Week 343 Review - The worst week ever

I hoped things had got as bad as they were going to get, but last week saw the biggest single week drop since I started investing. The deficit between cost and value widened by an eye-watering £19,919 to £86,199 which is significantly more than the £72,630 value of my portfolio, having now lost more than half its value.

Not surprisingly POLY:Polymetal was the worst casualty with fear of sanctions against their Russian mines. They dropped 42% in my ISA and 36% in my SIPP and are 90% down on my purchase price. So much for a "safe" FTSE gold company!

OPTI:Optibiotix had a catastrophic 10p drop which is 16% and contributed £17,500 of the losses. I'm in a state of shock that they could have dropped so far when progress is so positive. Typically I bought a load more with my pension transfer just before the drop, so those are already 10% down.

ASHM:Ashmore Group fell 12%. I'm not sure how much they have tied up in Russia. I thought they specialised in emerging markets, but these are already 23% down after owning them just a few months.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics was in profit a few weeks ago but fell another 10% this week to go 13% down. News from Croda about partner uptake of the lysate would be most welcome now.

I invested part of my pension transfer in CAML:Central Asia Metals and it immediately dropped 9% which just about sums up the week.

BLU:Blue Star Capital fell 8% but has been massively volatile for a while now.

FXPO:Ferrexpo operates out of Ukraine and dropped another 8% to go 75% down.

PLUS:Plus500 should be benefitting from the volatility of the stock market but still dropped 6% and is now 18% down when it looked like going into profit was imminent.

IGG:IG Group also dropped 5% despite potentially benefitting from stock market volatility.

IES:Invinity Energy dropped 5% after the contract news excitement died down.

A few slivers of hope in the gold sector, with iShares Physical Gold fund climbing 6% to go 10% up. I think I need to switch my monthly subscription to something else while the price of gold is so high as I don't want to be buying now.

Share of the week is CEY:Centamin, which took advantage of the high price of gold and climbed 7%, but they are still 12% down so I can't make a profit even at these gold prices!

Picture says it all really

Desperate

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 31 of year 7.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£25.80		-£3.75
Portfolio cost	£72,195.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£31,895.22	(-55.8%)	-£9,839.51
Potential profits	£2,215.29		+£0
Yr 7 Dividends	£22.16		+£0
Yr 7 Profit from sales	£3,664.29		+£0
Yr 7 projected avg monthly profit	£511.64	(13.9%)	-£17.60
Total Dividends	£1,365.31		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£27,788.23		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£364.43	(9.9%)	-£1.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	65%		+0%

Nothing to say other than massive losses all round. Cash down from monthly ISA fee and JLP:Jubilee Metals stayed flat despite rising precious metals prices and so no change to potential profit.

So bad I had to extend the Y axis downwards by £10,000.

May as well just forget the trend line. I was following it quite closely, now all bets are off.

The SIPP looks like this after week 327 overall and week 15 of year 7.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£89.57		-£243.98
Portfolio cost	£83,886.77		+£2,443.59
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£39,637.46	(-52.7%)	-£10,029.07
Potential profits	£52.96		-£2.51
Yr 7 Dividends	£96.57		+£15.03
Yr 7 Interest	£0		+£0
Yr 7 Profit from sales	£526.22		+£0
Yr 7 projected avg monthly profit	£160.87	(3.7%)	-£11.61
Total Dividends	£3,300.96		+£15.03
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£24,250.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£353.34	(8.1%)	-£1.09
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	51%		-2%

The pension transfer came through so I did as I originally intended and invested in CAML:Central Asia Metals. I bought 476 shares at 230.6975p costing £1,110.07 and they promptly dropped 10%.

I was intending re-investing in PAF:Pan African Resources but not at the current price, so in time honoured fashion I bought another 3,910 shares in OPTI:Optibiotix at 33.7998p costing £1,333.52 and they promptly dropped to 29p. The purchase reduced my weighted average in the SIPP to 58.4p so hopefully brings the day I go into profit a little bit closer.

IGG:IG Group paid out a £15 dividend which covered the monthly fees and potential profits stayed about flat ay £52 as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics went into loss but iShares Physical Gold went up a bit.

A familiar story

Where will we go next?

The trading account looks like this after week 293 overall and week 33 of year 6.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£259.74		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,374.14		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£723.69	(-69.5%)	-£50.52
Potential profits	£0.00		+£0
Year 6 Dividends	£0.00		+£0
Year 6 Profit	£0.00		+£0
Yr 6 projected avg monthly profit	£0.00	(0%)	+£0
Dividends	£60.10		+£0
Profit from sales	£937.88		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£14.76	(7.5%)	-£0.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Back to the big drops just as things seemed to be turning around.

Looks like an all time low

At least this account is following the trend line instead of lunging beneath it.

A year of misery has just been topped off with a week of absolute hell. I'm beyond bothered. There will either be a big recovery or there won't. Any early retirement plans are well and truly on hold.