Week 273 Review - Dreadful week when practically everything falls

This was one of the worst weeks ever for across the board drops in share price. My weekly summary is just a sea of red. It's actually a relief that the deficit between cost and value only widened by £4,985 as normally weeks like this see a much bigger drop. The deficit stands at £33,810 and total portfolio value has dropped to £90,892.

Worst performer was TLOU:Tlou Energy which collapsed 15% after the recent surge in price. Happy to say that the big buyer still seems to be present, so I'll put the drop down to profit taking and hope that this buying support continues to take us upwards.

CMCL:Caledonia Mining was meant to be a good safe gold mine bought in my magic formula portfolio because it was under valued. It dropped 7% this week and I can't work out why, as the gold price is holding up ok. Normally gold miners do well when the rest of the market is dropping. Most frustrating that these are down by 15% so soon after I bought them.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy dropped 6%. There have been some negative articles on Share Prophets which probably explain the 6% drop. I'm not massively keen on these any more as they have moved away from specialising in tidal turbines, and they seem to be failing miserably to make any revenues for the turbines they already have, and are showing no signs of installing any more, which suggests to me there's no profit without government subsidy.

My timing for buying SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics was as usual completely wrong. I bought them at 17.2p in my SIPP and 16.5p in my trading account, but I could buy them for my target 16p today, which shows that when you have a target price to buy, you should wait until it's met or don't buy them! They dropped 6% this week and are 11% down already.

OPTI:Optibiotix dropped another 3p, which is a 5% fall. I'm so glad I bought a load at 54.8p last week when I can now buy them at 50p. When will I time a purchase right? I need to accept that nobody will buy these shares until they can show there is profit being made. I'm positive that will come, but it's been a long and frustrating wait.

No shares increased by 5% or more this week, so Share of the Week goes to FXPO:Ferrexpo for being the only one that increased by more than 0%, with a 3% rise. These are 4% up altogether now, so a rare green entry in my sad-looking portfolio.

Right back down to the level we've bounced off the last 2 times, but with the likelihood of a nationwide lockdown being announced next week, we could get back to the desperate levels seen in March.

This chart shows the true picture - the deficit is actually bigger than the last 2 drops and we're below the trend line. Very sad.

Here's the ISA and share account performance

			Weekly Change
Cash	£13.45		+£0
Portfolio cost	£62,990.04		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£44,192.21	(-29.8%)	-£2,779.79
Potential profits	£1,972.05		-£100.00
Yr 6 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Profit from sales	£591.81		+£0
Yr 6 Average monthly cash profit	£193.52	(3.7%)	-£16.13
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£21,018.42		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£351.07	(6.7%)	-£1.29
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.1%		+0%
Compound performance	53%		+0%

Big drop in value, and now I have exactly 100,000 shares in JLP:Jubilee Metals, any changes in potential profits are nice and neat, with £100 being 0.1p of the share price. Not much going on with performance, and we're still above the 10% of injection target. I'm keeping the statistic that shows percentage of current portfolio cost, even though I'm no longer using that as a target as it's way too ambitious given the cost of the portfolio keeps rising. It's still nice to see how I'm doing against that though, and 6.7% is pretty good.

Not quite down to the injection line

Better than the overall chart as we're level with the recent drops instead of below them, but we're back below the trend line and that's bad.

The SIPP looks like this after week 257

			Weekly Change
Cash	£150.05		+£40.05
Portfolio cost	£58,959.20		+£509.95
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£44,736.50	(-24.1%)	-£2,149.20
Potential profits	£127.93		-£35.92
Yr 5 Dividends	£162.58		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£2,910.34		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£257.53	(5.2%)	-£5.36
Total Dividends	£2,061.82		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£15,459.44		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£285.25	(5.8%)	-£1.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.0%		-0.2%
Compound performance	45%		+0%

In preparation for my next £2,000 pension transfer at the end of November, I decided to open a new SIPP with AJ Bell. I was worried about having my whole portfolio with Hargreaves Lansdown in case anything goes pear-shaped with them and I end up losing a load. I opened the SIPP by adding £550 so I could buy some shares and still have some cash to pay for monthly charges. That's why cash has gone up.

Guess what I bought? 1,000 shares in OPTI:Optibiotix at 50p costing £509.95 as the commission is £2 cheaper at AJ Bell. If the price stays this low I'll buy another 4,000 at the end of the month when my pension transfer comes through. I suppose I'd better go through the usual review of my total OPTI holding now I have some more. I now have 123,238 at an average price of 63.5p costing £78,715.03 and currently losing an eye-watering £19,596. Each 1p change in price is now worth £1,232. If they get to my target 600p I'll have made £660,677 profit and on a 5% dividend would get £37,000 a year cash. That's basically my retirement plan. If it doesn't come off I'll still be happy, but if it does I'll be very, very happy.

Value dropped the same as the ISA, and potential profits dipped by £35 with only APAX:Apax Global Alpha (£77), FXPO:Ferrexpo (£43) and ITV:ITV (£7) in profit. My other magic formula shares are down by 9%, 15%, 13% and 1% which isn't great given they were all in profit not long after I bought them. I've added the date of purchase to each one in my spreadsheet as a reminder, as the rule is that I review them after a year, and if they are no longer in the top 30 best value shares I sell them and replace them with one that is in the top 30. I bought FXPO:Ferrexpo on 29th May so have another 7 months until I review the first one. If I sold FXPO now I'd be 11% up if you include the dividend, so this method has potential.

Performance dropped 0.2% due to the injection of more cash, but 9% is still pretty good, albeit below target. I'm hoping to redress that next May when I may be able to sell something every month, and with a spot of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics trading

As with the other charts, this one has dropped back to the recent lows and is now much closer to the injection line than the cost line

This shows the real picture - the drop is much, much worse than the ISA, with the deficit between cost and value more severe and masked on the first chart by the injection of cash and the big increase in cost following recent re-investment of profits.

The trading account looks like this after week 223

			Weekly Change
Cash	£236.18		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,564.41	(-33.5%)	-£56.08
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 5 Profit	£370.12		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£106.92	(54.5%)	-£7.64
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£656.49		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£13.69	(7.0%)	-£0.06
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

A drop in value but hardly any change in performance. I calculated that if I don't sell anything else for the other 37 weeks of year 5, I'll still have made £30 a month profit, which is 15.7%. That's already a pretty good year. I still need to make up for the disaster of the first few years though, to get my overall performance from 7% up past 10%.

Value plus cash is pretty much on the injection line now. I could sell the whole lot and have lost nothing for my four and a bit years effort, but gained nothing either. One could suggest that's four years wasted, but I like to think it's time spent learning. I'm just a slow learner!

Nice to see one account is still above the trend line and heading in the right direction.

Here are my wishes:

1. TLOU:Tlou Energy announce de-watering has resumed. Not yet, but steady progress still being made.
2. JLP:Jubilee Metals to announce permission to process platinum rich tailings at DCM and the fine chrome plant move is completed and operational. Can't believe we've not had this news yet. Share price has stagnated a little, although lots of traders have been selling lately, including myself, so it makes sense there will be a pause in the ascent.
3. OPTI:Optibiotix to get within 10% of profit. My purchase of another 1,000 shares took my SIPP holding over 50,000 which is nice. Shame they are down 27%. Is a 17% rise next week possible? It could be if we get the right news.
   
4. CAML:Central Asia Metals re-instate their dividend. Still no sign, but it should come when they complete the cleanup following the dam leak. I'd like to think that will be soon.

Week 272 Review - More profits taken to increase Optibiotix and SkinBioTherapeutics

A good week for taking profits, but a 2p fall in OPTI:Optibiotix spoiled what would have been a great performance. The deficit between cost and value widened by £2,956 but I cashed in £1,667 of profits. The deficit now stands at £28,825 and total portfolio value at £95,327.

There were no big fallers this week.

JLP:Jubilee Metals continued recent good form and climbed another 5% this week, and I did take advantage to top-slice some from my ISA. I still hold 100,000 shares though, which I'll keep long term.

FXPO:Ferrexpo reversed the recent slump and climbed 8% to go back into profit, albeit only by 1%, but it would be 7% if you include the £65 dividends.

TRMR:Tremor published great results and gained another 8% to put them only 27% down now. I'm starting to feel I may be able to get rid of them at some point soon.

Share of the Week is TLOU:Tlou Energy which only just missed out last week, but which is rising steadily and went up another 11% this week. They are now 47% down which is quite a lot, but if this momentum can be maintained I could be back in profit soon. I still want to hold these long term as I like what they are doing.

Hardly any drop in value, but a tick up in cost so the deficit grew.

The trend line is finally pointing upwards, but we are only just above it.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£13.45		-£19.78
Portfolio cost	£62,990.04		+£867.36
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£46,972.00	(-25.4%)	-£1,831.84
Potential profits	£2,072.05		-£575.23
Yr 6 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Profit from sales	£591.81		+£835.62
Yr 6 Average monthly cash profit	£209.65	(4.0%)	+£310.13
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£21,018.42		+£835.62
Average monthly cash profit	£352.36	(6.7%)	+£12.06
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.1%		+0.3%
Compound performance	53%		+2%

I sold 42,149 shares of JLP:Jubilee Platinum at 6.4p making £835.62 (44.8%) profit and liberating £2,685.59. That still leaves me with 100,000 shares, but with JLP's history of volatility and the fact I've been worried for a while that I'd invested too much in a higher risk company, it felt prudent to reduce my exposure.

I also wanted to get some more OPTI:Optibiotix, as I always do when the share price drops inexplicably despite all the amazing news and imminent profits. I bought 4,915 shares at 54.8p costing £2,705.37. That puts my total holding at 122,238 shares at an average price of 63.6p costing £78,205.08. Every 1p change is now worth £1,222. Unfortunately their sell value is currently 51p so I'm down by £15,899! I'm in this one for the long haul though.

Potential profits only dropped by £575 because JLP:Jubilee Metals increased in value compared to last week, and my year 6 performance was negative last week but went positive this week, and improved my overall performance by 0.3% against injection value to put me above my 10% target.

Overall value dropped by £1,831 which I think of as a small fall these days.

Still a reasonable buffer down to the injection line

The trend line is pointing more strongly upwards and we're still above it, so I'm happy.

The SIPP looks like this after week 256

			Weekly Change
Cash	£110.00		+£79.86
Portfolio cost	£58,449.25		+£722.68
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£46,375.75	(-20.7%)	-£1,230.60
Potential profits	£163.85		-£622.16
Yr 5 Dividends	£162.58		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£2,910.34		+£722.54
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£262.89	(5.4%)	+£61.02
Total Dividends	£2,061.82		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£15,459.44		+£722.54
Average monthly cash profit	£286.36	(5.9%)	+£11.16
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.2%		+0.4%
Compound performance	45%		+2%

I sold the rest of my holding in DDDD:4D Pharma when they had a rebound from their recent slump. I decided that although they are doing amazing things, it's so long until they are going to be profitable that it's likely to be a painful and frustrating journey, and I'd rather watch from the sidelines and potentially jump on board when the price drops if they need a placing, or just buy after an increase and make less profit but avoid the stress of supporting another startup company pre-profits.

I sold 1,500 shares for 97.83p making £722,54 (96.9%) profit. My short investment here was really good as it's given me £2,258 profit and allowed me to significantly increase my holding in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics as well as get back into gold with CMCL:Caledonia Mining. The sale liberated £1,455.50 and I used it to buy another 8,418 shares in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics at 17.15p costing £1,455.64. That brings my total holding to 23,081 at an average price of 17.22p costing £4,011.84. I've achieved my ambition of holding more than I ever have before. I now have to decide how brave I'm going to be in trading them as I really want to be a long term holder. The benefit of having so many is I can sell half of them and still have more than 10,000 so I never need to be completely out of them again, which is a nice position to be in.

Cash increased a little as I had a tax rebate of £80, profits dropped less than I cashed in as there were rises in some other shares and APAX:Apax Global Alpha, FXPO:Ferrexpo, ITV:ITV and POLR:Polar Capital Holdings are all in profit.

Annual performance almost caught up with long term performance, and long term performance against injection amount improved by 0.4% to go above 9% and not far off my 10% target.

Cost is going up but unfortunately value isn't. We're back below the halfway point between the injection line and the cost line which is troubling.

The trend line is only just downwards now, but we're resting on it so that's not going to help.

The trading account looks like this after week 222

			Weekly Change
Cash	£236.18		+£8.39
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0.48
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,620.49	(-31.2%)	+£106.18
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 5 Profit	£370.12		+£108.89
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£114.56	(58.4%)	+£27.48
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£656.49		+£108.89
Average monthly cash profit	£13.75	(7.0%)	+£2.07
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

There was a flurry of excitement last thing on Friday when DDDD:4D Pharma put on a bit of a spike and cleared £100 profit. That's my signal to sell, so I collected £108 and withdrew £100 back into my bank account to reduce the injection amount to £1,800. I snapped up a bargain 3,030 shares in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics at 16.5p right on the closing bell costing £511.90 as I'm fairly convinced these are due a bounce back above 20p soon.

My year 5 performance is fairly staggering at £114 a month, but it's projected and only based on 14 weeks, so I doubt I'll keep that up all year. Long term performance improved to 7% at £13.75 a month, so it's starting to look much more respectable and much better than being in a building society. I just need the other 4 companies that are languishing at a loss to buck up their ideas, as I'm effectively trading on one £500 pot at the moment.

It was also a great week for those other shares as value increased by £106 despite taking all my profits.

Nice to see value is above injection amount now, despite taking profits.

Well above the trend line which is getting steeper every week.

Here's my wish list

1. TLOU:Tlou Energy announce de-watering has resumed. Still no news of this. I've been reporting that the price is still sneaking up every week, and this week the increase has started to accelerate. I'm now anticipating news of a new major holder as the buying is relentless. Somebody with a lot of money can see value here.
2. JLP:Jubilee Metals to announce permission to process platinum rich tailings at DCM and the fine chrome plant move is completed and operational. Neither have happened yet, but we must be getting really close.
3. OPTI:Optibiotix to get within 10% of profit. Nope - the opposite, dropping further and even dropping more after I topped up. If it stays at this level for another month, I'll be using all of my £2,000 pension transfer to buy more, as I've got 7 of my magic formula shares already, which is ahead of schedule so I'm allowed a little leeway.
   
4. CAML:Central Asia Metals re-instate their dividend. Surely this has got to happen soon?

Week 271 Review - Jubilee Metals soars in an otherwise crappy week

Lots of big losses this week, with deficit between cost and value widening by £5,510 to £25,868 and portfolio value dropping back below £100k to £96,625. I did however bank some profit and take advantage of that to write off some losses.

Biggest loser was DDDD:4D Pharma which fell 14% and is now only 93% up compared to over 200% a few weeks ago. I'm counting on it bouncing back as I've added it to my trading account, but so far that's been a disaster.

OPTI:Optibiotix was the next worst performer, dropping 8% and being responsible for much of the week's losses. I'm pretty certain this is the most frustrating share to be a long term holder.

I'm happy to say thet the next worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which dropped 7%. The main reason I'm happy is I'm back invested, but clearly sad that along with commission and spread, the price has dropped to below what I paid, so crappy timing once more.

BLU:Blue Star Capital has been pretty static for a long time, with a small surge when they started investing in eSports companies. This week investors got bored and the price dropped 5% to go 82% down on my original purchase price.

FXPO:Ferrexpo has been up and down like a yo-yo and this week dropped 5% for no particular reason.

There were only 2 shares with rises of more than 5% this week. The first was TLOU:Tlou Energy which has been climbing every day. My main holding went up 7% but is still 58% down, and I sold my trading holding for a 20% profit. Not bad for a few weeks holding.

Share of the Week by miles is JLP:Jubilee Metals which soared 18% higher and is now 43% in profit. The only profitable share in my ISA and now a long term hope for an eventual dividend. People are suggesting 40p a share is a reasonable target, so a 5% dividend at that share price would be worth £2,800 a year, or alternatively I could sell up for a £50k profit, which might be more tempting.

It doesn't looks as bad as I thought on this chart

The trend line is still slightly downwards, but at least this week we're not bouncing straight off it. Hopefully that's not next week's destiny.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£33.23		+£0
Portfolio cost	£62,122.68		-£243.81
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£47,936.48	(-22.8%)	-£2,125.40
Potential profits	£2,647.28		+£1,137.19
Yr 6 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Profit from sales	-£243.81		-£243.81
Yr 6 Average monthly cash profit	-£100.48	(-1.9%)	-£95.00
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,182.80		-£243.81
Average monthly cash profit	£340.30	(6.6%)	-£5.17
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.8%		-0.1%
Compound performance	51%		-1%

First of all I decided to write off a couple of shares that I bought when I first started and which have either de-listed or gone bust. Technically I still own the shares, but nothing will ever happen to them, and if by some miracle it does I'll worry about how to account for it then. 

TRK:Torotrak was one of the first shares I bought, when I had the crazy notion that finding a share that was at its cheapest ever price was a great plan, despite the reason for it being so cheap was that it was about to go bust. I was naive enough to believe that companies didn't go bust, but I was wrong. Fortunately I only bought 1,500 shares at 6.2272p costing £106.38 so my stupidity didn't cost me much as I lost it all.

The next write-off was an almost identical story. I bought BLUR:Blur Group shares early on, and they became MAIS:Maistro. I had 148,023 shares bought at 0.084391p costing £137.43. These haven't gone bust yet, but have de-listed the shares so getting rid of them would be difficult, but there's no point as the commission would be more than they are worth. Maybe one day they'll surprise me, but I doubt it.

The write-off didn't have much effect on long term performance, dropping average monthly profit by just over £5, but the year 6 average is looking a bit desperate until I sell something for a profit.

Meanwhile the portfolio value was hammered by the various drops this week, but potential profit rose by £1,137 as JLP:Jubilee Metals took off rather beautifully following a production update.

Just a little blip (I hope).

I'd say that trend line is completely flat now. 12 months of zero progress, but at least it's not pointing downwards any more.

The SIPP looks like this after week 255

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.14		-£102.73
Portfolio cost	£57,726.57		+£542.87
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£46,833.67	(-18.8%)	-£3,506.08
Potential profits	£786.01		-£1,650.25
Yr 5 Dividends	£162.58		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£2,187.80		+£440.13
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£201.87	(4.2%)	+£37.07
Total Dividends	£2,061.82		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£14,736.90		+£440.13
Average monthly cash profit	£275.20	(5.7%)	+£6.42
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.8%		+0.2%
Compound performance	43%		+1%

I sold my 45,772 JLP:Jubilee Metals shares for 6.2101p after buying them for 4.3499p a few weeks ago. That gave me £830.55 (41.2%) profit. At the same time I got so fed up of the dodgy goings on at MMX:Minds + Machines that I decided to bail out at a loss and still be in profit for the week. I sold my 13,184 shares at 4.8p after buying them at 7.58p and took a £390.42 (38.2%) loss. The end result was a net profit of £440 for the week, which took the monthly average for year 5 up to 4.2%, but the long term average only improved by 0.1% to 5.7%, although performance against injection amount improved by 0.2% to 8.8%.

The sales liberated £3,451 so with £100 in cash I had enough to buy a magic formula share as well as get back into SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics.

I bought 68 shares in CMCL:Caledonia Mining at 1430p per share costing £997.95. This gets me a new magic formula share taking the total to 7, and gets me back into gold, and the quarterly dividend ex-date was on Thursday, although I think I'll only get £5 as it's a bit stingy.

So then I had to wait for the right moment to buy back into SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics. There was much rejoicing when an RNS came out the next day announcing a placing at 16p. The share price dropped, and I hoped it would drop to 16p. However it held up, and I decided it was unlikely to get lower if a placing announcement wasn't enough to drop it. I bought 14,663 shares at 17.27p costing £2,556.20. I bought in two tranches as the Exchange Market Size for SBTX is only 7,500. It meant paying 2 lots of commission, but it means the trades are guaranteed to be processed online. I guess with hindsight I should have tried to do it in one go to compare the price as I may not have needed to do that. I'll try that next time! Needless to say they dropped further on Friday and I could have got them for 17p. Never mind eh!

Portfolio value was hammered as the biggest losers were in my SIPP, and potential profit dropped by a whopping £1,650 as I cashed in profits and nearly everything else dropped. There are only 3 shares in profit now, when there were 6 a few weeks ago.

This chart is worse than the ISA chart, going almost as low as the recent dips.

This chart is worse too, with a distinct down trend and a bigger deficit than the last 3 dips, but then over £2,000 profit has been taken this week.

The trading account looks like this after week 221

			Weekly Change
Cash	£227.79		+£7.07
Portfolio cost	£2,353.63		-£0.53
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,513.83	(-35.7%)	-£123.70
Potential profits	£0		-£41.32
Year 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 5 Profit	£261.23		+£106.53
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£87.08	(44.4%)	+£31.22
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£547.60		+£106.53
Average monthly cash profit	£11.68	(6.0%)	+£2.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

I sold my 21,739 shares in TLOU:Tlou Energy for 2.9p after paying 2.3p and made £106.53 (20.3%) profit. That significantly improved the projected year 5 profits, but those will settle down as they average out across the year. The more important long term performance improved by £2 a month to £11 and a nice 6% return. It's less than the 10% target, but a drastic improvement on the rather pitiful performance over the last few years.

I took out £100 so the injection amount dropped to £1,900, and I re-invested in DDDD:4D Pharma as I believed the recent drop was over-done, and that they should rebound very soon. I bought 473 shares at 105.595p costing £511.41, but as usual I got the timing wrong and I could have got them for 95p if I'd waited a few days. They are currently down by 14% but hopefully not for long.

The dip in portfolio value was only £17 more than the profits I took, so it wasn't a bad week for this account.

The drop in the green line reflects the drop in the injection amount, so that's fair enough.

A more severe drop here as DDDD:4D Pharma has slipped downwards, but above the trend line which is getting steeper in the right direction. I just need the other shares to wake up so I'm not just trading the one £500 pot all the time.

Here's my wish list:

1. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to drop in price to 16p. Given this was 19.5p last week, I'm happy to have bought back at 17.2p. It's not the 16p I'd hoped for, but I think anything under 20p is good value. I will continue to trade these shares as I believe they will remain very volatile for at least the next 12 months. I just need to be more disciplined about keeping the cash instead of chucking it at other shares, as I really want to extend my holding. The 14,663 shares I have now compare to 14,249 when I last held them in my SIPP, so I have succeeded in increasing my holding as well as making £690 profit. However, if you go back to when I held these the time before, I had 16,983 and sold them for £842 profit. I should therefore be targeting holding more than 16,983. These have been good to me so far, with £2,029 profit from my SIPP and £1,136 profit from my ISA. I just need to be careful though, as one day they will absolutely rocket. I'll now close this wish.
   
2. TLOU:Tlou Energy announce de-watering has resumed. Still no news of this, but the price continues to sneak upwards so there is concerted buying from somewhere. I'm still £1,688 in the red so it's going to be a long slog back to break even.
3. JLP:Jubilee Metals to announce permission to process platinum rich tailings at DCM. This hasn't come through yet, but there are hints it is imminent. I'm going to add that the fine chrome plant move is completed and operational. At the moment the share price doesn't need the news as it's soaring anyway, but every little helps.
4. OPTI:Optibiotix to get within 10% of profit. Well this one is much needed as the accounts are 16%, 19% and 20% down at the moment. Why can't it hold above 60p? It's incredibly frustrating.
   
5. CAML:Central Asia Metals re-instate their dividend. Still waiting and hoping it will be in the next few weeks.

Week 270 Review - Not a bad week but disaster for 4D Pharma

A pretty good week, with many companies up significantly, but one massive fly in the ointment as DDDD:4D Pharma halved in value. The deficit between cost and value improved by £1,969 and now stands at £20,358, with the overall value passing the significant £100k milestone at £101,933.

DDDD:4D Pharma fell an eye-watering 117% on release of the Phase II results for their treatment for IBS. There was a 55% positive outcome for the drug, but a 40% positive outcome for the placebo and the market didn't like that at all. Given this is just one of many irons in the fire, the drop seemed a little over-done. I was certainly a little relieved that I had sold half my holding for 156% profit last week.The shares are still up by 107% so I'm still happy as this lot will be a long term hold now.

MMX:Minds + Machines really annoyed me last week, and did so again this week. They released an RNS about re-accounting some previous revenue, and that triggered a 13% drop in share price. My suspicions that they are trying to drop the price so they can take it private on the cheap are being re-enforced by this sort of thing. I still can't think of another reason they would do a tender offer instead of paying a dividend. They want to hoover up shares, and they don't want to return value to the majority of shareholders, many of whom are well underwater and were relying on the divi to get something out of their holding.

Fortunately they were the only big droppers this week. IQE:IQE are gradually creeping up again, with a 7% rise taking my ISA holding to only 24% down. A lot further for the trading and SIPP accounts, but hope is being kindled.

TLOU:Tlou Energy haven't released any news, but there has been some very big buying every day. The share price in my ISA climbed 8% this week, but is still 65% down. My trading account went up a whopping 25% and into profit. It's 8% in the green so I need to try and decide how much further to let it run before selling out.

CAML:Central Asia Metals is gradually recovering, with an 8% rise this week. They announced that production has recommenced and the environmental cleanup is underway following the tailings dam breach, and once again hinted that a dividend announcement is coming soon as production is still within guidelines despite everything that's been going on.

POLR:Polar Capital Holdings had been hammered the last few weeks, but bounced back 8% this week to go back into profit. Things do seem rather volatile at the moment, even for these fund type shares.

Share of the Week is ITV:ITV which climbed 9% to go into profit just one week after me buying them. After posting last week's blog I re-populated my magic formula spreadsheet and was rather horrified to see ITV had fallen out of the top 10 and down to 34, which should have excluded me from buying them. It's amazing how much changes in a few months. I still believe now is the time to take a position here, although the American networks chickening out of showing Spitting Image in case they upset Trump may cause a dip next week.

Just a small increase, but not far off the high from a few months ago.

The trend line is almost flat, but not quite

Here are the ISA and share portfolios

			Weekly Change
Cash	£33.23		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£62,366.49		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£50,061.88	(-19.7%)	+£1,113.75
Potential profits	£1,510.09		+£0
Yr 6 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Average monthly cash profit	-£4.88	(-0.1%)	-£1.27
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,426.61		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£345.47	(6.6%)	-£1.35
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.9%		-0.1%
Compound performance	52%		+0%

Cash down by monthly fee and JLP:Jubilee Metals unchanged, so no change to potential profits. Nice tick upwards in value, but my performance by injection has dropped below 10% so I could do with selling something as nothing in this account pays a divi yet.

Still nearer to the injection line than the cost line

The trend line isn't quite flat - still ever so slightly downwards, but we're well above it.

The SIPP looks like this after week 254

			Weekly Change
Cash	£132.87		+£1.82
Portfolio cost	£57,183.70		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£49,846.88	(-12.8%)	+£654.81
Potential profits	£2,436.26		-£734.50
Yr 5 Dividends	£162.58		+£18.48
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£1,747.67		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£164.80	(3.5%)	-£3.48
Total Dividends	£2,061.82		+£18.48
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£14,296.77		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£268.78	(5.6%)	-£1.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.6%		-0.1%
Compound performance	42%		+0%

There was an £18.48 dividend from FXPO:Ferrexpo but that only just covered the monthly fee, so cash only went up by £1.82. Value would have been up twice the £654 if DDDD:4D Pharma hadn't crashed, and that hammered potential profits which are down £734. 

My review of the revised magic formula spreadsheet has given me two new targets to watch. The first if PLUS:Plus 500 which despite having risen massively recently, still appears to be excellent value. I was also impressed how fat up the ranking CMCL:Caledonia Mining are, as they were one of my favourite shares and I'd love to get back into gold now the price has dipped below $2,000 and ounce. I'll be watching these closely while I decide what to do with my MMX:Minds + Machines holding, which I'm so concerned about that I may consider ditching them for a loss. I have a bad feeling in my water they're up to no good.

Almost flat compared to the last few weeks.

Even the highest highs are in a down trend, so this is still very much pointing down, but we're well above the line.

The trading account looks like this after week 220

			Weekly Change
Cash	£220.72		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.16		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,637.53	(-30.4%)	+£190.83
Potential profits	£41.32		+£41.32
Year 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 5 Profit	£154.70		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£55.86	(28.5%)	-£5.08
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£441.07		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£9.63	(4.9%)	-£0.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

An even better week than last week, with value up £190 and TLOU:Tlou Energy going £41 into profit. I may get to play next week!

That's a big gap closed to the injection line, and if I make a profit on TLOU:Tlou Energy I'll be taking out the profits so the orange line will drop.

Well above the trend line which is starting to point quite strongly upwards.

Here's my wish list

1. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to drop in price to 16p. Most distressing that this is heading higher again, back to 19.5p to buy. Have I left it too late to get back in?
2. TLOU:Tlou Energy announce de-watering has resumed. Not yet, but something must be going on for the share price to have been climbing relentlessly for the last 2 weeks.
3. JLP:Jubilee Metals to announce permission to process platinum rich tailings at DCM. Still no news and the share price has stagnated..
4. OPTI:Optibiotix to get within 10% of profit. Still so nearly true, with the ISA holding improving by 2% to only 8% down and the SIPP also improving 2% to 12% down. Mid-week were were almost back in profit, but Friday let the side down.
5. CAML:Central Asia Metals re-instate their dividend. Still waiting and hoping it will be in the next few weeks..

Week 269 Review - Banked some 4D Pharma profits and added ITV

The best week in ages. I banked some profits in DDDD:4D Pharma as they are years away from commercial sales. I sold around half my holding so the rest are what I would consider free shares. Despite harvesting over £1,500 of profit, the deficit between cost and value improved by £7,388 and cut the gap to £22,317. Total portfolio value increased to £99,975.

Worst performer was PAY:Paypoint which dropped 14% after news that Ofgem has called them in for breaching competition law. That saw a dramatic sell-off on the day, but there was some recovery on Thursday. I'm confident this is a blip and they will be back in profit soon as they were way under-valued even before the dip.

DDDD:4D Pharma dropped 12% of my purchase price, which is a much smaller percentage of the current price. Given they are now 224% up, I suspect they will feature in this roundup every week, as small changes will be big compared to my purchase price.

CAML:Central Asia Metals are slowly dragging themselves back up after the tailings dam breach. I took advantage of the drop to buy some some more with my DDDD:4D Pharma profits. They climbed 5% this week but will climb much further when the dividend is restored.

JLP:Jubilee Metals recovered a bit from last week's sell-off to climb 5%, but it's still got a way to go before returning to the high of a few weeks ago.

TRMR:Tremor had a good week climbing 6% but they are still 40% down in my trading account.

TLOU:Tlou Energy had a thumping great buy today which caused a 20% rise in share price. That translates to 7% in my main holding and still means they are 73% down, but there was a stonking 22% rise in my trading account so these are only 17% down and giving me hope things could get moving again.

Share of the Week is OPTI:Optibiotix which climbed 7p and 11%. It means my ISA holding is only 10% down now. Strangely, the news that caused the rise was that Seed Health are launching phase II trials of their probiotic blend for treating IBS. That's not such a big deal compared to the SweetBiotix announcement the other week, but this managed to get the share price moving where SweetBiotix failed.

We've been bouncing around a £7k range for some weeks now.

Well above the trend line which is still pointing downwards but only just.

Here's the ISA and share portfolios

			Weekly Change
Cash	£36.98		+£30
Portfolio cost	£62,366.49		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£48,948.13	(-21.5%)	+£5,284.11
Potential profits	£1,510.09		+£284.30
Yr 6 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 6 Average monthly cash profit	-£3.61	(-0.1%)	+£0.45
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,426.61		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£346.82	(6.7%)	-£1.29
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	10.0%		+0%
Compound performance	52%		+0%

I added £30 cash to cover monthly charges, JLP:Jubilee Metals improved potential profits by £284 and the general portfolio climbed by a mighty £5,284 largely thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, but TLOU:Tlou Energy also made a good contribution

A good rise, but still nearer the injection line than the cost line.

I sometimes think I should write off the £3,500 I have in liquidated or utterly doomed companies. It would bring the cost line down but hammer my average performance figures.

TRK:Torotrak is liquidated and will just vanish from my account at some point, MTFB:Motif Bio are failing miserably to reverse into another company and will soon be kicked off AIM, MAIS:Maistro have de-listed and BLCC:Block Commodities are suspended from Aquis exchange.

Three of these were some of my earliest and stupidest purchases, whereas MTFB:Motif Bio was a stark lesson in the dangers of investing in junior pharma.

A good bounce off the trend line which is almost flat now.

The SIPP looks like this after week 253

			Weekly Change
Cash	£131.05		+£66.61
Portfolio cost	£57,183.70		+£1,590.17
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£49,192.07	(-14.0%)	+£1,946.06
Potential profits	£2,170.76		-£1,732.80
Yr 5 Dividends	£144.10		+£47.73
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£1,747.67		+£1,535.35
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£168.28	(3.5%)	+£152.09
Total Dividends	£2,043.34		+£47.73
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£14,296.77		+£1,535.35
Average monthly cash profit	£269.81	(5.7%)	+£26.15
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		+0.9%
Compound performance	42%		+4%

There's a lot going on here! I had a £13.88 dividend from PAY:Paypoint and £33.85 from APAX:Apax Global Alpha, and I made £1,535.35 from selling 1,454 of my DDDD:4D Pharma shares at a 209% profit. That leaves me with 1,500 "free" shares to hold long term. Potential profits dropped by more than the sale of DDDD, as the shares I still hold dropped in value and PAY:Paypoint slumped into loss.

It was a little disappointing that the profits only improved my long term performance by a small amount. My new target of 10% of injection amount rather than portfolio cost was improved by 0.9% and is only 1.3% off now, and with me planning to sell JLP:Jubilee Metals soon that should be boosted again.

I used some of the proceeds from the DDDD:4D Pharma sale to buy 1,439 shares in ITV:ITV at 69.4659p costing £1,016.56 with commission and stamp duty. These were in the top 10 of my magic formula ranking last time I calculated it and have recently started to climb slowly. With Spitting Image about to hit the screens I figured now was a good time to buy. I've been watching them as my next potential purchase and their current price and situation was the catalyst for me selling some DDDD.

I was planning to use the rest to increase my OPTI:Optibiotix holding, but just as I tried to buy the share price started motoring upwards and I couldn't get an on-line quote. I knew I was too late for a bargain so looked to my next favourite share CAML:Central Asia Metals which is still reeling from the tailings dam leak and the fact they haven't re-instated the dividend. I bought another 777 shares at 155.792p costing £1,222.45. That takes my holding to 5,777 shares with an average purchase price of 183.32p costing £10,637.94. They are currently down 15% at a paper loss of £1,580, but given I've had £1,475 dividends from them they are only really down by 1%. The previous full annual dividend was 14.5p which would give me £837.66 a year. That would do nicely for my SIPP.

As I try and get closer to the cost line it tries to get away from me!

Still a while before this is flat, but it's looking a lot more healthy than it did in April.

Here's the trading account after week 219

			Weekly Change
Cash	£220.72		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.16		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,446.70	(-38.5%)	+£157.89
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Year 5 Profit	£154.70		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	£60.94	(31.1%)	-£6.09
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£441.07		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£9.68	(4.9%)	-£0.04
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)

One of the best weeks in a long time, with all shares up and TLOU:Tlou Energy getting to the stage where I may be able to sell.

All the recent drops have been wiped out and we're back on the up.

Back above the very upward-pointing trend line.

Here's my wish list

1. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to drop in price to 16p. Unfortunately this was tipped in the week and went back up from 17.5p to 19.5p, but it was a good job as I'd rather wait a little longer for JLP:Jubilee Metals to get back above 6p before I sell. I'll be watching both like a hawk.
2. TLOU:Tlou Energy announce de-watering has resumed. No sign of any progress, but the mysterious big buy on Friday may mean someone knows something is coming.
3. Six SIPP shares to stay in potential profit. Absolute disaster with POLR:Polar Capital Holdings and FXPO:Ferrexpo still underwater, but PAY:Paypoint joining them. CAML:Cemtral Asia Metals is still at a loss and ITV:ITV is down on spread and commission. It mean APAX:Apax Global Alpha is the only magic formula share in profit! I think it's time to abandon this over-ambitious wish.
4. JLP:Jubilee Metals to announce permission to process platinum rich tailings at DCM. No news but surely it's got to come soon? I'll add to this the wish that they complete the move of the fine chrome plant and start production.
5. OPTI:Optibiotix to get within 10% of profit. This one is so nearly true, with the ISA holding only 10% down. However the SIPP is 14% down so it's not quite true yet - but hopefully will be next week..
6. CAML:Central Asia Metals re-instate their dividend. Progress is being made on the clean up and the fine isn't too big. Fortunately it sounds like the pollution levels are low, and some contaminants are no worse below the leak then they are above it. No sign of the dividend though, which is my main wish as it's worth quite a lot now.
   
7. MMX:Minds + Machines announce their maiden dividend. This was disappointment of the week. Instead of a dividend they announced a tender offer. What's that all about? Buying shares off existing holders at a premium to the current price, but most holders are so far under water that they'd end up with a loss. I'm a bit narked, as this seems like a way of extending their share buy-back, and I'm suspicious that they're not doing any of this for the benefit of shareholders, but a means of getting where they can privatise the company. Why not just give long term shareholders a dividend? I'd need the buy-back price to be 8p to come away with £31 profit, compared to the current bid price of 6p. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't try and walk down the share price so they could buy them cheaper. I'm so miffed with the lack of dividend and mis-trust as to what's going on that I think I'd take the 8p if it was offered and get my next magic formula share target instead.
   

That's it for another week. Feeling better than I have for a while, especially as the portfolio value is tantalisingly close to breaking £100k in value, and although I may regret it long term, it feels great to have banked some profit and to buy another dividend-paying magic formula share.

The fact that 6 of my 13 SIPP shares are magic formula shares means my strategy is playing out. Granted most are at a loss, but in the few months I've held them I've taken £144 in dividends. That's 3.6% of the £4,000 I spent on the 4 dividend-paying shares which is way more interest than I'd get from any savings account. Granted I'm £111 down on current share price, but these are all unpopular shares else they wouldn't be ranked so high on my magic formula list. There's a reason they are all very cheap to buy, but I'm satisfied none of the reasons are long term.

I guess with the potential sale of MMX:Minds + Machines on the cards, I should start following my next magic formula target so I'm ready to strike at short notice. I'd better dust off the spreadsheet...