Week 101 Review - Deeper into the red

Another really poor week, with the combined portfolios losing £1,478. The only crumb of comfort is that £471 of that was taken as profit, so the loss is more like £1,000. That's still the fourth big loss in a row, so I've sunk into the red by £1,968 compared to the cost price, with a total value of £62,616.

Worst performer was AMYT:Amryt Pharma, falling 11% which accounts for over £500 of the losses on its own. CWR:Ceres Power Holdings dropped 9% which was expensive and RED:RedT Energy dropped 7% after a truly dreadful trading statement confirming that they haven't sold anything ever.

Although OPTI:Optibiotix only fell 3%, the 2p drop cost me £600 now these make up 33% of the portfolio. The encouraging thing with this situation is that they could spectacularly turn around my current deficit if they get back to their 80p range.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, with JLP:Jubilee Platinum posting a really upbeat interview with the CEO boosting confidence that the next trading statement could be a good one, although still no news about Tjate. This led to a 7% rise in share price.

Share of the Week is back to IQE:IQE following a brief stint as worst performer last week. This week the shares climbed back by 12% to recover half last week's losses.

Bad news - just a few short weeks in the black, but last time it took a similar dip it was back up again within a few weeks. Only 3 weeks before the year 2 review though, so it would be really nice to be in the black for that.

Here's the combined ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£46,246.68		+£631.79
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£43,214.99	(-6.6%)	-£1,307.34
Potential profits	£4,785.20		-£1,141.47
Yr 2 Dividends	£500.59		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,872.24		+£471.18
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£294.63	(7.6%)	+£36.40
Total Dividends	£1,168.52		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6.712.50		+£471.18
Average monthly cash profit	£333.77	(8.7%)	+£17.08
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Portfolio cost up by £631 after re-investing the proceeds of selling SXX:Sirius Minerals and TLOU:Tlou Energy and some old dividends into more OPTI:Optibiotix. Sell value is down by £1,307 when you factor that the cost went up £631. Most of this was reduced paper profits, with the £471 from the sales and the rest a combination of AMYT:Amryt Pharma, CWR:Ceres Power and GVC:GVC Holdings all dropping. Losses deepened a small amount, but it was nearly all reduced profits this week.

Average monthly performance improved thanks to the sales, but only enough to go from 8.3% to 8.7%. The policy of selling fewer shares in year 2 has clearly had an impact, with year 2 performance only 7.6%, but at least there's some hope of the portfolios getting into the black unlike last year when I kept spending any profits.

A horrible drop, but I've had them just as big before so lets hope for a repeat of the rise that started in week 91.

The SIPP looks like this after week 85

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£17,853.50		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,066.00	(6.8%)	-£157.48
Potential profits	£3,180.01		+£61.53
Yr 2 Dividends	£294.96		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£1,596.81		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£240.79	(16.2%)	-£7.53
Total Dividends	£708.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,946.67		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£231.76	(15.6%)	-£2.76
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits are actually up a little thanks to IQE:IQE, but this was reduced by declining paper profits in CAML:Central Asia Metals and LGEN:Legal & General which lost most of last week's rise. The 2p fall in OPTI:Optibiotix is responsible for turning the increased profits into a £157 loss. Performance is still well above 10% target and will be for some time.

Still in the black, but the gap has been narrowing for a few weeks now.

The pointless trading account looks like this just one week before the first year aniversary

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£335.55	(-31%)	-£13.90
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£1.15		+£1.15
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.84	(-4.6%)	+£0.14
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The usual yo-yo by REDS:RedstoneConnect continues, with a 3% swing in each direction every single week. Much excitement though - the fragments from the share consolidation have been returned, so I counted it as a £1.15 dividend. This improved the average monthly loss by 14p a month - stunning!

I look at the graph and reflect what could have been, if I wasn't really crap at picking trading shares.

No planned announcements that I'm aware of next week, so the big hope is that OPTI:Optibiotix release some form of news to help it bounce off the 60p zone. Both JLP:Jubilee Platinum and KIBO:Kibo Mining were looking upbeat last week, so there's hope that momentum will continue, and CWR:Ceres Power are getting more publicity at the moment so that could be a boost to the share price, with a 35% increase being forecast by analysts. Fingers crossed...

Boost to profits - and a few more Optibiotix

I've been growing increasingly concerned that my average profits from sales and dividends in my ISA and share accounts has dipped well below 10% at 8.3%. However, my new priority was to get the combined portfolios into the black and keep them there, and there was nothing I particularly wanted to sell.

Last night I decided there were a few shares I could sell, and with the combined portfolios plunging into the red on Friday, my morale needed a boost.

I sold my 3,949 shares in SXX:Sirius Minerals at 28.077p making a modest £90.21 (10.1%) profit. I bought back into these when they were about to enter the FTSE250 expecting a rise as tracking funds bought them. There was a really good rise, but it's been tailing off ever since. As it's at least 5 years before they make any profit, and there are lots of risks between now and then, I decided to put my money elsewhere. I will watch and may return though.

My other long-burner that's quite a few years from revenue is TLOU:Tlou Energy. I sold half my holding a while back for £328.55 (63%) profit, and since then the price has been quite low. After a recent rally I sold my remaining 10,000 shares at 9.322p making a £380.98 (69.1%) profit. A total of £700 profit has been really good from these, and I'll keep an eye on them with a view to buying again in the future.

The effect of the sales was to boost my average monthly profit to £337 which is 8.7%. Still below my 10% target, but not as much below as 8.3% and the portfolio cost has gone up by £600 too. The downside is that the £418 profit immediately reflects as a paper loss for the week, and with a luke-warm performance in the markets my combined portfolios are already £1,049 down on last week. That's £5,000 down in the last month!

However, I was left with over £2,000 sitting in my ISA when you added old dividends that were lying around - what on earth could I do with it?

Here's an out-of-the-box suggestion. Why not buy some more OPTI:Optibiotix shares while they're even cheaper than they were the last time I bought them?

Oh go on then...

I purchased another 3,402 shares at the ridiculously cheap price of 63.66p costing £2,177.66

That takes OPTI:Optibiotix up to 33.1% of my entire portfolio - gulp!

The great news is the purchase brought the average price down from 73.83p to 71.83p in my ISA, which is excellent considering how many I bought in the early days at 90p.

Maybe one day I'll average the price down to one that's below the actual selling price!!

In the meantime my 30,052 shares are losing £3,057.

However, the good news is that each rise of 1p is now worth £300, so when the imminent news of forecast revenue is published, and with only 78 million shares in circulation, and with a load of free SBTX:Skinbiotherapeutics shares on the way, and with Sweetbiotix launching within months, and with very little cash burn, and with solid IP and patent protection, I am still convinced that one day soon, this deep winter of share price misery will blossom into a spring of gamboling and frolicking through hay meadows as the profits pile up in great heaps.

Here's waiting and hoping...

Week 100 Review - Back in the red

What a disastrous centenary week!

Slumps in some of my biggest holdings caused an overall drop of £2,439 taking the combined portfolios £489 into the red and obliterating the buffer. The portfolio value now stands at £63,463 and has lost more than £4,000 in value over the last 3 weeks.

Worst performer this week was IQE:IQE which had to suffer some profit taking sooner or later, and it's happening big-time now, with a drop of 23% this week. Fortunately that still leaves my ISA up by 156% but has hammered the potential profits.

KIBO:Kibo Mining is the only other double-digit loser, dropping 11%, but falls of 8% for AMYT:Amryt Pharma, 6% for CAML:Central Asia Metals and 4% for my biggest holding OPTI:Optibiotix all contributed to the massive drop in portfolio value.

There were a few good news stories, with LGEN:Legal & General up by 5% which is a lot for this normally stable share, CWR:Ceres Power Holdings up 6% and Share of the Week by miles was TLOU:Tlou Energy, up 28% but on a relatively small holding

Bye bye buffer. Such a short time in the black. I'll just have to hope the current 3-week cycle of dips has finished and we go back into profit next week.

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

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£45,614.89		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£43,890.54	(-3.8%)	-£1,599.54
Potential profits	£5,926.67		-£595.40
Yr 2 Dividends	£500.59		+£14.30
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,401.06		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£258.23	(6.8%)	-£4.52
Total Dividends	£1,168.52		+£14.30
Total Profit from sales	£6.241.32		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£316.69	(8.3%)	-£2.74
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Value absolutely clobbered, with £595 reduced profits and £1,000 of deepening loss. There needs to be some news for some of the key holdings to have a reversal in fortunes. £14.30 was a welcome dividend from TND:Tandem Group.

Ouch!

Here's the SIPP after week 84

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£17,853.50		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£19,223.48	(7.7%)	-£854.28
Potential profits	£3,118.48		-£531.57
Yr 2 Dividends	£294.96		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£1,596.81		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£248.32	(16.7%)	-£9.06
Total Dividends	£708.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,946.67		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£234.52	(15.8%)	-£3.22
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

A huge drop, mostly reduced profits but also some deepening loss. Still no need to sell anything to keep performance stats up though.

A worrying narrowing of the gap in an account that's been in the black for well over a year.

The pointless trading account looks like this after week 50

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£349.45	(-28.1%)	+£13.90
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£1.98	(-4.9%)	+£0.04
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

The share prices toggles up and down by 5p almost every week but never goes any higher, so it's looking like after 1 year this account will have made a loss and be well in the red - a great advert for trying to trade rather than invest!

Rubbish!

A torrid week. All I can hope is that there will be a bounce back this week to get back into the black, but it will take news rather than an upturn in general market sentiment.

Week 99 Review - the buffer narrows further

Another bad week causing much stress to the buffer between being in the black and the red. A loss of £914 has reduced the buffer to £1,950 so there needs to be a turnaround else it will be gone. Total portfolio value has dropped to £65,903

Worst performing share was SXX:Sirius Minerals, dropping 11% but it had to suffer profit-taking at some point after the recent rise. They are still 16% up making £159 potential profit, and this is a very long-term investment.

Another stellar share that was bound to have a bad week sooner or later is IQE:IQE, down 8% this week as the nervous bottle it and sell up. I'm not nervous, I'm excited. This is still my Star Share by a long way, and if anything I want more so the tick down could present an opportunity.

No double-digit risers in this generally dismal week. Share of the Week is CAML:Central Asia Metals which staged a mini rally and climbed 6%. My holding is up by 36% since purchase, but it was 50% a few months back so hopefully the current good copper price will stick for a while and these will make a recovery.

Eeek - it's getting tight!

Here's the combined ISA and share accounts performance

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£45,614.89		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£45,490.08	(-0.3%)	-£845.97
Potential profits	£6,522.07		-£454.01
Yr 2 Dividends	£486.29		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,401.06		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£262.75	(6.9%)	-£5.71
Total Dividends	£1,154.22		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6.241.32		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£319.43	(8.4%)	-£3.26
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Once again this account fails to stay in the black and slips back into the red. Half this week's losses were reduced profit, with IQE:IQE being the main culprit, and deepening losses were spread throughout the portfolio.

The trend seems to be 3 bad weeks then a couple of good, so I won't anticipate a turnaround next week.

The SIPP looks like this after week 83

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£17,853.50		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£20,077.76	(12.5%)	-£68.55
Potential profits	£3,650.05		+£68.86
Yr 2 Dividends	£294.96		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£1,596.81		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£257.38	(17.3%)	-£8.58
Total Dividends	£708.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,946.67		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£237.74	(16.0%)	-£2.90
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Potential profits were up thanks to CAML:Cental Asia Metals big rise being enough to cancel out the IQE:IQE drop. Unfortunately deepening losses were twice the gains and we end up £68 down.

Still happy with this. Nice wide gap and helps out the other accounts to keep the combined portfolios in the black. Things could get very saucy with this account in a few months when I transfer my work pension into it!

Let's take a look at the nasty trading account after week 49

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£335.55	(-30.8%)	+£0
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.02	(-5.0%)	+£0.04
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Boring!

Boring!

No results expected next week so the performance of the portfolio is very much news dependent. OPTI:Optibiotix contracts, KIBO:Kibo Mining plans for KAT:Katoro Gold share distribution or licenses, JLP:Jubilee Platinum revenue from Hernic or plans for Tjate are all long-awaited.

Following on from my update about AFG:Aquatic Food shares suspending and the relief that I got out when I did, their Finance Director has resigned with immediate effect. Probably in disgust at the way the board have treated their shareholders. It's an absolute outrage that companies are still getting away with screwing their investors in this way. Interesting that a few days before suspension the share price shot up - I wonder if that was shorts closing? If it was, then such a coincidence they timed the closure just before the shares suspended! How lucky for them...

I have lost all trust in AIM shares. I will be looking at every single one with a big dose of cynicism, especially for signs that the directors are taking the piss. That's colouring some of my existing shares too.

WRES:W Resources are the worst offenders, pumping the share price with "great" news just before a placing but conveniently timing their own big purchases for when the price is low. If this company ever makes money it will be interesting to see if shareholders see any of it. I'll be selling out of this as soon as my holding gets into the black, but I only have a tiny amount to offload.

I'm more concerned about JLP:Jubilee Platinum, as I had high hopes, but my faith in the directors has been hammered by their astounding ability to do something daft just as the share price looks like it might start to rise. Just as Hernic was about to make money they did a placing out of the blue. Tjate seems to have no strategy whatsoever despite years waiting for the licence where they could have been preparing. The share price is lower than it was when we were granted the "game-changing" mining licence. My confidence is shaken and I wonder if buying £4,600 worth of shares was such a great idea. They are losing £782 at the moment. I need something to happen soon to boost my confidence that the directors are considering their shareholders.

There are also my basket case shares that I gave up on a long time ago. AFPO:African Potash are dodgy as hell, and I can't believe I fell for the bullshit. BLUR:Blur Group are deluded and can't stop spending money despite hardly making any, and TRK:Torotrak have obsessively continued to push a technology nobody wants.

I have concerns with RED:RedT Energy who have an amazing, groundbreaking product but haven't sold any - at all - ever! TLOU:Tlou Energy have given opportunities for investors on the Australian market but not on AIM which makes me wonder how committed they are to UK shareholders, and RDT:Rosslyn Data may very well turn into another BLUR:Blur Group.

I think it's a positive change that makes me question the quality of the leadership of companies I'm invested in, and when looking for new companies, I intend to spend a lot more time researching the directors.

Compare the above with companies like OPTI:Optibiotix, CAML:Central Asia Metals and GVC:GVC Holdings, where the directors have continually shown they have shareholder interests at heart. These companies may have waxing and waning fortunes, but I have confidence as an investor I'm not likely to get screwed.

Loss on Aquatic Food vindicated

Ever since I sold my holding in AFG:Aquatic Food I've been wondering if I did the right thing. Taking a £1,100 loss to "rescue" £900 would only be justified if AFG:Aquatic Food went belly up.

I didn't want it to, as that would pretty much write off any trust in a Chinese company on AIM, as this one seemed like the real deal.

Today they announced the suspension of shares on AIM due to difficulties getting money out of China to pay for the annual accounts to be completed before the regulatory cutoff date on 30th June.

Well, that's them screwed then!

This has been a painful lesson, but one which I hope will help me in the future

1) Avoid any Chinese stocks on AIM - in fact, given the RapidCloud debacle when I fortunately got out in time, could extend to most Asian stocks as they were based in Malaysia.

2) If it looks too good to be true then it probably is

3) AIM is rife with fraud. The regulation is pitiful and private investors are seriously exposed to being ripped off

It's not just Asia though - Africa has come up with similar stocks. I'm likely to lose my £700 in AFPO:African Potash, as that's just extending the agony with very little hope of survival.

At least my disasterous UK companies BLUR:Blur Group and TRK:Torotrak are only going to go under because of crappy business models or unsellable products - there's no question of fraud, just incompetence. Fortunately the losses when these go under will be minuscule, as they were from the first few weeks of investing when I wasn't aware of the impacts of spread and commission on small purchases.

So it's been a salutary lesson, and one I hope will improve my future decisions...

Week 98 Review

This week started really well with a £700 increase, but Tuesday cancelled that out and by Thursday with the crazy spreads being published on Advfn, it was down by £2,400. I abandoned Advfn until they sort their system out and trawled through each share in my account to get the correct bid and offer prices, and so was slightly relieved to find the difference between cost price and value only down by £588 this week. With a big purchase yesterday, the portfolio value is now £66,817 and the buffer protecting me from going into the red is £2,864.

By far the worst performer was BLUR:Blur Group, which declared they are burning cash way faster than they are earning it and set out series of measures to try and save the company. The share price tanked and the value of my holding went down 18%. It's now down 99% from my purchase price and worth £1 but thank goodness I bought it when I didn't have a scooby what I was doing and am only losing £108.

No other double-digit losers, but some troubling and expensive losers. JLP:Jubilee Platinum dropped back below 4p and lost 9% of their value, which is very disappointing given the potential of the company. However, when the BoD just keep shooting themselves in the foot, it's not that surprising. News on Hernic earnings should see this turn around.

RDT:Rosslyn Data dropped 8% and is now losing 82% of the purchase value and is worth just £68, losing £307. This was a toe-dip and I'm glad it was only that.

CAML:Central Asia Metals had a bad week, losing 6% but still up by 30%, making £1,022 profit and having dished out an additional £473 in dividends. What a company!

Nemesis Share OPTI:Optibiotix finished the week on the same price as it started, but my purchase at 66.7p was below the 68p closing bid price, so my purchase this week has cleared spread and commission.

There were a few double-digit risers this week. TND:Tandem Group have been stagnated for a long time, but climbed 13% this week after a very strong AGM statement. With only 4.7 million shares in issue, these are staggeringly illiquid and so when they move up or down it tends to be quite extreme. They are still 27% down and losing £297 so I'll be watching them with interest for a while yet.

There's no point trying to bet on Share of the Week. Nothing else came remotely close to the 20% rise in value in my ISA account of Star Share IQE:IQE. These are up by 187% now and making £3,664 paper profit, and the SIPP holding is making £2,119 paper profit. Stunning! If it wasn't for IQE my combined portfolios would be well in the red! If I sold them all now and made £5,700 profit I wouldn't have to sell anything else for ages, but they've only just started so if anything I should be buying more.

A slight narrowing of the gap, but it's not bad.

The combined ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£45,614.89		+£2,275.08
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£46,336.05	(1.6%)	-£589.25
Potential profits	£6,976.08		+£183.13
Yr 2 Dividends	£486.29		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£2,401.06		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£268.46	(7.1%)	-£5.97
Total Dividends	£1,154.22		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£6.241.32		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£322.69	(8.5%)	-£3.32
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Big jump in cost thanks to my bank loan to fund a last purchase (honest) of OPTI:Optibiotix and take them to 30% of my holding. Potential profits actually increased thanks to IQE:IQE but a combination of reducing profits elsewhere and deepening losses meant a £589 reduction in value. With the portfolio value climbing so much, there was a bigger than usual impact on the performance percentage, now 1.5% below target of 10%.

Just about stays in the black, but way too close for comfort.

The SIPP looks like this after week 82

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£17,853.50		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£20,146.31	(12.8%)	-£12.70
Potential profits	£3,581.19		+£96.20
Yr 2 Dividends	£294.96		+£0
Yr 2 Profit from sales	£1,596.81		+£0
Yr 2 Average monthly cash profit	£265.96	(17.9%)	-£9.17
Total Dividends	£708.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£3,946.67		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£240.64	(16.2%)	-£2.97
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

As with the other accounts, the profits are up thanks to IQE:IQE but most of the gain is lost by CAML:Central Asia Metals dropping and with deepening losses elsewhere, the overall effect is a £12 drop in value. Performance is still more than acceptable with year 2 still ahead of long-term average.

A consolidation week I think.

Oh must I? OK - here's the horrid trading account after week 48

			Weekly Change
Portfolio cost	£486.05		+£0
Cash	£79.63		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£335.55	(-30.8%)	+£13.90
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Dividends	£0		+£0
Profit from sales	-£22.85		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	-£2.06	(-5.1%)	+£0.05
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)

Almost a year now and a complete pile of poo. REDS:RedstoneConnect recovered last week's losses but is showing no sign of the meteoric climb I thought was on the cards when I first bought them. I'm ashamed to admit that I fell for a load of ramping hype on the bulletin board - let that be a harsh lesson!

This share has saved me making other mistakes though - I was all enthused by TRIN:Trinity after it had whizzed up over a few days from about 12p to 20p. The bulletin board was full of enthusiasm, but remembering my experience with REDS:RedstoneConnect I watched instead of leaping in. It's now trading at 10.75p. Ouch!

Pants!

I don't know of anything particularly interesting due to happen next week. My main hope is that OPTI:Optibiotix will stage an amazing turnaround, coz then I'll look dead good for having bought more shares with my new loan while they were rock-bottom.

If they drop further then I'll look like a tit.

I wonder what's more likely?...

One last Optibiotix push

Something is severely wrong with the market. I expressed disbelief that following the signing of a 3-year supply contract for LP_LDL^® with HLH Biopharma, the share price of OPTI:Optibiotix had dropped back below 70p.

Yesterday it dropped further.

It's crazy!!

OPTI:Optibiotix are in contract negotiations with other potential LP_LDL^® suppliers after interest from 30 companies at the recent Vitafoods event. Each contract signed will be the equivalent of free money - the expenditure has been completed on the R&D and a manufacturer has been appointed - who will also be paying 50% of their proceeds to OPTI:Optibiotix.

All this is just for LP_LDL^®, and given the news time granted to a potential cholesterol-reducing injection yesterday (not available for 5 years), the fact OPTI:Optibiotix have something ready to market now that does exactly that, should be another signal of the potential revenues.

Add to that Slimbiome sales just kicking off, promised free shares in SBTX:SkinBiotherapeutics and the launch of Sweetbiotix in late 2017 to early 2018, as well as a platform designed to discover further applications for the microbiome, and the short, medium and long term potential is just staggering.

I've got a standing order for £200 a month going into a savings account. It's meant to be for emergencies or paying for holidays. I decided last night to divert it for 12 months in order to take advantage of the market insanity around OPTI:Opibiotix.

I took out a 12 month loan for £2,250 paying off at just under £200 a month and cancelled my savings standing order. This will cost me £167 interest over the year. I expect to make that back within a week when the market corrects.

This morning I bought 3,393 OPTI:Optibiotix shares at a ridiculous 66.7p costing £2,275.08.

That takes my total holding to 26,650 costing £19,175.37 and comprising exactly 30% of my portfolio. The average price per share is 72p after buying a big chunk of my holding at 90p and averaging that down over the last 18 months.

With the bid price at 65.5p I'm sitting on a £1,755.46 loss. I really, really wish I'd only just discovered this share!!

OPTI:Optibiotix is my Nemesis Share by a wide margin. The nearest contender is KIBO:Kibo Mining losing £979.89.

I am absolutely convinced it will come good, and I feel it will come good very soon. The hard work has been done, the contracts are being negotiated, the CEO is brilliant and genuinely cares about his shareholders, the science is tested and written up in respected journals, the potential market is global and gigantic, the long-term model is low cost and high margin and the strains are protected by IP.

Maybe I'm writing all this to convince myself I've just done the right thing? I have broken the fundamental 10% rule twice in taking my holding to 30% of my portfolio. Maybe I'm missing something? If I am then I'm an idiot. If not, then now I just need to sit back and watch the story unfold...