1,437. The nearest shares to being in profit is a tie between JLP:Jubilee Metals and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, both of which are only 12% down. It would be so nice to see a sliver of green in this account.

Bouncing off the injection line once again.

As with the overall chart, this should trend a lot flatter in a few weeks.

The SIPP looks like this after week 238

			Weekly Change
Cash	£29.81		+£0
Portfolio cost	£52,946.27		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,786.43	(-24.9%)	+£796.34
Potential profits	£442.10		+£375.82
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.09	(-0.3%)	+£0.48
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£253.22	(5.7%)	-£1.07
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		+0%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

Overall value didn't climb as much as the ISA because there were losses for CAML:Central Asia Metals and FXPO:Ferrexpo, but the great news was potential profits rising by £375 to £442. Most of this was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, with a small contribution from JLP:Jubilee Metals. Unfortunately FXPO:Ferrexpo slipped into the red.

We'll have a few months of stability here now, as the next injection won't be until late September, unless the bond prices do well and my work pension holding goes up a bit, as my July contribution will leave it just short of the minimum transfer amount. In that case I may be able to do another transfer hitting the account in August.

This one might be harder to reverse the trend, as anything below £5,000 loss is going to leave the line pointing downwards.

The trading account looks like this after week 204

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,508.05	(-35.9%)	+£102.25
Potential profits	£64.33		+£64.33
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£30.17	(15.4%)	-£0.64
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£6.47	(3.3%)	-£0.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

A good week, with £102 increase in value and £64 potential profits from the SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics purchase a few weeks ago. It's rather a relief that this account is finally starting to work a bit better, although it would have been hard to do much worse.

If I can sell SBTX for 19.5p I'll be able to bank another £100 of the original injection and get the orange line a bit lower.

Oh my goodness, the line is almost flat! It's so long since I've seen a trend line pointing upwards, I can hardly contain myself!

The virtual magic formula portfolio climbed 1.39% from 15.07% down to 13.68% down this week. There are still only 5 out of 30 shares in the black. PLUS:Plus 500 is still way ahead at 45% up, but CARD:Card Factory is no longer last, climbing to -42% as VTY:Vistry Group dropped to 47% down and ITV:ITV went 46% down.

Last week I said "My dream for next week is a SweetBiotix announcement from OPTI:Optibiotix, re-instatement of the dividend for CAML:Central Asia Metals, a trading update from JLP:Jubilee Metals, and IQE:IQE going on a roll. Even just one of those would be nice..."

So did any of that come to pass?

No SweetBiotix announcement from OPTI:Optibiotix, in fact no news at all since 1st June, so the wish for a Sweetbiotix announcement will have to pass on to next week. Same goes for the CAML:Central Asia Metals dividend as I suspect they are being cautious, which is no bad thing.

There was a kind of trading update from JLP:Jubilee Metals when they announced the tailings acquisition, as it included the current healthy cash position and that debt had been paid down, so things are looking very positive. My wish for next week is that positivity spreads to the market and we get back to the 5p range where I think we should be.

IQE:IQE did in fact go on a roll, and it may be a sustainable one, so 2 out of my 4 wishes came true, and I would have been happy with just one of them.

So for next week, we'll have the carry over of the OPTI and CAML wishes, along with my FXPO:Ferrexpo holding getting back into profit, and being able to sell some SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics at 19.5p, and JLP:Jubilee Metals getting into profit in my ISA by hitting 4.5p.

Week 253 Review - The gradual slide continues, and Ilika is gone

Hardly anything happened this week. Most shares slipped a little and very few gained. OPTI:Optibiotix lost 2p which accounted for £2,200 of the £2,646 slide. The deficit between cost and value widened to £34,424 and the overall portfolio value dropped to £81,176.

Biggest faller was my newest share and not a great feeling for my magic formula experiment. APAX:Apax Global Alpha dropped 6%, although I noticed some very odd behaviour of the share price all week, with a big spread during the day tending to close up again at the end. It was hammered on Thursday and is now 10% down.

TRMR:Tremor was the only other big loser, dropping 5% to go 52% down in my trading account.

Share of the Week is IQE:IQE which published a really good trading update. It was so good I'm hoping the climb will continue and we'll end up back around the 100p range. This week it went up 4% which was the biggest rise I managed from anything. My ISA holding was meant to be a short term quick win, and I bought them at 75p thinking it was a steal. 100p would give me a 30% profit which I would take, as they were not meant to be a long term holding. My trading account holding was purchased at 101p so I need a more substantial rise to get anything out of that. I may very well flog them for a loss if it looks like they'll never get there. My SIPP holding is 131p, so they will be for the very, very long term and the dividend.

The third week in a row that I've had a medium sized fall, which is taking us dangerously close to the orange line.

Still above the trend line so there's hope.

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£14.63		-£89.82
Portfolio cost	£60,070.42		+£242.63
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£40,550.11	(-32.5%)	-£1,267.07
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-14.48		+£152.80
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£4.92	(-0.1%)	+£15.19
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,376.93		+£152.80
Average monthly cash profit	£368.09	(7.4%)	+£1.17
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

I sold my 1,600 IKI:Ilika shares for 54.4p after buying them for 43.54369p and made £152.80 (21.2%) profit. This was really great, as I've been moaning about how rubbish the company is for ages and I didn't think I'd ever get to make a profit. Knowing my luck they will fly now, and I wish them all the best as their technology is great. I just have severe doubts about their ability to commercialise it and turn a profit.

Unfortunately the profit wasn't enough to take my year 5 performance into positive territory, but it did improve by £15 a month and one more sale should see me in the black. I tried to resist, but couldn't stop myself buying 1,672 more OPTI:Optibiotix shares at 56p, costing £948.27. Given that my average is around 65p, I had to take a chance to bring that down a little. I was also convinced they were due a spike at the end of the week after a tree shake to just below support the day before. Unfortunately I was dead wrong.

The purchase takes my overall holding in OPTI:Optibiotix to 111,661 shares bought at an average price of 64.53p and costing £72,468.09. That's 62% of my portfolio cost. Each 1p change in share price is worth £1,116. It's currently losing £14,440 which makes me sad.

The profit from the sale was so measly when spread over 5 years it didn't move the percentage by even 0.1.

Just above the injection line, which is some small comfort.

The trend line isn't that steep really, but the fact it's still downwards is troubling. At least we're still the right side of it.

The SIPP looks like this after week 237

			Weekly Change
Cash	£29.81		+£0
Portfolio cost	£52,946.27		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,990.09	(-26.4%)	-£1,347.08
Potential profits	£66.28		-£42.76
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.57	(-0.3%)	+£0.52
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£254.29	(5.8%)	-£1.08
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		+0%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

Very little happened. Potential profits fell, with only JLP:Jubileee Metals and FXPO:Ferrexpo still in profit as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics went back to loss. All of those shares dropped a bit, so £42 was knocked off paper profits. OPTI:Optibiotix accounted for most of the drop in value, but CAML:Central Asia Metals also fell and had an impact.

Still a bit of a buffer to the orange line.

In 3 weeks we'll lose anything above zero and will have been in the red for a whole year. I'm not selling anything and getting precious few dividends, so it's all a bit rubbish. I hope my move to the magic formula experiment will turn things around. I'll have my first dividend payment in a few weeks, so it's already bearing fruit.

Here's the trading portfolio after week 203

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,405.80	(-40.3%)	-£32.30
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£30.81	(15.7%)	-£0.67
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£6.50	(3.3%)	-£0.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	3.6%		+0%
Compound performance	14%		+0%

Back to nothing much happening with this account, as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics failed miserably to take off to 20p like I expected. It's only 7% down, so it could make that up in a day the way things tend to move with this share. The nearest other share to profit is CAML:Central Asia Metals, but that's still down 41%. The announcement of dividend re-reinstatement would give them a massive boost. If FXPO:Ferrexpo can do it I don't see why CAML can't, especially as none of their mines have been impacted by Coronavirus. It's sensible that they suspended it, but when they are confident in final results surely they should re-instate.

It's rather frustrating that LION:Lionsgold (now TALY:Tally) was bought for £345 as I'd made a loss elsewhere and didn't have cash to make it up to £500. It would be great to flog that and get back to a £2,500 cost price, but they are still suspended. I'm not even certain if they will ever re-list. From the bulletin boards it sounds as if there are technical problems with their credit card resulting in people being over charged, so it's not looking very promising.

I do believe that line is almost flat! Just need to lift it up by £1,000 now...

Despite Thursday's big drop, the virtual magic formula account improved from -15.2% to -15.07%, which is quite a surprise. Only 4 shares are in profit, but many of the losses are smaller. CARD:Card Factory, VTY:Vistry Group and ITV:ITV are by far the worst performers, with PLUS:Plus 500, FXPO:Ferrexpo and IGG:IG Group way ahead.

My dream for next week is a SweetBiotix announcement from OPTI:Optibiotix, re-instatement of the dividend for CAML:Central Asia Metals, a trading update from JLP:Jubilee Metals, and IQE:IQE going on a roll. Even just one of those would be nice...

Week 252 Review - Another dip but a massive trading victory

Most things had a great week, unfortunately OPTI:Optibiotix didn't, so the difference between cost and value widened by £2,966. That increased the deficit to £31,778 and dropped total portfolio value to £83,670.

There was only one big loser this week, but it was OPTI:Optibiotix as mentioned above which dropped 4p and cost me £4,400. Great news that the portfolio only fell by just under £3,000, meaning everything else covered £1,400 of the OPTI losses.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics had a good week, climbing 5% in my ISA and 7% in my SIPP. I thought they would climb higher now the OPTI sale has cleared, but I think investors are scared they will do it again.

TRMR:Tremor went up 6% but I'm still losing 47% in my trading account.

IQE:IQE climbed 5% in my SIPP, 6% in my trading account, and 9% in my ISA as they very slowly but steadily recover.

FXPO:Ferrexpo are one of my new "magic formula" shares and are already in profit, climbing 10% this week to go 6% up altogether and making £59 potential profit. Even better they went ex-dividend on Thursday so I should get around £18 and my SIPP is starting to behave like a proper pension account.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy has had a rocket up it lately, and climbed 11% this week. They are still 81% down and it's a very small holding, but I shall watch with interest.

Share of the Week by a million miles is JLP:Jubilee Metals, which is finally starting to re-rate. My ISA holding climbed 11% and is only 18% down now, my new SIPP holding climbed 15% and is 5% in profit, and best of all my trading holding climbed to 30% so I sold them and banked some profit.

Pretty upsetting that despite so many shares climbing this week, we're still heading back towards the orange line.

A worryingly steep drop, but we're on the right side of the trend line.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£104.45		+£96.47
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,574.55	(-30.5%)	-£1.698.30
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0.22
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.11	(-0.4%)	+£0.09
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0.22
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£366.93	(7.4%)	-£1.53
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

First of all let's cover the 22p dividend. That was the left-over after the share consolidation by IES:Invinity Energy. I also added £100 to my ISA as I'd run out of cash to pay the £3.75 fees, and the minimum to start up a new ISA for the tax year is £100. It means a small increase in the injection amount.

Portfolio value is down £1,698 thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, and there's still nothing in profit. The nearest shares to being in profit are OPTI:Optibiotix and IKA:Ilika, which are both down by 16%, and JLP:Jubileee Metals which is down by 18%. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is down 25% and everything else is absolutely trashed.

This does raise the rather worrying question of where my next sale is coming from to try and improve my 7.4% of portfolio cost average monthly return. I've made it clear I'm not selling any OPTI:Optibiotix, so my only hopes are the other three. I have stated I'm willing to trade SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, but haven't done a very good job of it so far. Although I guess I have made £2,425 profit doing just that, so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

I'll sell IKA:Ilika relatively soon if they get into profit, as I'm still not convinced at their commercial credentials, and I'm way overweight on JLP:Jubilee Metals given their openly acknowledged aim to grow the company and not return value to shareholders. There's way too much risk of getting fleeced to line the pockets of the Chairman, so although I'll retain a token holding, I'll sell 80% of my shares gradually.

Still above the injection line, but only just. The momentum seems to have ground to a halt.

I was hoping to get the deficit below £10,000 by now, but we're back nearer £20,000.

The SIPP looks like this after week 236

			Weekly Change
Cash	£29.81		-£626.97
Portfolio cost	£52,946.27		+£1,011.06
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,337.17	(-23.8%)	-£1,248.29
Potential profits	£109.04		+£109.04
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£15.09	(-0.3%)	-£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	£255.37	(5.8%)	-£1.38
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		-0.2%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

This is complicated! I added £400 cash because I wanted to keep the JLP:Jubilee Metals shares while they re-rate, and I could do with the £100 tax rebate to cover future charges. That meant I had £1,000 to be able to buy my next "magic formula" share.

Number 2 on my ranking spreadsheet was APAX:Apax Global Alpha which is a managed fund, and which has been clobbered by the Covid-19 drop, but which hasn't really recovered yet and pays a very healthy dividend. This seemed like a perfect SIPP share, so I bought 695 at 143.7569p costing £1,011.06.

I've decided with the "magic formula" shares I'll buy £1,000 worth not including commission, so most costs will be about £1,011. They haven't really moved since and the bid price is 141.8p, so with spread and commission they are down by £37 (4%).

Meanwhile we have the unprecedented situation of 3 different shares all being in profit this week. FXPO:Ferrexpo is up 6% making £59, JLP:Jubilee Metals is up 5% making £24, and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is up 1% making £24. I'm still planning to sell SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics when they hit 19.5p as I really need to improve my performance on this account, and most of my  holdings are long term. I want to increase my SBTX holding, and I think the best chance will be to trade them and hope I don't miss the re-rate.

The drop in portfolio value was all down to OPTI:Optibiotix

A complex chart! Injection increased a small amount, cost went up again, and value dropped despite this.

Only a few more weeks until this account will have been in the red for a year.

The trading account looks like this after week 202

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£186.28
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		-£136.10
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,438.10	(-38.9%)	-£19.52
Potential profits	£0		-£65.01
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£200.18
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£31.48	(16%)	+£18.58
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£200.18
Average monthly cash profit	£6.53	(3.3%)	+£4.28
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	3.6%		+2.4%
Compound performance	14%		+9%

Quite a lot to pull apart here. I sold JLP:Jubilee Metals at 3.8p after buying at 2.81p and made £200.19 (30.3%) profit. I then removed £150 from the account to reduce the injection amount, and bought 3,361 shares in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics at 14.875p costing £511.90, as I believe they are about to go on a sprint to 19.5p.

I saved the excess cash, as I think it was a mistake to pay more than £500 when I bought JLP:Jubilee Metals, as I need some cash buffer in the account to ensure I can afford to sell something at a loss and still have enough to invest £500 with the proceeds.

So although I wiped out my potential profits, my actual profits for the year went up significantly and are now a respectable 16% with only 6 weeks of this trading year to go. My long term performance improved by £4 a month, but is still only 3.3%. However, after the disastrous start, this isn't too bad, and still better than building society interest.

So it means I only really have one holding I can trade with, as the others are losing so much money I'm not prepared to sell them. It means I have to be very, very careful with this one, and only go for shares that are clearly on an upwards trajectory. Easier said than done! I have been learning a lot about trading, so will be using those learnings for future purchases. I didn't really need to with SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, as it's clear the recent drop was due to OPTI:Optibiotix dumping 4.5 million shares. Those are already being snapped up, so I think this is a reasonable bet. It means I'll be attempting to trade these in both my trading account and my SIPP. This one will be with the aim of making money, the SIPP one will be with the aim of increasing my holding.

It's been a long time since I was able to further my plan of extracting the whole £2,500 injection from this account. The £150 withdrawn this week has given a welcome dip to the orange line.

So in real terms there was a slight dip, but I did remove £200 profit and £186 is being held in cash, so it's not really a surprise. Most of the portfolio had a good week. It's not often I have felt happy about the trading account.

Last week the virtual magic formula portfolio was down by 15.2%, and this week it's only down by 10.76%, so a 4.44% gain. PLUS:Plus 500 had a bad week, dropping about 10%, but is still the best performer at 44% up. FXPO:Ferrexpo is next best at 31% up, which is nice now I'm a holder. IGG:IG Group are up 13% so also doing quite well. Then BHP:BHP Group, DGOC:Diversified Oil & Gas, KETL:Strix Group, MONY:MoneySupermarket and PSN:Persimmon are all in profit, having recovered form the Coronavirus crash.

Many of them are still dreadful though. CARD:Card Factory is down 45% and VTY:Vistry Group are down 41%, with ITV:ITV down 38% and REDD:Redde Northgate down 30%.

On my newly updated spreadsheet POLR:Polar Capital Holdings were next in line to be bought. They are similar to APAX:Apax Global Alpha in that they are a managed fund, and are still cheap following the crash. They only need to make up 13% to get back where they were before the crash, whereas APAX are still 22% down so were better value. I suspect by the time I get my next pension transfer it will all be different. However, if I can make a quick profit on JLP:Jubilee Metals to get up to £1,000, then I'll be putting it in POLR:Polar Capital Holdings.

So, next week's wish list is a re-rate of JLP:Jubilee Metals, a recovery to 19.5p of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, and some Sweetbiotix news from OPTI:Optibitix that takes us back to 70p...