Week 49 Review

A very mixed week, with some big risers but also some big fallers. Things have also been complicated with some sales and purchases.

The percentage gains and losses have been screwed up a bit this week, as I have changed the way I calculate them so they reflect the true sell value including commission. Before they were based on the current share sell price divided by the share price paid. Now they are the total sale value including commission divided by the total cost including stamp duty and commission. It means a few of the decreases will be slightly exaggerated, and some of the increases would have been higher under the old system. It should sort itself out next week.

Biggest loser this week was PAF:Pan African Resources which dropped by 21% as the price of gold slipped a bit. It's still making £345 profit, and I'm still keeping for the massive dividend. Next biggest loser was CWR:Ceres Power Holdings losing around 13%. Hopefully this is just a blip, and I think has been exaggerated by the new percentage system. It's making £757 profit in the SIPP but £89 loss in the ISA.

KIBO:Kibo Mining dropped 12% but is doing really well making £293 profit, and I'm convinced is due to take off big time in the next few weeks. SLP:Sylvania Platinum dropped 12% which is very frustrating as I've added more recently and am down £117 so far. Final double digit loser was AVM:Avocet Mining, down 10% and most frustrating as this is the one I need to sell before September to pay for my holiday.

Now for the good news. DOTD:DotDigital climbed 9% which probably would have registered 10% under the old way of calculating the rise. I wanted to mention them as they posted a terrific trading statement and I hope will wipe out my £141 loss next week.

NTBR:Northern Bear also climbed 10% after great results but is still down £34. I'm confident this will also get back to a sensible price soon. CAML:Central Asia Metals continued it's dramatic recovery, rising 11%  and going £306 in profit. IKA:Ilika posted a trading statement showing a loss, but sentiment seems to be swinging in its favour and analysts are talking it up, so it ended up rising 13% this week but is still losing £47. TRX:Tissue Regenix also soared, this time by 14% after positive news about its products. That's now making £164 profit.

Share of the week was nearly my nemesis share AFG:Aquatic Food, which rose 20%. On one day it rose a massive 69% but this eased back a bit, and the increase was reduced when I bought more shares and added more cost and commission. I'd been wanting to buy more of these for a few months, but was concerned at lack of trades and interest, but the last few weeks have seen a marked upturn in buys and sells, and the dividend ex-date is approaching. The big question is whether I dare buy any more. It's a shit or bust share. Either losing absolutely everything with a de-list or making loads as a P/E ratio of 0.87 is just plain silly.

The actual Share of the week prize goes to HGM:Highland Gold which was already over 100% up from when I bought it, but this week climbed another 38% to a staggering £1,504 profit on a £1,078 investment. Completely spiffing!

The main portfolio now looks like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£38,593.43		+£236.91
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£33,606.55	(-12.9%)	+£336.93
Potential profits	£2,202.40		-£389.29
Dividends	£667.93		+£97.48
Profit from sales	£3,794.59		+£209.51
Average monthly cash profit	£389.64		+£19.60
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.1%

Cost went up after I sold RCI:Rapidcloud International and TON:Titon Holdings and re-invested the profits. This hammered the potential profits, which also went down by another £100. However, some of the losses were reduced meaning the sell value was up by £336.

Quite a few dividends this week, with WLG:Wireless Group paying £24.48, TW.:Taylor Wimpey paying £55.20 and SSY:Scisys paying £17.80, altogether adding £97.48 to the dividends so far. The profits from sales went up by £209.51 too, so projected average monthly profit went up by £19.60 to a healthy 12.1% of the portfolio value. Tragically the portfolio is down by 12.9% on the cost price, so I have just 3 weeks to shake off some of the Brexit losses to get to break even by the end of Year 1.

The graph is moving in the right direction. I just need the green line to stay on a steeper trajectory than the red line for the next 3 weeks at least.

The SIPP looks like this at week 33

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£12,741.68		+£159.37
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£14,735.97	(+15.7%)	+£1,135.69
Potential profits	£2,667.89		+£734.06
Dividends	£262.15		+£3.60
Profit from sales	£766.55		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£131.71		-£3.63
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.4%

The portfolio cost went up following my regular monthly investment. This has now switched from JLG:John Laing Group to LGEN:Legal & General. The sell value has gone completely bonkers, rising £1,135 in just a week. Staggering! This was mostly down to HGM:Highland Gold climbing 38% and CAML:Central Asia Metals rising 11%. That accounts for most of the rise in profits. There have also been narrowing of losses across the rest of the portfolio.

One tiny dividend from JLG:John Laing Group of £3.60 wasn't enough to stop a fall in the average monthly profits, as they dropped by £3.63. It's still over 12% and the portfolio is up by 15.7% on cost price, so doing very well indeed.

Just look at that graph fly! Lets hope this can keep up the momentum.

Not sure what next week holds. News is expected from KIBO:Kibo Mining about the gold mine joint venture, there is hope SLP:Sylvania Platinum will give a positive trading statement soon, JLP:Jubilee Platinum may have sorted out a deal to process the platinum tailings and generate some cash, IOG:Independent Oil & Gas should start drilling, and who knows what other excitement and surprises await. It's all so exhilarating!

Some Consolidation and a new "Woohoo!"

I sold two of my long-standing shares this morning in an effort to consolidate some of my existing shares that appear on the verge of something interesting.

First I sold RCI:Rapidcloud International. This is a Malaysian cloud computing company, and at one point was one of my biggest losing shares. Within a week it went into profit, but since then has dropped back. I think it has lots of potential, and will keep it on my watch list for a future re-entry. However, I wanted to cash in the £118.50 (11.4%) profit and liberate £1,113.

The second share to go was TON:Titon Holdings. I had already sold half my shares for £178 (19.6%) profit, but a recent luke-warm trading statement has seen them drop off, and they are struggling to get going again. I sold this batch for a much lower £91 (8.3%) profit to liberate £1,266.

So, with a great big pot of cash I could go shopping!

I wanted to consolidate three of my existing shares and buy one new one.

The first consolidation was TLOU:Tlou Energy. I've not had them long and they have gone bonkers. They are a Botswanan gas company with an incredibly experienced board of directors and backing from the Botswanan government. Recent news that they have been given the go ahead to build a power station five times the size of the one originally planned, as well as supplying power to a local mine suggests this has a long way to go from the current 7p. I bought 7,000 shares at 7.245p costing £516.10. This brings my total holding to 19,767 shares costing an average of 5.21p at a total of £1,048.50. These are currently making a £273 (26%) profit.

The second consolidation was my nemesis share. Recent movement in AFG:Aquatic Food and the approaching dividend ex-date made me want to try and buy low to reduce my losses - or should I say speed up getting into profit. It worked for GLEN:Glencore so I'm hoping it will work here too. I bought 3,500 shares at 14.499p costing £516.42. This more than doubled my holding to 6,500 shares at a weighted average of 23.96p as opposed to the 35p from my original purchase. The total cost of these shares is £1,578.37 but tragically they are down by 60% and losing £940. At a P/E ratio of 0.9, based on current profits I believe a fair price would be 395p a share. This is unlikely, but it would make me £24,000 profit! It's a risk I'm willing to take.

My final consolidation is AMYT:Amryt Pharma. I'm completely non-plussed as to why this has dropped from the reverse takeover price of 24p to the current price of 15p. It's managed by pharma royalty. Harry Stratford built SHP:Shire Pharma based on exactly the same model he's employing here, and has brought in staff from Shire to help. They have a product in market already and are about to start clinical trials for using the same product to treat a rare disease. Other products are in the pipeline, and the revenues from these will allow the development of more products and the acquisition of more companies. I bought another 5,579 shares at 14.7p coating £829.06. This brings my total holding to 20,863 at an average price of 18.34p costing £3,870.88. It's about 8% of my entire portfolio. If it goes up to just £1 a share it will give me £16,980 profit. If it goes to the same price as Shire, it will yield over £1,000,000 profit - Mwoohahahahaha!! Of course that's not going to happen, but anywhere in between would be nice.

My final purchase was a new share. I was researching companies beginning with the letter i when I found IOG:Independent Oil & Gas. Their fundamentals were very strong, especially considering the current sentiment against oil and gas. They are a North Sea oil company and are about to drill a well, but there have been delays and the price has been dropping as a result. Their share price is almost the same as their net asset value per share, they have a ROCE of 38%, low market to book value, P/E value of 2.06, tiny amount of debt and I believe a potential 450% share price rise. It's high risk , as drilling could go horribly wrong, but I bought 3,500 shares at 15.325p costing £545.33. I'll now watch these closely and consider doubling my holding if things look good.

Meanwhile things have levelled off a bit for the portfolio. GVC:GVC Holdings is soaring majestically towards premium listing on 1st August and soon after FTSE250 status. Shares went up 4% today and are up by 53% from when I bought them. CAML:Central Asial Metals is also on a roll, gong from an undeserved £250 loss a few weeks ago to £302 profit today. HGM:Highland Gold just won't stop. It's now up 133% from when I bought it and making £1,434 profit. That's contributing towards my whole pension portfolio being up £2,244 (16%) on top of the £1,025 (12.8%) from dividends and sales.

I wish I could say the same for the main portfolio, which is still recovering from the Brexit disaster. That's down by £4,857 (12.6%) on paper, although up on dividends and sales by £4,155 (12.1%). It won't take very much more post-Brexit recovery to plug that £700 deficit and get back into overall profit for the first year.

I nearly forgot - adding up the total amount invested now comes to £51,334 so I've passed another £1,000 and can do another "Woohoo!". The great news is that when I sell the shares to pay for my holiday, if I extract £1,000 from the share account I'll still be over my dream target of £50,000. That would be a great way to end my first year.

What a Day!

Today has been incredible. There's not been one day like it since I started this lark almost a year ago. After the misery and depression of Brexit comes hope as £1,300 of losses were wiped out in a day

Fifteen of my shares rose by over 5%

Five of my shares rose by over 10%

HGM:Highland Gold Mining rose 25.9% and increased the SIPP profit by £500 on that share alone. It's now up 145% from when I bought it, and that doesn't include the £50 dividend.

However, biggest shock of the day was my nemesis share AFG:Aquatic Food. After months of watching the share price dwindle towards nothing, it leaped 63.6% today. Slight problem is that it's still down 67% from when I bought it, but my concerns that it was being devalued  with an ultimate aim of de-listing have been temporarily laid to rest. There might finally be enough interest in this share to take it to a sensible price, as a P/E ratio of 0.9 is just silly.

I mustn't get too excited, as all this lot could reverse tomorrow, especially with the market in the crazy state it's been lately. However, I'm going to celebrate tonight while I have a chance!

Week 48 Review

I thought this had been a good week, but looking at the data it's just been a good end of week. The start was a bit rubbish so I think it ended up a bit flat. Let's look at the stats...

A few double-digit fallers this week. ALM:Allied Minds dropped 10%, but this share is so volatile it could easily be back up next week. IKA:Ilika dropped 16% after announcing results. They made a loss. Go figure! They will continue making a loss until they sell something, which will hopefully be soon.

Biggest loser this week was RCI:Rapidcloud which dropped 17%. I can't work out what drives this share. It's up and down on no news whatsoever. I still think it's due a fairly hefty re-rating at some point.

Meanwhile the house builders continued to be hammered. Although there was a rally at the end of the week, they still dropped around 6%.

In contrast to the the deepening losses, there were some amazing risers this week. JLP:Jubilee Platinum rose 10% but is still making a loss.My "stupid, stupid, stupid" share AVM:Avocet Mining climbed 23% and is now £97 in profit. Just imagine the profit it would be making if I'd not bought at the top of the spike. I was so relieved that the £350 loss had reversed that I almost sold immediately, but I think gold has further to rise yet, so will give it a bit longer. These shares will have to be returned to my current account when I sell, as I really need to put my holiday money somewhere liquid.

Next big riser was KIBO:Kibo Mining, climbing 24% and going £352 in profit. It's relentless good news coming out of this one, so things could get quite exciting, especially as we're expecting news on their gold mine next week.

PAF:Pan African Resources is benefiting from the continued rise in gold price, and climbed 32% this week to £538 profit. There's a socking great dividend due in October so I'm keeping these for the long term.

All these great risers, but they got nowhere near Share of the Week. This week it's TLOU:Tlou Energy with a staggering 61% rise on news that they have the go-ahead to build a power station 5 times as big as the one they initially planned. This has gone from loss to £221 profit on a £532 investment made just a few weeks ago.

Special mention should also be made of HGM:Highland Gold, which although it under-performed the other gold mines with a puny 3% rise this week, when you factor in the £50 dividend, it's now gone up by over 100% since I bought it, with £1,099 profit in my pension. This is another massive dividend payer, so a keeper.

Let's have a look at the summary for the main portfolio

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£38,356.03		+£230.49
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£33,032.71	(-13.9%)	+£87.47
Potential profits	£2,591.69		+£535.89
Dividends	£570.45		+£27.25
Profit from sales	£3,585.08		+£230.35
Average monthly cash profit	£370.04		+£15.53
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.6%

The portfolio cost went up as a result of selling WLG:Wireless Group and re-investing in SLP:Sylvania Platinum. A little disappointing these have stood still since buying, despite the rising price of platinum. This sale also explains the  rise in profit from sales of £230.

Potential profits went up a pleasing £535, but the deepening post-Brexit losses pretty much cancelled out the rises, resulting in an overall increase of just £87.

Two dividends came through this week. £13.75 from TND:Tandem Group and £13.50 from MSLH:Marshalls. Both of these are shares in deep loss at the moment so it helped ease the pain a little.

Overall forecast monthly profit went up £15.53, and with just 4 weeks to go before this becomes actual annual profit, it will easily have cleared my 10% target. Unfortunately the portfolio is down by 13.9% so there's a decent rally needed in the next 4 weeks to be able to say I've broken even.

The graph portrays a worrying picture, with the gap widening between cost and value. I need another period similar to weeks 24 to 30, with a superb rally that nearly had the lines meeting. It will certainly be clear where on the graph Brexit happened in years to come.

Here's the SIPP performance after Week 32

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£12,582.31		+£142.22
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£13,440.91	(+6.8%)	-£19.08
Potential profits	£1,933.83		+£1.93
Dividends	£258.55		+£0
Profit from sales	£766.55		+£60.43
Average monthly cash profit	£135.34		+£3.39
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.9%

Profits went up £60 as a result of selling AA:Alcoa. This was re-invested along with some dividend cash resulting in the portfolio cost going up by £142 as I bought more OPTI:Optibiotix.

Potential profits stayed stagnant, although you could say they increased by £60, as the Alcoa profit was removed when they were sold. With other shares increasing losses, the overall value dropped by £19 once you remove the extra £142 added to the cost.

Projected monthly performance went up slightly and is still healthy at 12.9%, especially given the portfolio itself is up by 6.8%.

So much nicer to look at than the main portfolio graph. Barely a blip for Brexit thanks to a decent percentage of the portfolio being gold, and very little FTSE250 exposure.

The New Share

The new share has been added to my SIPP this morning. Technically it's not a new share, but increasing my holding of an existing share. The others are in my ISA, so it's a new share for my SIPP.

The share is OPTI:Optibiotix. I bought 1,158 at 80.35p costing £939.40 and taking my total holding to 5898 costing £5,057.25. I had better be right about this share, as it's now 10% of my holding.

Yesterday it issued an RNS that it is splitting into four entities, with the potential to spin any of them off as a PLC. If this happens then existing shareholders will be allocated shares in the new PLC.

With a host of patents and IP rights, a pilot product "Go Figure" on sale on Amazon, a deal with Slimfast about to bear fruit, and a queue of potential news for all four elements of the business, I'm absolutely convinced this could be something very special.

Having said that, I was convinced a year ago that AFPO:African Potash would be something special with it's COMESA agreement and plan to trade fertiliser to make revenues to mine potash in DRC, eventually becoming it's own supplier. That went somewhat wrong when the buyers pulled out of the first trade leaving AFPO with thousands of tons of fertilser stuck in a Zambian port. Shares have dropped 68% and I'm down by £600. There's still hope for this one, but a slim hope.

Nevertheless, I believe in Optibiotix and will now keep everything crossed that it lives up to my expectations.

In another SIPP move I switched my monthly investment from JLG:John Laing Group to LGEN:Legal & General. They have been on my radar for a while due to their high dividend yield, but Brexit has hammered them so now seems like a good time to start buying them for the long term.

Some Profits to Ease the Gloom

This morning I decided to sell my WLG:Wireless Group shares. They rocketed on the announcement of the News Corp takeover, and the thought of selling for 309p now rather than wait two months for 315p drove me to action.

So, while sipping coffee at Greggs as I waited for my exhaust to be fixed, I used my mobile phone to flog them for £230 (63.6%) profit. Shame I didn't buy more of them in the first place, but it's one of my first shares and it's done pretty well.

I immediately re-invested the lot in SLP:Sylvania Platinum. My ISA holding was at £65 profit at the time, and with results out soon and possibly a maiden dividend and platinum price through the roof, this share seems chronically under-valued. I bought 6,137 at 8.69p costing £542.26, so my total investment is now 16,202 shares costing £1,268.34. Frustratingly the price dropped during the day so the combined holding is now at a £77 loss, but if it goes back to where it was this morning it will be in profit, and I firmly believe it will go significantly higher.

It was mostly a miserable day today, with the house builders getting hammered again. It wasn't all doom and gloom though, as KIBO:Kibo Mining is slowly sneaking upwards and is now £234 in profit before even getting started on the mass of news about to break. It's two weeks away from announcing details of a joint gold mining venture, and a whole raft of reports are due on the coal to power project, along with financing.

The most spectacular rise today was TLOU:Tlou Energy, which climbed 27.3% and is making £94 profit already. That's with a 5.25p share price, but brokers are forecasting a 24p share price, which would give me a £2,500 profit on my £500 investment. That would be nice! Today they announced backing for a power station five times bigger than the one initially proposed. Bring it on!

This evening I looked closely at my SIPP. I purchased my only American stock as my initial SIPP investment. This was AA:Alcoa, bought with the mistaken belief that the future was aluminium-air batteries. As I've done more research into batteries, and invested in other battery and power pack companies, I've now decided aluminium-air isn't the future. I was excited about the prospect of Alcoa splitting into two companies, but also irritated I had to log onto my account to see what the price actually was, as it's traded in dollars. I decided it was time to sell, and cashed in a £60 (7%) profit. This liberated £857, and added to the tax rebate lurking uselessly in my SIPP gives me £940 to go shopping tomorrow morning.

I already know what I'm going to buy - a share that I think is on the verge of spectacular greatness. Details of that after the deal is done in the morning...

Week 47 Review - Some Respite from the Gloom

Last week was a sea of double-digit losers. This week we had respite from the gloom, with no double-digit losers to report. Quite a few almost made it after Monday's rout of house builders and allied companies, but enough of the misery, lets celebrate the good news.

Lots of double-digit risers this week. CWR:Ceres Power Holdings continues its slow journey upwards, with a 13% rise making up for a dip over the last few weeks. The SIPP holding now stands at £832 profit, but the ISA holding purchased at a previous spike is on £54 loss.

HGM:Highland Gold continues its spectacular rise, climbing another 19% this week to go 98% up overall and giving a £1,024 profit. SLP:Sylvania Platinum is finally starting to show some momentum as the price of platinum ticks up. It's still surprisingly little momentum, but a rise of 24% this week has taken it into profit of £67.

I thought WLG:Wireless Group would be share of the week for the second week running after the takeover announcement from News Corp sent the shares soaring by 38% to a £227 profit, but it's been knocked off the top spot by RCI:Rapidcloud which rose a remarkable 44% from loss to £285 profit. Interesting that the quoted increase for WLG:Wireless Group was actually 69%, but as my figures include losses from spread and commission, and with my holding being so small, the real increase was much less.

Monday was a very dark day, but the rest of the week really picked up, so I'm quite excited about viewing this week's stats

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£38,126.03		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£32,714.75	(-14.2%)	+£1,078.35
Potential profits	£2,056.30		+£855.39
Dividends	£543.20		+£0
Profit from sales	£3,354.73		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£354.51		-£7.71
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.2%

So despite losing £1,700 on Monday, the rally of rallies occurred and I ended up recovering over £1,000 of last week's losses. What a relief! What's even more satisfying is the majority of the increase is in profit rather than reduced loss - in fact for many shares the losses deepened, but the good ones really shone this week.

No dividends or sales this week, so the average monthly cash profit drops to £354.51, but barring a company going bust, it should keep well over 10% for the first year. This is under the 14.2% paper loss, so I hope this will reverse by the end of the first 12 months so I can say I'm up.

The SIPP looks like this after week 31

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£12,440.09		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£13,317.77	(+7.1%)	+£402.29
Potential profits	£1,931.90		+£405.73
Dividends	£258.55		+£0
Profit from sales	£706.12		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£131.95		-£4.40
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	12.7%

Great recoveries in some stocks, taking overall paper profit back over £1,000 to pre-Brexit level despite some of the losses deepening. In fact, the potential profits went up more than the overall portfolio, emphasising the big difference between the shares being hit hard like CLLN:Carillion and ARL:Atlantis Resources, compared to those doing great like CWR:Ceres Power Holdings and HGM:Highland Gold

As with the main portfolio, there's no dividends or sales so average monthly performance drops another £4 but is still well over 10%.

I'm now going to go through all my weekly updates and create a graph of the portfolio performance to incorporate into the blog somehow - much excitement!