Week 514 Review - Friday spoils a flat but until then positive week.

It was looking like a fairly flat week, and the first positive week for a while, until Friday ruined it and I ended up dropping another £1,310 and increasing my deficit between cost and value to £134,207 and deficit between injection amount and value is £60,313. Portfolio value dropped to £110,149.

Worst performer was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, dropping 8%. The lack of news is causing a relentless slide.

BEZ:Beazley is one of my newest magic formula shares, but guess what, it dropped 6% this week for no reason whatsoever.

IHP:Integrafin dropped 6% just as they looked like getting back to break-even, and are now down 13%.

IPX:Impax Asset Management had been creeping up, but dropped 5% this week to go 60% down.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy climbed 5% for no reason but are still 72% down.

PSN:Persimmon went up 7% presumably on the back of other builder updates and are only 5% down now.

TRX:Tissue Regenix climbed 7% after one of its products got certification in Europe, but they are still 77% down.

BPM:BP Marsh & Partners zoomed up 10% after positive final results but are still 5% down.

Share of the Week for the 2nd week in a row is AFC:AFC Energy who zoomed up 32% this week, putting my SIPP holding up by 11%. Given I never should have bought this in my SIPP, it may get sold next week.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 46 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£105.99		+£0
Portfolio cost	£113,353.18		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£40,003.48	(-64.7%)	-£1,043.40
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 10 Dividends	£180.12		+£0
Yr 10 Interest	£1.11		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£284.97		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£35.82	(0.5%)	-£0.79
Total Dividends	£12,488.07		+£0
Total Interest	£7.91		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,560.27		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£248.72	(3.5%)	-£0.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	35%		+0%

Very little change other than the £1,043 drop in value.

Yuck

And there we go below the trend line.

The SIPP looks like this after week 498 overall and week 30 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£179.84		-£245.97
Portfolio cost	£130,718.69		+£245.97
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£69,860.55	(-46.6%)	-£267.40
Potential profits	£6,125.64		+£76.26
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,068.15		+£0
Yr 10 Interest	£2.23		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£2,663.45		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£519.55	(7.2%)	-£17.92
Total Dividends	£17,184.80		+£0
Total Interest	£15.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,671.39		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£307.63	(4.3%)	+£9.61
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	41%		+0

I did my monthly investment, buying 7 shares in FOUR:4imprint at 3475p costing £245.97. This portfolio had all the big risers, so fared much better than the ISA with just a £267 drop in value, and a £76 increase in potential profits.

Still looks pretty bad

I think that's touching the trend line rather than below it.

This doesn't look too bad really, trend line is up.

I'm getting increasingly worried about both JLP:Jubilee Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix. JLP are just doing loads of random stuff as if they get bored of one thing so flit to another. Selling a profitable operation for only 75% of its NAV, keeping hold of the Platinum resource that we're never ever going to develop, and still not reporting how much we're making from copper.

Meanwhile OPTI:Optibiotix is showing no progress whatsoever in SweetBiotix or microbiome modulators and has done a placing with what was claimed to be a strategic investor which looks like nothing of the sort.

Most of my portfolio is wrapped up in these 2 companies, and it concerns me greatly that if I wasn't invested already, I wouldn't touch either with a bargepole right now.

Week 513 Review - Optibiotix is my curse and ruins an otherwise OK week.

OPTI:Optibiotix screwed up a reasonable week yet again with a 1.5p drop accounting for all the losses. The deficit between cost and value widened by £1,828 to £132,896 and between injection and value widened to £59,002. Total portfolio value dropped to £111,460, made worse because I withdrew £1,000 from my AJ Bell dealing account.

OPTI:Optibiotix was the worst performer, dropping 11%. My holding is now down by £87,682, which is two thirds of my entire deficit. These are single-handedly ruining my entire portfolio. I'm pretty sick of the broken promises, dreadful spin of mediocre deals, and the fact that currently nobody in their right mind would touch this share with a bargepole. I just keep sitting here hoping Sweetbiotix actually comes to something, else I'll never get to retire as it will take the rest of my life to plug the hole this company has made in my savings.

FDM:FDM Group dropped 8% to go 36% down. This has been a lesson in not buying magic formula shares just because they are near the top of  my ranking spreadsheet, but to check the momentum of the share price. These were dropping when I bought them, and although I think they will bounce back, it's not much use when they are already so far down.

BPM:BP Marsh & Partners dropped 5% after announcing the sale of Sterling Insurance of which it owns 20% to ATC Insurance, of which it owns 25% which rises to 27% as ATC are giving equity to Sterling shareholders as part of the takeover. This seems like a good deal to me, so I don't understand why it resulted in a 5% drop in share price. My holding is now 13% down, but with a P/E ratio of just 5.5 I think this has lots of scope to improve.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy dropped 5% to go 74% down.

TLOU:Tlou Energy dropped 5% to go 37% down, but it seems to swing backwards and forwards by 5% without the price really following any trend. It will take news of power generation to get this moving, which is still some way off.

GAW:Games Workshop went up 5% which is an all-time high and puts my holding up by 73%. They are on a high P/E ratio of 35% so growth is priced in, and a lot depends on the success of the Amazon Warhammer collaboration. If they do drop then I have plenty of a buffer so should be able to retain a profit even if things go horribly wrong.

III:3i Group also went up 5% to take ny holding 166% up. I regret getting spooked by stories of hedge funds shorting the stock, as I sold half my original holding so the 166% is only on an investment of £500. Even at such a high share price, the P/E ratio is still only 8.2, so they could still double from here.

POLR:Polar Capital went up 5% and are now only 20% down, which is a lot better than a few months ago. I think they hold a lot of US tech stock so got hammered more than others by the tariff issues. Their P/E ratio is only 11 so I think I paid a fair price and should at least get back to break even if things stay as they are.

CWR:Ceres Power continue to yo-yo wildly and went up 9% this week, but are still 64% down. Hopefully this time it's the start of a turnaround for hydrogen stocks, as we'll see below.

Share of the Week is my other hydrogen stock AFC:AFC Energy, which went up a magnificent 38% after announcing a deal with a global industrial S&P 500 company to develop ammonia crackers for hydrogen production. Hopefully this deal alone will be enough to move them towards profitability, and hopefully there are more to come.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 45 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£105.99		-£47.03
Portfolio cost	£113,353.18		-£999.29
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,046.88	(-63.8%)	-£856.11
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 10 Dividends	£180.12		+£0
Yr 10 Interest	£1.11		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£284.97		-£42,58
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£36.61	(0.5%)	-£5.40
Total Dividends	£12,488.07		+£0
Total Interest	£7.91		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,560.27		-£42.58
Average monthly cash profit	£249.21	(3.6%)	-£0.88
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	35%		+0%

I needed to sell my WHR:Warehouse REIT shares to pay for my holiday. They were in my dealing account and only ever meant to be a short term holding. I sold my 910 shares at 105.6833p and made a £42.57 (4.7%) loss, but if you take account of the £107 dividends, I was up by 7% overall.  These have dropped out of the top 50 in my magic formula ranking so I won't buy back, and they may still get bought out shortly anyway. I took £1,000 out of the account so the injection amount has reduced.

Portfolio value dropped £856 mostly thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, but a 0.5p drop in PBX:Probiotix Health also contributed. Long term performance was only affected by 88p a month, but Year 10 took a bit of a blow by £5 a month and my return from sales and dividends is only 0.5% with only 7 weeks of Year 10 to go.

Down we go.

Right on the trend line and continuing to follow it down. Not quite the worst it's been for 12 months but not far off.

Not much of an impression made by the tiny loss as this continues to sink gradually.

The SIPP looks like this after week 497 overall and week 29 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£425.81		-£176.14
Portfolio cost	£130,472.52		+£760.36
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£69,881.98	(-46.4%)	-£972.45
Potential profits	£6,049.38		+£175.68
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,068.15		+£63.40
Yr 10 Interest	£2.23		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£2,663.45		+£287.58
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£537.47	(7.5%)	+£32.54
Total Dividends	£17,184.80		+£63.40
Total Interest	£15.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,671.39		+£287.58
Average monthly cash profit	£308.24	(4.3%)	+£2.30
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	41%		+0%

Where to start - an awful lot changed this week. It was triggered by JLP:Jubilee Metals announcing they are planning to sell their entire South African business for $90 million. This is the source of most of their income and removes all diversity from the company. It's also to be paid over 3 years so dependent on the company buying it being capable of paying it off, and it seems to undervalue the business. In my view this massively increases the risk of holding JLP.

With that in mind I sold all the JLP shares from my SIPP that were in profit. It still leaves me with a hell of a lot, but it means I get to re-direct a chunk of funds from high risk to magic formula shares in my SIPP, given that the reason I bought JLP in the first place in the SIPP was because I thought it would make a quick profit, but that's not happened or going to happen.

First I sold part of my AJ Bell holding, selling 56,272 shares at 3.966p making £211.79 (10.4%) profit. This liberated £2,226.75. I checked out my magic formula spreadsheet and picked 2 shares that are in the top 30 ranking and which seem to have some upward momentum in their share price.

The first is BEZ:Beazley. They were founded in 1986 and are a global insurance company. They rank 18th on my magic formula spreadsheet and the share price has been growing steadily for the last 2 years. Their P/E ratio is only 5.4 so there should be plenty more room for growth. They ranked 7th highest for 5-year earnings per share growth and 12th highest for ROI. Dividend is only 2.6% but if the share price goes up then so will that percentage based on my purchase price. I bought 113 shares at 962.2495p costing £1,097.78.

The other new share is RNWH:Renew Holdings who provide engineering services for UK projects. They hold 10 subsidiary companies and operate in rail, infrastructure, energy and environmental sectors. Their share price had been rising steadily until January 2025 when a profit warning from the rail part of the business caused a 22% drop in share price. Since then they have reported a record order book and the share price has recovered much of what was lost in January, but is still 30% off its peak price, although P/E ratio is 15 so it appears the current price is about right. They rank 18th for 5-year earnings per share growth and 23rd for ROI and pay a 2.5% dividend. I bought 157 shares at 822.895p costing £1,296.95.

Next I sold some of my Hargreaves Lansdown JLP:Jubilee Metals shares. I sold 72,363 shares at 3.966p making just £75.79 (2.7%) profit, but liberating £2,857.97.

I decided to invest in existing shares rather than new ones.

First I bought 32 shares in ALPH:Alpha Group International at 3078.6095p costing £1,002.04. That takes my holding to 72 shares. They are currently up by 11% and in discussion about being taken over. I'm hoping if they do get taken over it will be for around £40 a share, which will give me a 43% profit of £866. If they don't get taken over, then they sit 39th in my magic formula rankings so I'll hold until they drop out of the top 50. At a P/E ratio of 15 they are currently fairly priced so I'm hoping they will at least maintain that.

Finally I bought more of my favourite company CAML:Central Asia Metals, as I wanted to keep some of the JLP money in copper, and CAML are on P/E ratio of 5.9 which is ludicrous, especially after the recent announcement that they are buying a new company based in Australia, meaning they are involved in Kazakhstan, Macedonia and Australia. They may have to change their name! I bought 1,311 shares at 163.904p costing £2,160.73. That takes my total SIPP holding to 4,336 shares costing £7,408 which are currently down by £340 which isn't a lot. They are still 13th on my magic formula ranking and pay an eye-watering 10.99% dividend. They've taken a hit to their 5-year earnings per share growth, which is -5% at the moment due to expensive capital works in Macedonia, but they should begin to bear fruit now. I want to get my holding up to £10,000 so will buy more if I get a chance to sell more JLP, and I should be getting another £2,000 transfer in early July I can put into these.

So the upshot is that portfolio cost went up by £760, value dropped by £972 but more like £600 if you take into account banked profit, potential profits are up £175 despite cashing some in, Year 10 performance improved and is now at 7.5% halfway through the year, but long term performance only went up by £2 a month and is still poor at 4.3%. I also received a £63 dividend from FOUR:4imprint and added my £250 monthly savings ready to invest in that company next week.

Similar shape to the ISA

Exactly the same as the ISA, touching the trend line and steadily dropping for almost a year.

Nice to see a slight upturn in the green line, and the trend line is pointing upwards. Surprising given the SIPP is meant to be "hold forever" shares!

All eyes will be on JLP:Jubilee Metals next week. The market hasn't had a chance to digest the sale of the South African business yet. It could be looked on favourably as it gives lots of capital for expansion in Zambia, which is also a much more stable county to operate in. Unfortunately we're not making enough revenue from copper yet to be able to replace the chrome and PGMs in South Africa, so I suspect everything rides on announcing strong copper revenue. We may be treading water until then. The price did sneak up 3% this week which may offer some encouragement.

Week 512 Review - Optibiotix and Jubilee Metals continue to drag me down.

The week started off OK, but then JLP:Jubilee Metals released what I thought was good news confirming copper grade rates, but it tanked the share price, and OPTI:Optibiotix dropped too, so it ended up a miserable week with the deficit between cost and value growing by £2,835 to £131,068 and between injection and value growing to £57,461. Total portfolio value dropped to £113,751.

Biggest loser was my 2nd largest holding JLP:Jubilee Metals, which dropped 12% and I really don't understand why. There was nothing negative in the update - just what we expected. It's taking a hell of a long time for the market to recognise this.

FXPO:Ferrexpo tanked by 10% but tragically at 89% down, I still have to report on it for another week.

AFC:AFC Energy gave up some of the recent gains and dropped 7%. They are 51% down, which isn't bad given where they have been.

I'd already written the intro before going through the performances of each share. To my surprise, this was a much better week than I thought for most of the portfolio.

CAML:Central Asia Metals, FOUR:4imprint and TRY:TR Property Investment all went up 5%.

ALPH:Alpha Group, ASHM:Ashmore Group, GSK:GSK and TLOU:Tlou Energy all went up 6%.

ATYM:Atalaya Mining went up 7% and are only 1% down.

CWR:Ceres Power did the opposite to AFC:AFC Energy and went up 13%.

Share of the Week is PBX:Probiotix Health which went up 15% after decent results.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 44 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£153.02		+£0
Portfolio cost	£114,352.47		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£42,902.28	(-62.5%)	-£1,807.06
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 10 Dividends	£180.12		+£0
Yr 10 Interest	£1.11		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£327.55		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£42.01	(0.6%)	-£0.97
Total Dividends	£12,488.07		+£0
Total Interest	£7.91		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,602.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£250.09	(3.5%)	-£0.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	35%		+0%

Very little happened apart from the huge drop in value.

Almost back down to worst ever.

Touching the trend line and very close to biggest ever losses.

The SIPP looks like this after week 496 overall and week 28 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£601.95		+£65.73
Portfolio cost	£129,712.16		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£70,094.07	(-46.0%)	-£1,028.68
Potential profits	£5,873.70		-£500.17
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,004.75		+£65.73
Yr 10 Interest	£2.23		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£2,375.87		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£504.93	(7.0%)	-£8.15
Total Dividends	£17,121.40		+£65.73
Total Interest	£15.13		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£19,383.81		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£305.94	(4.3%)	-£0.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Compound performance	41%		+0%

I got £27 dividend from ARBB:Arbuthnot Banking, £12 from BPM:BP Marsh, and £25 from UKW:Greencoat UK Wind. Potential profits dropped £500 and value didn't drop as much as the ISA, but it was more than £1,000.

I keep adding more money and it just won't go up.

As with the ISA, touching the trend line and still heading downwards on a very long slow decline.

I've got a holiday to pay for so will be removing cash from my account for the first time in ages, and of course selling for a loss because nothing in the ISA or dealing account is in the black.

I'm just treading water until something happens for JLP:Jubilee Metals. Everything else is either massively in loss or a long-term holding. I need JLP to do something to help me break out of this interminable decline.