Week 85 Review

Another slightly roller coaster week, with some shares doing really well but offset by others doing badly. The headline figure is that the combined portfolio value increased by £379 to £61,667 which is £848 in profit. I've decided it's about time the top-level summary had a graph. This has been in the blog right hand margin, but it will be nice to retain a snapshot.

Despite it being a week of considerable change, there was only one double-digit loser and one double-digit riser.

TLOU:Tlou Energy have shaken my trust quite badly, announcing a placing at 6p and causing an 18% drop in value. I'm very glad I sold half my holding a few weeks back. What adds insult to injury is that Australian investors are being invited to buy additional shares at 6p, but UK investors are not. I'm holding this share purely based on the track record of the directors, so when they do something like this it shakes my resolve to hold them.

The double-digit riser and Share of the Week for the second week in a row is IQE:IQE. This climbed 14% despite a scare on results day when the share plummeted, only to bounce back to a new high a few days later. Quite a few stop-losses were triggered so I'm glad I didn't have any! My ISA holding is now 102% up, with my more recent SIPP holding up by 26%. With a paper profit of £2,695 that consolidates it as Star Share. JLP:Jubilee Platinum disappointed this week, and dropped 5% so has a bit of catching up to do in 2nd place with £1,216 paper profit, and CAML:Central Asia Metals is still 3rd with £1,145.

OPTI:Optibiotix had an amazing week, climbing 6% and into profit for the first time ever. It now stands at £550 potential profit, slightly down from Thursday, but a whole lot better than 4 weeks ago when it had £1,400 loss. GVC:GVC Holdings climbed 6% too following superb results and a big special dividend. They are motoring towards 800p a share.

Here's the performance of the combined share and ISA accounts

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£43,056.99		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£41,188.83	(-4.3%)	+£279.96
Potential profits	£3,699.50		+£421.41
Yr 2 Dividends	£357.10		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£3,404.23		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£490.46		-£15.33
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	13.7%
Total Dividends	£1,025.03		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,244.49		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£417.17		-£4.97
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.86%

A quiet week with profits up £421 but some deepening losses wiping half of that out. Still well above 10% target for sales and dividends for both the year and overall.

A slight shallowing of the climb, but it is still a climb.

The SIPP looks like this after week 69

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£16,776.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,677.58	(+17.3%)	+£165.31
Potential profits	£3,471.94		+£206.55
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£842.07		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£207.51		+£66.40
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.8%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,191.93		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£221.47		-£3.25
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	15.8%

A quiet week here too, and once more deepening losses take some of the gains away from the increased profits, largely thanks to CWR:Ceres Power and JLP:Jubilee Platinum dropping. The huge increase in year 2 performance is caused by a cock-up in my calculations over the last few months. I had this as week 26 of year 2, which is impossible if we're in week 69 overall. We're actually in week 17 of year 2, which makes the performance look a whole lot better. Oops!

The gap gets back to its widening ways

The trading account looks like this after week 35

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.03		+£0
Cash	£75.59		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£801.41	(-18.7%)	-£65.99
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£61.57		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£7.62		-£0.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	9.3%

It's really been an unmitigated disaster has this account! I was expecting to be trading a share every couple of weeks, not every 6 months.

Yuck!

So, OPTI:Optibiotix is set to fly at last. SkinBioTherapeutics launches on 5th April and if Optibiotix shareholders get a chance to partake in the IPO I will be selling VEC:Vectura to free up £1,100 so I can join in. I'm also really hoping existing shareholders will get some free shares, as we own SkinBioTherapeutics now and are losing part of our company if we do not retain some share ownership.

JLP:Jubilee Platinum have released video of platinum concentrate being produced at Hernic, but there has been no RNS. That's surely got to be imminent and could propel Jubilee back to Star Share status.

AMYT:Amryt Pharma post results on Thursday, so we will be able to see if recent licensing deals are bringing in any revenue yet. There's a possibility of a significant re-rate if the news is good.

KIBO:Kibo Mining hinted that things were on track with the coal to power project in an RNS last week. I suspect nothing will happen next week, but the price is surely way too low at the moment. What could set things moving would be the announcement of the completion of the reverse takeover of OPRA:Opera Investments and the formation of Katoro Mining, particularly if that announcement mentions share distribution to existing holders.

It promises to be yet another exciting week...

SkinBioTherapeutics is born

The long-awaited RNS from OPTI:Optibiotix arrived at lunchtime today.

SkinBioTherapeutics will IPO on AIM on 5th April.

There's no indication what this means for existing Optibiotix shareholders, but the hope is that proportionate shares will be allocated. I've accumulated 14,147 shares, so even a small percentage of that is going to be a decent slice.

There's also the possibility of existing shareholders being allocated an open offer, so it's a good job VEC:Vectura went almost into profit today, as I may need to sell those!

The potential markets for these skin products are huge. Cosmetic skin care is $121bn, health care acquired infections is $82bn and eczema $3.8bn.

 Offering a range of unique IP protected products in these areas will give the company a real edge.

The effect on the Optibiotix share price was wonderful to behold. A rise of 5p on the bid price to 83p generated an increase in paper profit of £707.35 to £833.52. That's from a £1,400 loss three weeks ago! Yippee!!

What amazes me is that some people were actually selling their shares - such madness is impossible to fathom.

The hope is that most sensible investors are way too scared to sell because they don't want to risk losing out on free shares in the new company, but others will be frantically trying to buy in, causing unspeakably wonderful things to happen to the share price.

This is a share that has tried my patience severely over the last 12 months, to the point of near despair, but the potential was too vast for me to do anything but accumulate more at ever cheaper prices, and shatter my 10% of portfolio limit rule. Today feels absolutely brilliant.

Or does it?

No, it bloody doesn't!!

Despite Optibiotix climbing by over £700, I'm £400 down on where I was yesterday!!

CAML:Central Asia Metals down 2.2%
CWR:Ceres Power down 4.7%
IQE:IQE down 8.2%
KIBO:Kibo Mining down 2.6%

Some of my biggest holdings posting losses and dragging the whole portfolio down

It appears IQE:IQE profits, although great, were inflated due to the pound slipping in value against the dollar. The share price tanked first thing as traders panicked. I wasn't on the ball enough to sell something so I could buy on the dip, but never mind. I'm hoping the panic is over and people see the amazing long term potential in this company.

What's rather painful about the 8.2% drop is that I sold BVM:Bushveld Minerals to top up "lower risk" IQE, and guess what - Bushveld are up 32% today - aaaaargh - why do I not learn to avoid looking at old shares! Having said that, I bought the IQE top-up at 47.1849p, and the offer price at the end of today was still 50.75p so it's only lost about a week's worth of gains and is still in healthy profit.

I still feel the need to mutter darkly about the injustices of the world. Giveth and taketh away and all that bollocks.

Even JLP:Jubilee Platinum dropped again today, despite a video being loaded on their website over the weekend clearly showing platinum concentrate production at Hernic.
Platinum concentrate video
Where's the RNS that we've been waiting for to cause lift-off??

So, as SkinBioTherapeutics is announced to the world, the roller coaster of investing continues to dish out mayhem and thrills...

Optibiotix is in profit!

From zero to hero, OPTI:Optibiotix has gone from Nemesis Share to profit in just a few weeks.

It was only in my week 81 review that I was scratching my head at why I was losing £1,400 on this share, and bought yet more at 68.6p to take Optibiotix to 18.1% of my portfolio.

At last the bid price has hit 78p and the combined holdings in my share account, ISA and SIPP are now £126.17 in profit. Phew!

Every penny this goes up is now worth £141.47, so I'll be doing a jig of joy if it fast-tracks to 100p a share. The relentless news flow that should come forth now the deals done over the past 18 months start to bear fruit could easily trigger that rise.

Today was mostly a blue day, with the combined portfolios up £282, but there have been some declines.

Most worrying was AFG:Aquatic Food, which issued a trading statement. It stated revenues were down on last year, but there is still an £11m profit. Given the economic situation in China that's not at all bad.

However, the share price declined by 13% despite there being only 3 trades. In fact, the price dropped before any of those trades were made. 8,267 were bought and 9,700 sold. That's hardly any difference, so why a 13% drop? There's also a crazy 33% spread on this share.

There are still many convinced this company is a fraud. I'm not convinced. It's easy to jump on the "all Chinese AIM companies are frauds" bandwagon, but they have a highly respected CFO and international distribution contracts, and pay a reasonable dividend. They have £44m cash but that's because they didn't spend any of their original IPO which was earmarked for a new production facility, as the economic downturn meant that increased production capacity wasn't required - yet.

I am too scared to top up. They may de-list, and I wish I had enough cash to follow the courage of my convictions, as in a few years if this company turns out to be for real, the fact it's on a P/E ratio of 1 means a massive re-rate is possible. I don't intend to top up. The most I can lose is the £2,000 I invested. If things go well that could become £20,000, if not then I'll have learned a lesson the hard way. if I sell out now I get £919 I could put into IQE:IQE or CWR:Ceres Power, which I want to top up, but I can't bring myself to lose £1,100 when there might be nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile JLP:Jubilee Platinum dropped again which cost a lot. Why this can't hold on to a rise I just don't know, but as each day goes by, surely news of Hernic platinum production gets closer.

Finals for IQE:IQE and VEC:Vectura tomorrow. Both have been on a steady rise up to results. Often that leads to a big drop when the results meet expectations. I'm rather hoping they exceed expectations. If IQE drop I will be happy as it will be a topping up opportunity. If Vectura drop I will be sad, as I want to sell them!

Week 84 Review

A great week that saw the gains hang in there and the combined portfolios go into profit. I thought it was the first time, but a review of my graph shows that week 59 was in profit - but that's the only week. There were gains of £680.83 over the week so the £212 deficit was wiped out and the combined portfolios are now £468.83 in profit.

Biggest loser this week was another anomaly, with JLP:Jubilee Platinum dropping 48%, but only due to purchasing so many new shares and driving up the average purchase price. The real dip was more like 5%.

IKA:Ilika was the only double-digit loser this week, and that was all thanks to today. They ended up 11% down on last week after a trading statement suggesting the expected licence fees won't come through in time for the annual results. They will however be in next year's results so the drop seems way over-done.

Share of the Week is the only double-digit riser, with IQE:IQE seemingly unstoppable, climbing another 13%. Not only does that make it Share of the Week, but with JLP:Jubilee Platinum taking a temporary blip, it also becomes Star Share, with paper profit of £1,878.24 compared to £1,594.48 for Jubileee. CAML:Central Asia Metals is 3rd with £1,230.84.

Nemesis Share is still KIBO:Kibo Mining with losses of £991.84 followed by AFG:Aquatic Food on £972.40 and AFPO:African Potash on £717.14. OPTI:Optibiotix was Nemesis Share for so long, but thanks to buying on the many dips, that's only losing £157.77 now.

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£43,056.99		+£376.04
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,908.87	(-5.0%)	+£484.83
Potential profits	£3,278.09		+£77.86
Yr 2 Dividends	£357.10		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£3,404.23		-£5.45
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£505.79		-£17.08
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	14.1%
Total Dividends	£1,025.03		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£7,244.49		-£5.45
Average monthly cash profit	£422.14		-£5.37
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	11.8%

Portfolio cost went up a bit, but that was new money injected or cash lying around in the account, as today's sales at a loss cancelled out the profits earlier in the week by £5.45, but at least I got rid of WRL:Wentworth Resources! As a result the overall performance slips just a little, but £400 losses are removed and £77 profits increased.

Oh yes! I feel happy as a pig in poo.

The SIPP looks like this after week 68

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£16,776.69		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,329.57	(+15.2%)	+£182.70
Potential profits	£3,085.25		+£180.14
Yr 2 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£842.07		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£141.11		-£5.88
Yr 2 Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	10.1%
Total Dividends	£413.19		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,191.93		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£224.72		-£3.36
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	16.1%

Quite quiet, with increased profits accounting for virtually all the £182 gain in value, and small dip in performance due to no sales or dividends.

I think "stable" is the best word to describe that, which is nice.

The trading account looks like this after week 34

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£986.03		+£0
Cash	£75.59		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£867.40	(-12%)	+£13.94
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	£61.57		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£7.85		-£0.23
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Avg annual % of current portfolio cost	9.85%

KIBO:Kibo Mining remains unchanged, but REDS:RedstoneConnect climbed a tiny bit. Still no sign I'll be able to have any fun with this for a while.

Heading in the right direction but very slowly.

A good end to the week, with OPTI:Optibiotix not doing its usual Friday slump and AMYT:Amryt Pharma holding up well. Surely next week will see the announcement of maiden platinum concentrate production at Hernic so JLP:Jubilee Platinum can really take off. I'm also desperate for news on the reverse takeover of OPRA:Opera into Katoro Mining, as I think that will get KIBO:Kibo Mining to wake up.

The main priority next week is to keep the combined portfolio in profit, rather than another 1-week wonder like week 59.

One last Jubilee top-up

The market doesn't make sense to me.

JLP:Jubilee Platinum issued an RNS this morning to announce yet another deal to process tailings for platinum. They have purchased rights to 1.25 million tonnes of tailings, either to be trucked to Hernic for processing or by building a processing plant at the site.

The slight negative was that the money to pay for the tailings came from a placing of 66 million shares at 5p, which is quite a discount to the 5.9p they were costing yesterday afternoon.

However, this is a relatively small dilution for something that will generate far, far greater profits.

The share price tanked this morning, and although it has recovered slightly, they are still over 5% down on the day.

One of the problems with having a day off is that I have too much time to examine my portfolio, so I did, and made a few changes.

MSHL:Marshalls were meant to be a solid, dividend-paying FTSE250 company - a sensible share. Since Brexit they have been rubbish, and I've been building increasing resentment against them. That has waned slightly as their share price has done amazingly well since results on Wednesday. I still decided now was the time to sell.

I sold for 353.13p making a loss of £21.37 (3%), but if you include the dividend from last year I made a profit of £2.43 - huzzah! This liberated £697.31

The other share I dumped has been driving me mad. It was a mistake to buy in the first place and has been a fairly sorry tale of cuts in production, customers not paying, and no good news in the 18 months I've owned them. I sold my holding in WRL:Wentworth Resources for £140.65 (21.4%) loss and felt a massive surge of relief to be rid of them. This liberated £521.65.

So that enabled me to buy another 23,547 shares in JLP:Jubilee Platinum at 5.48p which is a bargain, costing £1,299.33. Jubilee now makes up 10.8% of my portfolio with 151,393 shares costing £6,544.89 but even at this depressed price, worth £8,366.46, so making paper profit of £1,821.57.

I'm convinced that as soon as platinum concentrate production is confirmed at Hernic these will get to 10p almost immediately, at which point they will be making £8,558.56 profit. That could be as soon as next week. If that happens, then the loss on WRL:Wentworth Resources will be well worth taking.

It's touch and go whether I'll achieve my dream of reporting a combined portfolio profit this evening. OPTI:Optibiotix is currently up, as is AMYT:Amryt Pharma but only by a tiny amount. There's a £300 buffer, but if JLP:Jubilee Platinum doesn't recover some of today's losses, it will wipe out the buffer and I may end up in the red. Just another hour to wait...

Portfolio in profit - Can it last?

It's happened again - the combined portfolios have gone into profit

This is largely thanks to a 6.9% recovery of AMYT:Amryt Pharma to profit, OPTI:Optibiotix climbing a few pence, a recovery in CAML:Central Asia Metals, and a little surge in CWR:Ceres Power and the relentless climb of IQE:IQE.

This is also despite KIBO:Kibo Mining dropping back to 4.75p and clobbering the portfolio really hard, and JLP:Jubilee Platinum still being stuck at 5.5p when it desperately wants to get higher.

More minor contributors include MSHL:Marshalls which was up 9.7% today and is now only losing £37, a slow but relentless increase in TW.:Taylor Wimpey to within 5% of breaking even, and a recovery in TLOU:Tlou Energy.

Every time this has happened in the past, all the gains have been lost on the Friday and the week has ended back at a loss. Will this be the week that my combined portfolio snapshot graph finally sees the green line above the red for the first time ever?

I can but dream...

Platinum Shuffle

I've got a day off today so am poring over the portfolio to see if there are any refinements I can make.

SLP:Sylvania Platinum has always been a frustrating share to own. It feels under-valued, but I'm not sure. The company is cash rich but has never hinted at paying a dividend, yet there are no signs of ambitious growth.

Compare that to JLP:Jubilee Platinum who have multiple projects about to generate healthy revenue, an asset worth billions and a new venture into Australian copper announced yesterday.

If I own shares in a platinum company, I want that to be Jubilee rather than Sylvania.

I sold my SLP:Sylvania Platinum shares for a £156.57 (27.7%) profit, added a teensy amount of cash from my current account, and purchased 17,540 shares in JLP:Jubilee Platinum at 5.65p costing £999.96.

Jubilee now constitutes 8.7% of my portfolio with a total of 127,846 shares. Despite the recent dip in performance, they are still my Star Share, with paper profit of £1,877.97, and at the moment there's great momentum only hampered by warrant sales. I think the main risk to long-term profitability is being taken over prematurely.

It's interesting to see my portfolio gradually consolidating as I weed out the companies that may have done well for me, but where I see an existing holding being a better option. I'm looking at several other shares I could sell, with a view to increasing my holdings in IQE:IQE and CWR:Ceres Power to 10% of the portfolio, but they are making too much of a loss for me to sell now.

There are also a few other shares I'm watching very closely.

ITM:ITM Power are gradually increasing their number of hydrogen fueling stations, and are receiving grants to do so. If public transport in cities switches to hydrogen powered electric fuel cells, then both ITM and Ceres could be significant players.

The other one I'm keeping an eye on is SXX:Sirius Minerals. After making 96.5% profit on my initial holding, the share price has halved so I could buy back in at about the rate I initially purchased. There's no doubt this one will do well long term, and it seems to be holding at the current price so may not drop much lower. A small investment will help me keep on top of news and be prepared to add more when it takes off.