Week 533 Review - Possibly the most volatile week ever.

This week saw a big batch of massive risers, mainly amongst the magic formula shares, but also a large batch of  big losers, including my biggest holdings, so the net effect was an increase in the deficit between cost and value of £1,480 leading to a record deficit of £147,236 and a deficit between injection and value of £67,311. Total portfolio value dropped to £112,007.

The biggest loser was TRX:Tissue Regenix who sacked the CEO and suspended the shares after having to re-state their accounts and after a drop of 38% to go 97% down. It's all looking grim, especially as the new chairman has a track record of taking companies private, so this could all be a ploy to drive the share price so low that they can de-list. I'm pretty much resigned to losing my £3,437 investment. Given I'm also about to lose the £2,635 I invested in KIBO:Kibo Energy when it goes bust, my performance is about to get utterly hammered. It's just bad news followed by more bad news...

ALU:Alumasc Group was doing really well, but took a 12% hit this week after a profit warning in the pre-AGM trading statement. Fortunately my holding is still up by £46% so I can afford a bit of a dip.

GGP:Greatland Resources took an 11% hit this week, probably profit taking after gold took a dip. I'll hang on in there as they are still up by 35% in the short time I've held them.

AMRQ:Amaroq dropped 9% which is frustrating, as I've only just bought them and my early potential profits have been wiped out. My reaction to the drop was to buy some more.

JLP:Jubilee Metals are meant to be sorting themselves out now they are specialising in copper, but it appears the market doesn't believe them, and the share price dropped another 9% this week to the lowest for a long, long time. I invested a lot in the belief they were about to break out, but I was wrong. I'm now down by £22,104. No wonder I'm at an all time low.

The other main contributor to my all-time low is OPTI:Optibiotix, which dropped another 8% this week to 8p. This is around the price they originally IPO'd at. There is absolutely no sign of anything positive happening at any point in the near future, so it may get even worse.

FDM:FDM Group dropped 6%, but that was mainly because they went ex-dividend. My holding is down 61% now, so it's one of my worst magic formula shares. Given the decline has been long and steady, I won't be trying to average down. I'll hold what I have for the dividend and hope for a recovery.

AMP:Ampeak Energy fell 5% for no reason, taking my holding to a loss of 74%.

FXPO:Ferrexpo continue to yo-yo and dropped 5% this week to go 89% down.

Amazingly, there were more shares than this lot that had big increases this week, but not enough to counter the JLP and OPTI effect.

GAW:Games Workshop, INVP:Investec, N91:Ninety One and PRU:Prudential all climbed 5% and are all in profit.

RAT:Rathbones and RIO:Rio Tinto both climbed 6% and both went into profit.

CWR:Ceres Power went up another 7% after going into profit last week, and are now 13% up.

IHP:Integrafin, IPX:Impax Asset Management and SCT:Softcat all climbed 7% but IHP is the only one in profit. Having said that, the IPX shares I bought a few weeks ago have gone into profit, but my old holding is 57% down.

FOUR:4imprint and PSN:Persimmon both went up 8% but are losing 23% and 13% respectively.

Share of the week is SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which went up 11%, but I don't have a clue why. There has been no news and there is no sign of news in the near future, but any recovery is most welcome. My SIPP holding is still 56% down, but my biggest holding in the ISA is only down 30%.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 13 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£98.98		+£12.18
Portfolio cost	£116,208.30		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£34,836.29	(-70.0%)	-£1,313.83
Potential profits	£415.32		+£45.97
Yr 11 Dividends	£25.32		+£16.42
Yr 11 Interest	£0.72		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	-£61.90		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	-£19.95	(-0.3%)	+£6.06
Total Dividends	£12,513.39		+£16.42
Total Interest	£9.29		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,498.37		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£239.28	(3.3%)	-£0.35
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I got a £16 dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals but had to pay AJ Bell fees. Although value dropped by a large £1,313, potential profit went up by £45 thanks to the 7% rise in CWR:Ceres Power and 2% in BOKU:Boku. partially offset by the 9% drop in AMRQ:Amaroq.

A very depressing sight.

A new all-time low and below the trend line.

The SIPP looks like this after week 517 overall and week 49 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,192.13		+£113.61
Portfolio cost	£141,745.32		+£511.54
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£75,880.39	(-46.5%)	-£166.86
Potential profits	£7,499.19		+£230.29
Yr 10 Dividends	£2,026.26		+£329.81
Yr 10 Interest	£7.80		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£7,658.57		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£837.73	(10.9%)	+£12.04
Total Dividends	£18,142.91		+£329.81
Total Interest	£20.70		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£24,666.51		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£345.57	(4.5%)	+£2.07

I had a socking £305 dividend from CAML:Central Asia Metals and £24 from KNOS:Kainos Group, which upped my performance for Year 10 enough that I will stay above 10% by the end of the year if I don't sell anything for a loss. I'm very happy with that performance and it's a big green flag for the magic formula approach.

As I had the big dividend and a tax rebate, I added a bit more cash and bought 585 shares in AMRQ:Amaroq at 85.4p costing £511.54. Happy to say that despite the 9% drop in the week, by Friday they had gone up to a bid price of 86p, so the spread has been covered already.

Portfolio value only dropped £166 because the rises in magic formula shares almost cancelled out the drops in JLP:Jubilee Metals and OPTI:Optibiotix, and that also helped potential profits rise by £230.

I'm not as dismayed by this chart as I am with the ISA

This account is not at an all-time low and is only just below the trend line. If it wasn't for JLP and OPTI it would be doing rather well.

Still above the rising trend line.

PAF:Pan African Resources moved from AIM to the Main Market on Friday, but the share price dropped. I'm hoping tracker funds will start to buy them up next week and we'll see another tick up, although the opposite happened with CWR:Ceres Power, so the gold price is likely to have more of an impact on the share value.

Week 532 Review - Another bad weeks takes us close to a record low.

A horrible week, with drops in my biggest holdings and a big slump on Friday across the board. The deficit between cost and value widened by £3,138 to £145,756 and the deficit between injection and value rose to £66,231. Total portfolio value dropped to £112,851.

The biggest faller was my biggest holding OPTI:Optibiotix, which dropped 13% to just 8.7p. There is no hope for any improvement in my portfolios performance unless OPTI can get back close to break-even at 60p, and there's currently no sign of anything that's likely to do that.

BEZ:Beazley fell 6% just after I bought some more, and went from almost going ono profit, to 6% down.

POLR:Polar Capital have had a great run recently, but fell 5% this week. Fortunately both my holdings are still in profit.

FXPO:Ferrexpo climbed 20% as part of their usual yo-yo, and so are only 88% down now, so I have to report on price movements again. They don't warrant Share of the Week consideration though.

GGP:Greatland Resources continued to rise, gaining 5% this week to go 51% up. Unfortunately my other gold miners had much smaller rises this week, despite gold soaring to new heights.

N91:Ninety One went up 5% and are now 12% in profit.

YU.:Yu Group zoomed up 10% this week and are now back to break-even, so hoping for a profitable move next week.

CWR:Ceres Power climbed 15% and are now 5% in profit after being in severe loss just a few weeks ago. Shame I didn't buy any more.

Share of the Week is PBX:Probiotix Health, which went up 17%. I'm still down 66% but hopefully these will get a bit of momentum now. You would think as the biggest shareholder in PBX, OPTI would have responded positively to this, but no.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 12 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£86.80		+£0
Portfolio cost	£116,208.30		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£36,150.12	(-68.9%)	-£1,199.25
Potential profits	£369.35		+£70.46
Yr 11 Dividends	£8.90		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.72		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	-£61.90		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	-£26.01	(-0.4%)	+£2.36
Total Dividends	£12,496.97		+£0
Total Interest	£9.29		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,498.37		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£239.63	(3.3%)	-£0.45
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Big drop in value, but surprisingly a £70 increase in potential profits, with last week's purchase AMRQ:Amaroq climbing 2%, BOKU:Boku dropping 2%, and CWR:Ceres Power leaping 145% to go 5% into profit. After years with £0 potential profit in the ISA, that's a step in the right direction.

Grim

Not quite a record low, but very close to it.

The SIPP looks like this after week 516 overall and week 48 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,078.52		-£34.04
Portfolio cost	£141,233.78		+£762.60
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£75,535.71	(-46.5%)	-£1,939.07
Potential profits	£7,268.90		-£834.67
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,696.45		+£0
Yr 10 Interest	£7.80		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£7,658.57		+£717.62
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£825.69	(10.8%)	+£48.60
Total Dividends	£17,813.10		+£0
Total Interest	£20.70		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£24,666.51		+£717.62
Average monthly cash profit	£343.50	(4.5%)	+£5.38

I decided to spread the risk of my gold holding and also cash in some profit, so I sold 1,200 shares in PAF:Pan African Resources at 92.2839p making £717.62 (184.1%) profit. I used that to buy 1,229 shares in AMRQ:Amaroq at 90.85p costing £1,128.50. I'm happy to say they ended the week at 94p and are £14 in profit, whereas PAF dropped to 90.3p so my timing was better than usual. AMRQ isn't strictly a share I should be buying in the SIPP as it pays no dividend, but I'm confident they will start paying one fairly soon if production continues to increase.

Given I took out some profit, the potential profit effectively fell by £117 on top of that. The portfolio dropped a big £1,939, but year 10 performance is looking really good. Even if I sell nothing else in the next 4 weeks, I will end up making 9.9%. It's just a shame that previous years were so bad so the long term average is still only 4.5%. It is however difficult to maintain that performance given I'm adding so much cash to the portfolio each year.

This chart doesn't look too bad.

This chart looks much worse, and like the ISA we're very close to a record low. As I've mentioned before, this is all down to a very small number of companies spoiling the picture for the ones that are doing well.

The only chart I like to look at.

I'm expecting some big dividends next week, with CAML:Central Asia Metals and KNOS:Kainos Group paying out. I'm not expecting any other news, and have a feeling that if there is anything, it won't be good. A similar drop to this week would put me at an all-time low, so the painful decline which has been going on for around 2 years is showing no sign of letting up.

Week 531 Review - Dreadful week reversing all last week's gains.

This was already a fairly bad week, but then Friday afternoon took a turn for the much worse, and everything dropped like a brick. The result was a widening in the deficit between cost and value of £3,467 to £142,620 and an increase in the deficit between injection and value to £64,065. Portfolio value dropped to £115,017 despite injecting £2,200.

Worst performer was my 2nd biggest holding JLP:Jubilee Metals, which dropped 11% after an update that said virtually nothing other than sowing doubt and delays. This isn't going anywhere in a hurry.

TLOU:Tlou Energy did it's usual 10% bounce down on no news.

AFC:AFC Energy dropped 8% after a recent decent run and has slipped to 39% down now.

FXPO:Ferrexpo dropped 8% and are 90% down, so at least this is the last time I'll need to report on them for a while. It appears the Ukrainian government is doing significantly more harm to them than the Russian government, withholding vast VAT refunds and blaming the behaviour of an ex-director.

IPX:Impax Asset Management dropped 7%, which was quite vexing as I bought some more this week. My main holding is 60% down and even my new holding is 6% down already.

CKN:Clarkson was in profit, but the 5% drop this week took it to a 4% loss.

FOUR:4imprint, IES:Invinity Energy, OPTI:Optibiotix and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics also fell 5%, with OPTI by far my biggest holding contributing over £1,000 of this week's losses.

AMP:Ampeak Energy went up 5% this week, although they are still 71% down and I have little hope of recovery.

CWR:Ceres Power continued their good run, with a 6% rise taking them to only 9% down now.

POLR:Polar Capital have also been on a great run, climbing another 6% to go 13% and 16% up, and they have a gigantic dividend.

BOKU:Boku climbed 7% and are now 21% up after quite a short period in my portfolio. The new AIM magic formula may be working!

My brand new AIM gold miner AMRQ:Amaroq climbed 10% to go 9% up in the first week I've owned them.

My relatively new gold miner GGP:Greatland Resources also climbed 10% to go 44% up in just a few weeks.

Share of the Week is my ASX listed gold miner CORE:Solidcore Resources, which went up 13%, but is still 73% down and I struggle to see how it will ever get back to break-even. I guess my best hope is that it lists back in the UK and I buy more to average down.

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

			Weekly Change
Cash	£86.80		-£1,023.50
Portfolio cost	£116,208.30		+£1,329.35
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£37,349.37	(-67.9%)	-£2,168.57
Potential profits	£298.89		+£170.29
Yr 11 Dividends	£8.90		+£8.90
Yr 11 Interest	£0.72		+£0.72
Yr 11 Profit from sales	-£61.90		+£0
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	-£28.37	(-0.4%)	+£5.37
Total Dividends	£12,496.97		+£8.90
Total Interest	£9.29		+£0.72
Total Profit from sales	£17,498.37		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£240.08	(3.3%)	-£0.40
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I transferred the £950 from my dealing account to my ISA so I could buy AMRQ:Amaroq after being impressed with their gold resources in Greenland and their recent price drop seemed an opportunity. I bought 1,218 shares at 83.7p costing £1,024.47 and within a few days they went up to 92p, a very rare example of good timing.

I also added some more cash to my ISA so I could buy £300 worth of IES:Invinity Energy as I discussed last week. I bought 1,428 at 21p costing £304.88 which brought my weighted average down from 161.9p to 71.6p where I think there's a much better chance of at least breaking even if they don't go bust.

Potential profits went up £170 as both my profitable companies did well. Not often I've been able to report that in the ISA!

I got an £8 dividend from CAPD:Capital.

I think I asked last week how long it would last, and the answer was not very long.

Below the trend line and almost below the bottom of the chart.

The SIPP looks like this after week 515 overall and week 47 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,112.56		-£786.19
Portfolio cost	£140,471.18		+£3,001.13
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£76,712.18	(-45.4%)	-£1,297.14
Potential profits	£8,103.57		+£327.77
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,696.45		+£32.16
Yr 10 Interest	£7.80		+£3.80
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£6,940.95		-£7.36
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£777.09	(10.1%)	-£15.77
Total Dividends	£17,813.10		+£32.16
Total Interest	£20.70		+£3.80
Total Profit from sales	£23,948.89		-£7.36
Average monthly cash profit	£338.12	(4.4%)	-£0.56

My pension contribution came through, and I also did my monthly investment so a lot happened.

I did exactly as I planned and bought another 22 shares in RIO:Rio Tinto at 4949.8799p costing £1,106.36 and I bought 810 shares in JHD:James Halstead at 141.9p costing £1,161.34. Both stayed pretty much level over the week and both are only 2% away from being in profit.

I decided to sell GSK:GSK as they are way down my magic formula ranking and I've had £50 dividends from them, so selling my 65 shares at 1636.7711p and making a £7.36 (0.5%) loss was acceptable given my net gain was 4% with the dividends. Selling them meant I could buy 568 shares in IPX:Impax Asset Management, more than doubling my holding. I bought 568 shares for 186.45p costing £1,070.99. That reduced my weighted average price from 441.6p to 299.4p. Given I don't expect these to go bust and feel they have dropped way more than they should, I'm hoping this was a good plan.

I bought three lots of monthly savings shares. 26 shares in BEA:Beazley at 930.7p costing £244.69, 13 shares in RAT:Rathbones at 1860.1377p costing £244.53 and 7 shares in FOUR:4imprint at 3241.4806p costing £229.53. I'll keep these same three next month, after which I'll switch out FOUR for something else.

Potential profit went up £327 despite drops over most of the portfolio, and I got £11 dividend from PAGE:Pagegroup, £10 from CAPD:Capital and £10 from GSK:GSK.

The green line hides what was really going on as cash was injected.

On the trend line rather than below it, so it could be worse, and probably will be next week.

Looks like I won't be above this trend line for much longer

No thoughts this week as I exhausted myself last week, and the hoped-for update from JLP:Jubilee Metals had the opposite affect to what was desired, so misery continues. Gold provides a glimmer of hope, at least until that starts dropping too.

Week 530 Review - A great week for most of my portfolio and lots of SIPP shares gong into profit.

Apart from a small number of exceptions, this was a really good week. Despite OPTI:Optibiotix remaining flat, the other shares narrowed the deficit between cost and value by £3,094 to £138,152 and the deficit between injection and value reduced to £60,377. Total portfolio value increased to £116,205.

Worst performer was one of the worst performances ever, with TRX:Tissue Regenix losing 50% of their value following interim results. Normally you expect a drop on poor results, but not 50%, as they weren't that poor. I suspect epic amounts of shorting has made things worse. I'm not enough of a gambler to buy any though. I can only hope they make enough to stay afloat as I'm 94% down. A cheap buy-out would leave me with around £3k of loss. The only good news is that now they are down over 90% I don't have to report on price movements any more.

IES:Invinity Energy fell 11% after their results, which was a surprise because they weren't bad. That took my holding to 88% down, and does make me ponder - for only £300 I could more than half my average cost per share. That might be worth the risk if I believe they are not going out of business. I may do that on Monday.

PBX:Probiotix Health drifted down another 8% on no news to go 71% down.

ARBB:Arbuthnot Banking fell 5% for no reason whatsoever.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics fell 5% for the same reason as PBX - absolutely no news for ages and investors getting bored.

AMP:Ampeak Energy, ASHM:Ashmore Group, FDM:FDM Group, FSV:Fidelity Special Values and PAF:Pan African Resources all went up 5% this week. That was enough to take FSV into profit by 4% and enough to take PAF to 196% up, just 4% short of a 2-bagger.

IHP:Integrafin went up 6% which was enough to take them back into profit by 2%.

FOUR:4imprint rose 7% but are still 25% down. I have added them to my monthly investment list to get a few more at this discount price.

KNOS:Kainos Group went up 7% and that was enough to take them 5% into profit in a week when SIPP magic formula shares going into profit was a bit of a theme.

JLP:Jubilee Metals climbed 8% and I desperately hope this is the start of a gradual increase, as I have rather a lot in my SIPP I want to dispose of so I can buy more dividend-paying shares.

GSK:GSK went up 9% and are only 1% down. At one point they were in profit and I almost sold, but given I've not had much dividend from them, I'll hang on a bit longer in the hope of a better profit. They are certainly way down my magic formula ranking so I shouldn't be keeping them.

TLOU:Tlou Energy went up 11%, but that's just part of their usual wild swings.

POLR:Polar Capital have soared recently, and are up 14% this week. That takes one of my holdings to 6% in profit and the other to 9%. Given this also pays a 10% dividend I'm very happy I recently doubled my holding.

RNWH:Renew Holdings also went up 14% this week after a very positive end of year trading update, and are now 11% in profit.

Share of the Week was last week's biggest faller and the week before's Share of the Week, CWR:Ceres Power. They went up an absolutely massive 47% this week, so my holding is now only 14% down. I may get back to break even at this rate. I wish some of my other foundering shares could do the same thing.

Here's the ISA and shares portfolio after week 10 of year 11.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,110.30		+£1,037.22
Portfolio cost	£114,878.95		-£999.12
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£38,188.59	(-66.8%)	+£1,242.21
Potential profits	£128.60		+£0
Yr 11 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 11 Interest	£0.02		+£0
Yr 11 Profit from sales	-£61.90		-£61.90
Yr 11 proj avg monthly profit	-£33.74	(-0.5%)	-£26.05
Total Dividends	£12,488.07		+£0
Total Interest	£8.57		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£17,498.37		-£61.90
Average monthly cash profit	£240.48	(3.3%)	-£0.96
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

I sold my last holding in CAPD:Capital as I really want to transfer the cash to my ISA and add AMRQ:Amaroq to my portfolio. I sold my 917 shares at 102.75p making £61.90 (6.2%) loss, but I've had £65 dividends and more coming next week, so altogether they will be slightly up. I wanted to take advantage of a recent dip in AMRQ so just hoping they don't sky rocket before I can transfer the cash on Tuesday on settlement date.

The loss didn't have much impact on long term performance, and portfolio value went up by £1,242, not including the £937 I removed from it.

The chart is smaller this week, as I created it on my laptop so the usual size is too big to fit. A nice tick up but a vast gulf between value and injection line.

At least we're touching the trend line now.

You can't notice the loss dropping things much faster.

The SIPP looks like this after week 514 overall and week 46 of year 10.

			Weekly Change
Cash	£1,898.75		+£256.05
Portfolio cost	£137,470.05		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£75,008.19	(-45.4%)	+£1,852.55
Potential profits	£7,775.80		+£975.60
Yr 10 Dividends	£1,664.29		+£6.05
Yr 10 Interest	£4.00		+£0
Yr 10 Profit from sales	£6,948.31		+£0
Yr 10 proj avg monthly profit	£792.86	(10.6%)	-£17.04
Total Dividends	£17,780.94		+£6.05
Total Interest	£16.90		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£23,956.25		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£338.68	(4.5%)	-£0.61

My £250 regular saving was added to cash, as was my £6 dividend from GAW:Games Workshop. Potential profits went up a massive £975 with lots of companies contributing, as 13 of my SIPP holdings are in profit and 2 within 1% of being profitable. That's the most I've ever had, and suggests the magic formula may be working.

That's not a very big gap between value and injection. I dream of crossing that line one day.

Just above the trend line - huzzah!

Still above the trend line.

An excellent week, and it feels like a long time since I've had two positive weeks in a row. The big question is how long will it last?

I'm expecting my pension transfer to come in early next week, which will give me another £2,200. As it's in my HL account I probably won't put it aside for regular monthly saving like I do with my AJ Bell account, so I need to work out what to buy. I think half of it will be RIO:Rio Tinto as they are 25th in my magic formula ranking and have exposure to copper which I'm hoping will continue to rise in price. The other half will probably go on JHD:James Halstead as it's 11th in my ranking and pays a 6% dividend. They spiked up after the results but have dropped again. I think they are going to be a low growth company as 5-year earnings per share growth is only 1.87%, but they have 19% ROI and only 3.4% debt to equity and earn enough each year to easily pay the dividend.