Week 390 Review - Probiotix shares collapse 57% when lock-in ends losing £12k in portfolio value

This would have been a relatively flat week, but the big sell-off started as people started getting access to their free PBX:Probiotix shares. My decision to take a small loss and sell for 20p a few weeks ago was vindicated as the price slumped to 8p, more than halving the value of my dividend holding which I'm still not free to sell. I won't be selling - I'll be buying, but only after the price crashes even more as the main brokers make the shares available.

My deficit between cost and value widened by a massive £12,786 to a record £128,253, with portfolio value at £68,306. I'm not worried about this drop though, as it was entirely predictable and will hopefully just be a short-lived buying opportunity, and I have plenty of ammo waiting for the right moment.

PBX:Probiotix Health dropped 57% in a week - pretty spectacular, and given my holding was worth £20k explains most of the drop this week.

POLY:Polymetal dropped 9% of my original purchase price, but more like 40% from its price last week after fears that they will be screwed out of their Russian assets, and worry about them domiciling in Kazakhstan. I'm stuck with these as they've dropped so much, so resigned to whatever fate befalls them.

A couple of my new purchases dropped more than 5%, but that's mainly due to spread and commission. They did fall in price too. SHG:Shanta Gold dropped 9% and CAPD:Capital dropped 6%, but it's early days for these.

NUM:Numis Corp has been recovering lately, but dropped 6% this week. This is the share I should have sold when they went past my 15% threshold, but I missed the chance and now they are 26% down so I won't sell. Hoping for a recovery though.

BLU:Blue Star Capital climbed 8% on no news, so I suspect something must be going on that we don't know about. I don't really care what happens with these as it's a tiny investment.

Share of the week is III:3i Group which climbed 11%. The only problem is these are my monthly savings shares and I only have £250 of them so far, so the 11% was about £27.

I've done away with the cumulative chart, as I figure it's so similar to the others I may as well not show it. I've also combined the share listing for the ISA and share accounts in the right column as they're in the same spreadsheet and chart, and I added a load of cash into my new AJ Bell account while I wait until April when I can transfer it to an ISA.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 26 of year 8.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£4,037.00		+£4,007.77
Portfolio cost	£90,161.49		+£4,992.23
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£27,135.50	(-69.9%)	-£6,406.60
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 8 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 8 Interest	£0.09		+£0
Yr 8 Profit from sales	-£995.63		+£0
Yr 8 projected avg monthly profit	-£169.05	(-3.6%)	+£6.75
Total Dividends	£11,768.92		+£0
Total Interest	£0.09		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£27,098.43		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£428.02	(9.1%)	-£1.10
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	68%		-13%

I added loads of cash from my pension lump sum, almost £5,000 of which went on shares and the rest is ammo for PBX:Probiotix bargains, although not all of it.

Portfolio value dropped by £6,406 almost entirely because of PBX:Probiotix, and long term performance dropped by over 1% due to the big increase in injection amount.

The first new share I bought was ASHM:Ashmore Group. I held them in the past but sold due to concerns over their exposure to Evergrande. That seems to have blown over now China has lifted Covid restrictions so I bought back in. I got 364 shares at 270.301p costing £998.77 with commission and stamp duty. They dropped 1p so are down by 3% with spread and commission.

The next new share was WHR:Warehouse REIT which has been near the top of my magic formula ranking for a while. I bought 910 shares at 108.1783p costing £999.29. They rose to 108.6p but are down 2% on commission.

The next new share was PAGE:Page Group, which again are high on my magic formula ranking. They are a recruitment agency so seem to be out of favour due to possibility of recession, but it seems to me we have a workforce shortage, so their services are likely to still be in demand. I bought 217 shares at 452.32p costing £996.39. They dropped slightly to 449.8p so are down 3%.

The next new share wasn't originally on my magic formula spreadsheet, but I read an article about them and they looked interesting. When I added them to the spreadsheet they came in the top 30 so qualify as a magic formula share. They are CAPD:Capital and provide contract services in a range of industries. I bought 917 shares at 107.87p costing £999,12. They dropped to 103p so are down 6% when you include commission.

The final share was an old favourite. Not a magic formula share, but one I've kept an eye on since owning them a few years ago. CWR:Ceres Power are still loss-making, but they should be signing a joint venture in China very soon which should see them generate a lot more revenue. I've made £1,500 profit from previous holdings so thought they were worth a bit of risk. I bought 238 shares at 415.425p costing £998.66. They rose to 423.6p but are still just down by 44p due to commission.

So quite an exciting week for new purchases, and a hope that this account may finally get to register some profitable shares soon.

Big up-tick in cost and injection lines, but much lower up-tick in value.

That says it all, with a plummet back below the trend line.

The SIPP looks like this after week 374 overall and week 10 of year 8.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£130.52		+£0
Portfolio cost	£99,361.09		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£35,480.53	(-64.3%)	-£6,303.47
Potential profits	£1,114.98		+£104.40
Yr 8 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 8 Interest	£0.33		+£0
Yr 8 Profit from sales	-£67.32		+£0
Yr 8 projected avg monthly profit	-£39.09	(-0.8%)	+£4.35
Total Dividends	£14,142.78		+£0
Total Interest	£0.58		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,366.43		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£388.03	(7.8%)	-£1.04
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	56%		+0%

Very little happened apart from the PBX:Probiotix crash, and most of last week's reduction in potential profit was clawed back. IGG:IG Group are getting perilously close to the 15% loss when I should sell them, down by 11%. They have been down way below 15% in the past and come back almost to profit, but are not performing very well. Having said that, the dividend has been very good returning 9% altogether in the 2 years I've held them.

New record low

Back below the trend line as we spiral ever lower. This is all down to microbiome shares. If they don't turn around soon I'm doomed. I'm convinced they will turn around, but I've been known to be wrong.

The trading account looks like this after week 340 overall and week 28 of year 7.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£20.31		+£10.21
Portfolio cost	£2,849.00		+£999.79
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,502.15	(-47.3%)	-£76.25
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 7 Dividends	£0.00		+£0
Year 7 Interests	£0.01		+£0
Year 7 Profit	-£71.73		+£0
Yr 7 projected avg monthly profit	-£11.10	(-4.7%)	+£0.41
Dividends	£60.10		+£0
Interest	£0.01		+£0
Profit from sales	£154.87		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.74	(1.2%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I added £1,000 injection to try and kick start the account, as it's all gone horribly wrong. The shares promptly lost £76 so it continues to go horribly wrong.

I bought 3948 shares in JLP:Jubilee Metals at 12.41p because I was convinced they'd go up as soon as the warrant seller stopped. I was wrong, although offer price is now above what I paid, but with wide spread they are down 5%.

I also bought 4145 shares in SHG:Shanta Gold which is another of my old holdings and one I expected to go up as the price of gold goes up, but the share price dropped and there's a wide spread, so they are already down 9%.

The problem with only spending £500 is the commission takes up 4%, so when there's a big spread it takes a lot of effort to make that up. I may have to re-think and switch to £1,000 as minimum investment, although on past performance that would just help me lose twice as much money.

Everybody up!

The real truth - dropping for 6 months and below the trend line. Will it turn around with the new blood?

It feels like a bit of a fresh start having injected loads of new money and bought more magic formula shares. I still have £4k to spend in my new share account, at least £2k of which will be PBX:Probiotix, and I also have £2k more coming from my work pension transfer. I'm very tempted to use that to buy more CAML:Central Asia Metals, as they have paid off all their debt, so unless they have another acquisition in mind, they may have to dish some of it out to shareholders. It's quite revealing that there's no longer even the slightest temptation to buy any more OPTI:Optibiotix!