Week 253 Review - The gradual slide continues, and Ilika is gone

Hardly anything happened this week. Most shares slipped a little and very few gained. OPTI:Optibiotix lost 2p which accounted for £2,200 of the £2,646 slide. The deficit between cost and value widened to £34,424 and the overall portfolio value dropped to £81,176.

Biggest faller was my newest share and not a great feeling for my magic formula experiment. APAX:Apax Global Alpha dropped 6%, although I noticed some very odd behaviour of the share price all week, with a big spread during the day tending to close up again at the end. It was hammered on Thursday and is now 10% down.

TRMR:Tremor was the only other big loser, dropping 5% to go 52% down in my trading account.

Share of the Week is IQE:IQE which published a really good trading update. It was so good I'm hoping the climb will continue and we'll end up back around the 100p range. This week it went up 4% which was the biggest rise I managed from anything. My ISA holding was meant to be a short term quick win, and I bought them at 75p thinking it was a steal. 100p would give me a 30% profit which I would take, as they were not meant to be a long term holding. My trading account holding was purchased at 101p so I need a more substantial rise to get anything out of that. I may very well flog them for a loss if it looks like they'll never get there. My SIPP holding is 131p, so they will be for the very, very long term and the dividend.

The third week in a row that I've had a medium sized fall, which is taking us dangerously close to the orange line.

Still above the trend line so there's hope.

Here's the performance of the ISA and share accounts

			Weekly Change
Cash	£14.63		-£89.82
Portfolio cost	£60,070.42		+£242.63
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£40,550.11	(-32.5%)	-£1,267.07
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-14.48		+£152.80
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£4.92	(-0.1%)	+£15.19
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,376.93		+£152.80
Average monthly cash profit	£368.09	(7.4%)	+£1.17
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

I sold my 1,600 IKI:Ilika shares for 54.4p after buying them for 43.54369p and made £152.80 (21.2%) profit. This was really great, as I've been moaning about how rubbish the company is for ages and I didn't think I'd ever get to make a profit. Knowing my luck they will fly now, and I wish them all the best as their technology is great. I just have severe doubts about their ability to commercialise it and turn a profit.

Unfortunately the profit wasn't enough to take my year 5 performance into positive territory, but it did improve by £15 a month and one more sale should see me in the black. I tried to resist, but couldn't stop myself buying 1,672 more OPTI:Optibiotix shares at 56p, costing £948.27. Given that my average is around 65p, I had to take a chance to bring that down a little. I was also convinced they were due a spike at the end of the week after a tree shake to just below support the day before. Unfortunately I was dead wrong.

The purchase takes my overall holding in OPTI:Optibiotix to 111,661 shares bought at an average price of 64.53p and costing £72,468.09. That's 62% of my portfolio cost. Each 1p change in share price is worth £1,116. It's currently losing £14,440 which makes me sad.

The profit from the sale was so measly when spread over 5 years it didn't move the percentage by even 0.1.

Just above the injection line, which is some small comfort.

The trend line isn't that steep really, but the fact it's still downwards is troubling. At least we're still the right side of it.

The SIPP looks like this after week 237

			Weekly Change
Cash	£29.81		+£0
Portfolio cost	£52,946.27		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£38,990.09	(-26.4%)	-£1,347.08
Potential profits	£66.28		-£42.76
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.57	(-0.3%)	+£0.52
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£254.29	(5.8%)	-£1.08
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		+0%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

Very little happened. Potential profits fell, with only JLP:Jubileee Metals and FXPO:Ferrexpo still in profit as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics went back to loss. All of those shares dropped a bit, so £42 was knocked off paper profits. OPTI:Optibiotix accounted for most of the drop in value, but CAML:Central Asia Metals also fell and had an impact.

Still a bit of a buffer to the orange line.

In 3 weeks we'll lose anything above zero and will have been in the red for a whole year. I'm not selling anything and getting precious few dividends, so it's all a bit rubbish. I hope my move to the magic formula experiment will turn things around. I'll have my first dividend payment in a few weeks, so it's already bearing fruit.

Here's the trading portfolio after week 203

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,405.80	(-40.3%)	-£32.30
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£30.81	(15.7%)	-£0.67
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£6.50	(3.3%)	-£0.03
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	3.6%		+0%
Compound performance	14%		+0%

Back to nothing much happening with this account, as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics failed miserably to take off to 20p like I expected. It's only 7% down, so it could make that up in a day the way things tend to move with this share. The nearest other share to profit is CAML:Central Asia Metals, but that's still down 41%. The announcement of dividend re-reinstatement would give them a massive boost. If FXPO:Ferrexpo can do it I don't see why CAML can't, especially as none of their mines have been impacted by Coronavirus. It's sensible that they suspended it, but when they are confident in final results surely they should re-instate.

It's rather frustrating that LION:Lionsgold (now TALY:Tally) was bought for £345 as I'd made a loss elsewhere and didn't have cash to make it up to £500. It would be great to flog that and get back to a £2,500 cost price, but they are still suspended. I'm not even certain if they will ever re-list. From the bulletin boards it sounds as if there are technical problems with their credit card resulting in people being over charged, so it's not looking very promising.

I do believe that line is almost flat! Just need to lift it up by £1,000 now...

Despite Thursday's big drop, the virtual magic formula account improved from -15.2% to -15.07%, which is quite a surprise. Only 4 shares are in profit, but many of the losses are smaller. CARD:Card Factory, VTY:Vistry Group and ITV:ITV are by far the worst performers, with PLUS:Plus 500, FXPO:Ferrexpo and IGG:IG Group way ahead.

My dream for next week is a SweetBiotix announcement from OPTI:Optibiotix, re-instatement of the dividend for CAML:Central Asia Metals, a trading update from JLP:Jubilee Metals, and IQE:IQE going on a roll. Even just one of those would be nice...

Week 252 Review - Another dip but a massive trading victory

Most things had a great week, unfortunately OPTI:Optibiotix didn't, so the difference between cost and value widened by £2,966. That increased the deficit to £31,778 and dropped total portfolio value to £83,670.

There was only one big loser this week, but it was OPTI:Optibiotix as mentioned above which dropped 4p and cost me £4,400. Great news that the portfolio only fell by just under £3,000, meaning everything else covered £1,400 of the OPTI losses.

SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics had a good week, climbing 5% in my ISA and 7% in my SIPP. I thought they would climb higher now the OPTI sale has cleared, but I think investors are scared they will do it again.

TRMR:Tremor went up 6% but I'm still losing 47% in my trading account.

IQE:IQE climbed 5% in my SIPP, 6% in my trading account, and 9% in my ISA as they very slowly but steadily recover.

FXPO:Ferrexpo are one of my new "magic formula" shares and are already in profit, climbing 10% this week to go 6% up altogether and making £59 potential profit. Even better they went ex-dividend on Thursday so I should get around £18 and my SIPP is starting to behave like a proper pension account.

SAE:Simec Atlantis Energy has had a rocket up it lately, and climbed 11% this week. They are still 81% down and it's a very small holding, but I shall watch with interest.

Share of the Week by a million miles is JLP:Jubilee Metals, which is finally starting to re-rate. My ISA holding climbed 11% and is only 18% down now, my new SIPP holding climbed 15% and is 5% in profit, and best of all my trading holding climbed to 30% so I sold them and banked some profit.

Pretty upsetting that despite so many shares climbing this week, we're still heading back towards the orange line.

A worryingly steep drop, but we're on the right side of the trend line.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£104.45		+£96.47
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£41,574.55	(-30.5%)	-£1.698.30
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.85		+£0.22
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.11	(-0.4%)	+£0.09
Total Dividends	£1,343.15		+£0.22
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£366.93	(7.4%)	-£1.53
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		+0%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

First of all let's cover the 22p dividend. That was the left-over after the share consolidation by IES:Invinity Energy. I also added £100 to my ISA as I'd run out of cash to pay the £3.75 fees, and the minimum to start up a new ISA for the tax year is £100. It means a small increase in the injection amount.

Portfolio value is down £1,698 thanks to OPTI:Optibiotix, and there's still nothing in profit. The nearest shares to being in profit are OPTI:Optibiotix and IKA:Ilika, which are both down by 16%, and JLP:Jubileee Metals which is down by 18%. SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is down 25% and everything else is absolutely trashed.

This does raise the rather worrying question of where my next sale is coming from to try and improve my 7.4% of portfolio cost average monthly return. I've made it clear I'm not selling any OPTI:Optibiotix, so my only hopes are the other three. I have stated I'm willing to trade SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, but haven't done a very good job of it so far. Although I guess I have made £2,425 profit doing just that, so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

I'll sell IKA:Ilika relatively soon if they get into profit, as I'm still not convinced at their commercial credentials, and I'm way overweight on JLP:Jubilee Metals given their openly acknowledged aim to grow the company and not return value to shareholders. There's way too much risk of getting fleeced to line the pockets of the Chairman, so although I'll retain a token holding, I'll sell 80% of my shares gradually.

Still above the injection line, but only just. The momentum seems to have ground to a halt.

I was hoping to get the deficit below £10,000 by now, but we're back nearer £20,000.

The SIPP looks like this after week 236

			Weekly Change
Cash	£29.81		-£626.97
Portfolio cost	£52,946.27		+£1,011.06
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,337.17	(-23.8%)	-£1,248.29
Potential profits	£109.04		+£109.04
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£15.09	(-0.3%)	-£1.99
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£255.37	(5.8%)	-£1.38
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.7%		-0.2%
Compound performance	40%		+0%

This is complicated! I added £400 cash because I wanted to keep the JLP:Jubilee Metals shares while they re-rate, and I could do with the £100 tax rebate to cover future charges. That meant I had £1,000 to be able to buy my next "magic formula" share.

Number 2 on my ranking spreadsheet was APAX:Apax Global Alpha which is a managed fund, and which has been clobbered by the Covid-19 drop, but which hasn't really recovered yet and pays a very healthy dividend. This seemed like a perfect SIPP share, so I bought 695 at 143.7569p costing £1,011.06.

I've decided with the "magic formula" shares I'll buy £1,000 worth not including commission, so most costs will be about £1,011. They haven't really moved since and the bid price is 141.8p, so with spread and commission they are down by £37 (4%).

Meanwhile we have the unprecedented situation of 3 different shares all being in profit this week. FXPO:Ferrexpo is up 6% making £59, JLP:Jubilee Metals is up 5% making £24, and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics is up 1% making £24. I'm still planning to sell SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics when they hit 19.5p as I really need to improve my performance on this account, and most of my  holdings are long term. I want to increase my SBTX holding, and I think the best chance will be to trade them and hope I don't miss the re-rate.

The drop in portfolio value was all down to OPTI:Optibiotix

A complex chart! Injection increased a small amount, cost went up again, and value dropped despite this.

Only a few more weeks until this account will have been in the red for a year.

The trading account looks like this after week 202

			Weekly Change
Cash	£186.37		+£186.28
Portfolio cost	£2,354.11		-£136.10
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,438.10	(-38.9%)	-£19.52
Potential profits	£0		-£65.01
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£320.95		+£200.18
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£31.48	(16%)	+£18.58
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£256.66		+£200.18
Average monthly cash profit	£6.53	(3.3%)	+£4.28
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	3.6%		+2.4%
Compound performance	14%		+9%

Quite a lot to pull apart here. I sold JLP:Jubilee Metals at 3.8p after buying at 2.81p and made £200.19 (30.3%) profit. I then removed £150 from the account to reduce the injection amount, and bought 3,361 shares in SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics at 14.875p costing £511.90, as I believe they are about to go on a sprint to 19.5p.

I saved the excess cash, as I think it was a mistake to pay more than £500 when I bought JLP:Jubilee Metals, as I need some cash buffer in the account to ensure I can afford to sell something at a loss and still have enough to invest £500 with the proceeds.

So although I wiped out my potential profits, my actual profits for the year went up significantly and are now a respectable 16% with only 6 weeks of this trading year to go. My long term performance improved by £4 a month, but is still only 3.3%. However, after the disastrous start, this isn't too bad, and still better than building society interest.

So it means I only really have one holding I can trade with, as the others are losing so much money I'm not prepared to sell them. It means I have to be very, very careful with this one, and only go for shares that are clearly on an upwards trajectory. Easier said than done! I have been learning a lot about trading, so will be using those learnings for future purchases. I didn't really need to with SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, as it's clear the recent drop was due to OPTI:Optibiotix dumping 4.5 million shares. Those are already being snapped up, so I think this is a reasonable bet. It means I'll be attempting to trade these in both my trading account and my SIPP. This one will be with the aim of making money, the SIPP one will be with the aim of increasing my holding.

It's been a long time since I was able to further my plan of extracting the whole £2,500 injection from this account. The £150 withdrawn this week has given a welcome dip to the orange line.

So in real terms there was a slight dip, but I did remove £200 profit and £186 is being held in cash, so it's not really a surprise. Most of the portfolio had a good week. It's not often I have felt happy about the trading account.

Last week the virtual magic formula portfolio was down by 15.2%, and this week it's only down by 10.76%, so a 4.44% gain. PLUS:Plus 500 had a bad week, dropping about 10%, but is still the best performer at 44% up. FXPO:Ferrexpo is next best at 31% up, which is nice now I'm a holder. IGG:IG Group are up 13% so also doing quite well. Then BHP:BHP Group, DGOC:Diversified Oil & Gas, KETL:Strix Group, MONY:MoneySupermarket and PSN:Persimmon are all in profit, having recovered form the Coronavirus crash.

Many of them are still dreadful though. CARD:Card Factory is down 45% and VTY:Vistry Group are down 41%, with ITV:ITV down 38% and REDD:Redde Northgate down 30%.

On my newly updated spreadsheet POLR:Polar Capital Holdings were next in line to be bought. They are similar to APAX:Apax Global Alpha in that they are a managed fund, and are still cheap following the crash. They only need to make up 13% to get back where they were before the crash, whereas APAX are still 22% down so were better value. I suspect by the time I get my next pension transfer it will all be different. However, if I can make a quick profit on JLP:Jubilee Metals to get up to £1,000, then I'll be putting it in POLR:Polar Capital Holdings.

So, next week's wish list is a re-rate of JLP:Jubilee Metals, a recovery to 19.5p of SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics, and some Sweetbiotix news from OPTI:Optibitix that takes us back to 70p...

Week 251 Review - Disappointing drop as Optibiotix results fail to inspire

There was a severe reversal in fortunes this week as the OPTI:Optibiotix optimism hit a bit of a wall and the price fell, followed soon after by SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics when a 4.5m share sale went through at the end of the day. The result was a drop in portfolio value of £5,725 and half last week's gains gone. The deficit between cost and value went up to £28,812 and total portfolio value is now £86,105.

Biggest loser was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which crashed 17% in my SIPP and 13% in my ISA. I'm so frustrated that I didn't sell the lot at 20p when the order was in but I just couldn't get it dealt before the price fell. I would have been able to significantly increase my holding now they are 14p. It looks like the reason for the drop is a thumping great 4.5 million share sale. That would be exactly what OPTI:Optibiotix need to dispose of to get below 30% and no longer have to report SBTX losses in the accounts, and to enable a Nasdaq listing. I'm still miffed, but there's a good chance they will head back up from here.

 OPTI:Optibiotix fell 5p which is 8% and made up most of my losses this week. I still haven't had a chance to report them being in profit, but they were looking good on Tuesday. The results were a disappointment, mainly because some of the revenue quoted in the trading update couldn't be accounted for in this year due to new reporting regulations, and costs were higher than I expected. I was expecting a £1.5m loss but it was a £2m loss. It's taking a lot longer than expected to get to break-even. This is still looking bright for the future though.

IES:Invinity Energy had another good week, climbing 6%. They are now only down 82%, which given I thought they would go bust a few weeks ago gives me a glimmer of hope.

Share of the Week picked a really bad time to put in s stellar performance, seeing as I wanted to buy some. CAML:Central Asia Metals climbed 7% and that cost me dear when my pension transfer finally appeared. I am very, very happy to say that I have increased my holding to 5,000 shares and am now waiting for news that the dividend will be re-instated, as it's going to be £400 with my enlarged holding.

Not what I wanted to see - especially as there was a big hike in the cash injection.

This shows the size of the drop more accurately, as it's not been flattened by the cash injection. Last time we had 2 weeks of drops before the up-turn. Hopefully that won't happen again this time.

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

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£43,272.85	(-27.7%)	-£3.281.91
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.20	(-0.4%)	+£0.48
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£368.45	(7.4%)	-£1.47
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.2%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

Very quiet and all the drop down to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics and OPTI:Optibiotix.

Big drop, very bad.

Still flattening the line, but slowly.

The SIPP looks like this after week 235

			Weekly Change
Cash	£656.78		+£626.77
Portfolio cost	£51,935.21		+£2,266.55
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,574.40	(-21.9%)	-£2,458.70
Potential profits	£0		-£239.14
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£13.10	(-0.3%)	+£0.50
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£256.75	(5.9%)	-£1.09
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	8.9%		-0.8%
Compound performance	40%		-4%

Lots more happening here. First of all my transfer of £2,800 came through on Friday afternoon, so I immediately purchased CAML:Central Asia Metals to achieve my ambition of having 5,000 shares. I bought 747 shares at 153.372p costing £1,157.64. I'm frustrated that when the transfer should have happened these were 132p, so it has cost me £159 more to buy the shares than it should have done, and I've lost out on a 16% gain which would have had knock-on benefits to the size of my dividend. However, I did reduce my average holding price to 186p so they were still a bargain.

I also instigated my magic formula experiment with 562 shares in FXPO:Ferrexpo at 177.695p costing £1,015.59 with commission and stamp duty. I know I have a real share when I have to pay stamp duty! These were 140p when I should have had the transfer, so rather than costing more money (I fix it at £1,000 of shares), I could have bought 714 shares instead of 562, which would have been an extra 152 shares. That's also very annoying, but I still consider these to be very cheap. I've just got to hope their ex-CEO doesn't dump all his shares to pay a big fine, and hope the Ukrainian government don't confiscate the mine for his crimes. I think that's why the shares are so cheap, so I just need to hope.

That leaves me with £656 cash, which was meant to be added to the £500 tax rebate to buy my second magic formula share. Unfortunately I spent that one one of my amazing short term can't fail companies which has since dropped, so I'm stuck waiting until I can get the money back. It's not the end of the world as I need to completely re-do my spreadsheet to find which company is now number 2 on the list. The alternative would be to stick £356 in the account and keep JLP:Jubilee Metals for a while. Given the amount I'm saving during lock-down, that may be a nice option.

Potential profits vanished as SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics crashed thanks to the 4.5 million share sale. Performance has also tanked due to the increase in cost and injection amount. Even compound performance lost 4% because of the increase in capital invested.

Big hike in cost and injection, but much smaller hike in value. At least the drop in value was less than the injection so it didn't drop.

That's a more realistic chart, but I'm fairly relaxed about it.

Here's the trading account after week 201

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,593.72	(-36.0%)	+£15.18
Potential profits	£65.01		-£22.63
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£12.90	(6.2%)	-£0.29
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.25	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

Sell value improved largely thanks to CAML:Central Asia Metals, and JLP:Jubilee Metals dropped, rather drastically reducing the potential profit. I now have two accounts with a short term JLP:Jubilee Metals holding I want to get rid of.

Creeping higher...

I do believe there's a risk this line may flatten!

The virtual magic formula pension is now down 15.2% compared to 18.36% last week, so getting better. PLUS:Plus 500 is still the top performer, but FXPO:Ferrexpo is now 2nd at 19.36% improvement. I could shudder with incandescent rage! It will be interesting to see which company comes 2nd on the list. It was PLUS:Plus 500 when I first started this, but with the price rise they should be well down the list now. I'm hoping it's not CARD:Card Factory as they are 59% down and that might put them in bargain territory. However, will they survive the lock-down?

I'm not writing any more today, as the sun is glaring through the window and I need a pot of tea and a comfy chair.

Week 250 Review - Almost a record week but Fridays are rubbish

By the end of Thursday I was £16K up on the week and OPTI:Optibiotix was flying, but predictably it hit the dreaded 70p resistance and the traders all sold on Friday, dropping the price 7p from the morning high and robbing me of my best-ever week. I still can't complain as the portfolios put on £11,768 which narrowed the deficit between cost and value to £23,086 and increased total value to £88,937.

The only significant drop was SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which fell 5%. It wasn't even allowed to get to the normal 20p resistance level this time, peaking at 18.5p before falling back to 16.5p bid price. The pricing confirms that you can't believe a word of the buy/sell stats as it showed practically all buys for the whole week and the price still dropped 5%.

IES:Invinity Energy had a surprising spurt this week, with many people making big profits as it rose 50% from the recent low. However, for me it was a 6% rise on my purchase price and it's still 88% down. I'm pretty happy though, as I'd written this off as bankrupt when RED:RedT Energy ran out of cash. The reverse takeover may mean I get to salvage something.

CAML:Central Asia Metals has had a miserable time lately, not helped by low metal prices and suspending the dividend. This was always my guaranteed "in the black" share that I'm holding for the long term, so it has been a shock to see it fall so far. There was a 6% recovery this week, so we are only 26% down now. The problem is, I need the recovery to stall until Legal & General get their arse into gear and complete my pension transfer. If it had come through after the usual 10 days I could have bought CAML at 132p, but now I'll have to pay 142p. Thanks a bunch Legal & General!

TRMR:Tremor were the 3rd share that rose by 6% this week. Buying these was the biggest mistake in my sorry trading account history. They are still 55% down despite the rise.

JLP:Jubilee Metals continue to frustrate, as they manage to shoot themselves in the foot every time the price looks like recovering. This time they announced that the fine chrome plant is to be dismantled and moved from DCM to an operation that's generating a lot more chrome tailings. That's a sensible thing to do, but it caused the price to drop to what it was a few weeks ago. I did take advantage of the drop to spend my £500 SIPP tax rebate on some of these. Fortunately there was a rally at the end of the week, so my ISA finished 8% up and my trading account climbed by 13%.

Share of the week was OPTI:Optibiotix, which despite causing me much misery on Friday as I watched £7,700 wiped off my weekly gain, still climbed 10p which is a healthy 15% and was responsible for £11,000 of the £11,768 rise this week.

Good news, but we have hit the point that has triggered a big dip 3 times over the last 6 months. Funnily it just happens to be the OPTI:Optibiotix trading resistance point. Can we finally break through it this time, or are we about to see another 6 weeks of misery?

If I can get above -£20k then the trend line should reverse in about 14 weeks time.

The ISA and share portfolios look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£46,554.76	(-22.2%)	+£6.631.32
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£20.68	(-0.4%)	+£0.50
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£369.92	(7.4%)	-£1.49
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.3%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

It's great to see a £6,631 improvement. If the market had closed at Friday lunchtime it would have been a £10,600 rise and I would have been able to report £3,525 potential profits, but as the traders took their toll I ended up with no potential profit and OPTI:Optibiotix still down, but only by 1%. That's still £600 though. Not much activity aside from that. I should clobber myself with a brick for being such an idiot and moping about because of the Friday fall - this was still one of my best ever weeks and I should be celebrating!

Healthy bounce

This account has the most difficult trend line to reverse I think.

The SIPP looks like this after week 234

			Weekly Change
Cash	£30.01		+£7.51
Portfolio cost	£49,668.66		+£492.49
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£40,766.55	(-17.9%)	+£5,005.66
Potential profits	£239.14		-£142.49
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£12.60	(-0.3%)	+£0.55
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£257.84	(6.2%)	-£1.11
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.7%		-0.1%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

A flurry of excitement as my £500 tax rebate arrived. I was going to combine it with my £2,800 transfer, but there's no sign of that arriving soon so I took advantage of the dip in JLP:Jubilee Metals and bought 14,485 shares at 3.3175p costing £492.49. That left the £7.51 added to the cash to keep me at the suggested minimum of £30. The new JLP shares are down 7% due to the wide spread and commission, but I'm hoping this will be a short term investment as I can see them hitting 5p quite soon. That will give a 45% profit so I can further my magic formula plans.

Similar story to the ISA, with a fantastic £5,005 increase, but SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics big drop cost me all last weeks gains in potential profit as it fell £142. I could do with a quick profit from JLP to fix my struggling performance stats.

Halfway between injection and cost - I'm feeling it won't get back into profit before the previous profitable weeks disappear of the left side of the chart.

Less than £10k deficit to make up - that starts to give me hope.

The trading account looks like this after week 200

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,578.54	(-36.6%)	+£131.19
Potential profits	£87.64		+£79.22
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£13.19	(6.4%)	-£0.31
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.26	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

A great week, with all shares climbing a little. JLP:Jubilee Metals extended potential profits by £79 to £87 and if this is a trading account I really should be thinking about taking the profits, but I have a feeling there's quite a lot more to come over the next few weeks.

Aaargh! See - I'm a rubbish trader - I'm thinking long term when I have a stack in my ISA for that - I'm meant to be following momentum and there is a risk this will drift on no news for the next few weeks. I should be planning to buy and sell within the same week in this account.

I should sell it next week whatever happens and get my 14% profit. I forgot until I checked my spreadsheet, that I initially had 9,120 JLP shares in this account but sold them at a £84 loss in order to move them to my ISA. I should have known then that I wasn't cut out for trading! So I'm only £3 up if you balance the 2 out. With that in mind, maybe I should let it go a teensy bit higher before selling.

Nice to see last week's blip removed

That trend line could be flat in a few weeks time. It would be great to have one account pointing in the right direction.

Last week the virtual magic formula account was down 21.17% and this week it's only down 18.36%, so an improvement of 2.81%. Top performer is still PLUS:Plus 500 at 58% up, with IGG:IG Group still up 15%. What really, really hacks me off is that the next best performer is FXPO:Ferrexpo up 10%, which was my number one target if Legal & General weren't so utterly useless. It's so frustrating that they are denying me a rare chance to buy a long term holding at a great price. Absolutely gutted.

It's a bank holiday on Monday so a short week next week. It will be a massive test for OPTI:Optibiotix to see if we can beat the traders and break out of the 70p resistance.

Week 249 Review - Third drop in a row is a worry

A pretty depressing week, with almost everything down slightly, and still no sign of my pension transfer request being delivered to benefit from these bargains. The combined portfolios dropped by £1,826 and the gap between cost and value widened to £34,854, with overall value dropping to £76,669.

Biggest losers were TLOU:Tlou Energy and IKA:Ilika, both fallong 7%. TLOU has been drifting ever since they suspended operations due to Coronavirus. IKA are just drifting on lack of news. I'm reasonably confident both of these will get into profit eventually.

N4P:N4 Pharma dropped 6% as people began to realise what a load of rubbish they really are. I probably should have salvaged £350 last week as I think I'll end up losing everything, but I feel I may as well risk losing a few hundred quid in the hope they manage to do something useful.

JLP:Jubilee Metals almost got into profit, but has slid over the past couple of weeks. I think despite generating millions of dollars in revenues, most people simply don't trust the directors as they have zero success in generating shareholder value, but huge success in lining their own pockets. I think there is hope if our CEO can control the grasping instincts of our Chairman, but I fear any revenues will be thrown away bailing out his other failing companies.

Only one share rose by 5% or more this week, so Share of the Week goes to SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics which rose 5% in my ISA and 7% in my SIPP. I'm surprised that they are going up while OPTI:Optibiotix go down, given they are 2 years from revenue whereas OPTI are earning revenue now. I think people are yo-yoing between them to trade the peaks and troughs.

Oh dear - at least the decline isn't as steep as last time, but it feels a bit relentless

The downward slide is steeper than the trend line, so not much hope of flattening it.

The ISA and share accounts look like this

			Weekly Change
Cash	£7.98		+£0
Portfolio cost	£59,827.79		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price-commission)	£39,923.44	(-33.3%)	-£1.020.66
Potential profits	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Dividends	£0.63		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£-167.28		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£21.18	(-0.4%)	+£0.12
Total Dividends	£1,342.93		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£20,224.13		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£371.41	(7.4%)	-£1.56
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	11.3%		-0.1%
Compound performance	54%		+0%

OPTI:Optibiotix wasn't the only one to blame this week as most shares dropped, and £1,020 was taken off the value.

Still on the right side of the orange line but only just. Hopefully it's a pause for breath after the meteoric rise over the previous 4 weeks. We're still not back to the pre-coronavirus level.

At least we're still above the trend line

The SIPP looks like this after week 233

			Weekly Change
Cash	£22.50		+£0
Portfolio cost	£49,176.17		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£35,268.40	(-28.3%)	-£728.55
Potential profits	£381.63		+£142.49
Yr 5 Dividends	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Interest	£0.03		+£0
Yr 5 Profit from sales	£0		+£0
Yr 5 Average monthly cash profit	-£14.15	(-0.3%)	+£0.59
Total Dividends	£1,899.24		+£0
Total Interest	£0.20		+£0
Total Profit from sales	£12,549.10		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£258.95	(6.3%)	-£1.12
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees / Months)
Performance/Injection	9.8%		+0%
Compound performance	44%		+0%

Not as bad a drop as the ISA, and SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics was Share of the Week so potential profits grew by £142. I've decided 20p is going to take some breaking through as the traders all sell at that point. If it hits 19.5p I'll sell and wait for the drop in the hope I can increase my holding. I may even buy some more if my pension transfer ever arrives.

Very similar to the ISA, but a much bigger buffer above the orange line.

Also very similar to the ISA, which isn't a surprise given the OPTI:Optibiotix bias in both accounts.

The trading portfolio looks like this after week 199

			Weekly Change
Cash	£0.09		+£0
Portfolio cost	£2,490.21		+£0
Portfolio sell value (bid price - commission)	£1,447.35	(-41.9%)	-£77.25
Potential profits	£8.42		-£45.27
Year 4 Dividends	£13.20		+£0
Year 4 Profit	£120.77		+£0
Yr 4 Average monthly cash profit	£13.50	(6.5%)	-£0.32
Dividends	£47.92		+£0
Profit from sales	£56.48		+£0
Average monthly cash profit	£2.27	(1.1%)	-£0.01
(Sold stocks profit + Dividends - Fees  / Months)
Performance/Injection	1.2%		+0%
Compound performance	5%		+0%

A bad week across the board, much of which was JLP:Jubilee Metals dropping and wiping out most of the potential profit.

It was looking so much better for a short while.

Is it my imagination or is that trend line getting distinctly flatter!

I've started reading a book to try and help with my so far feeble attempts at trading. It's called "The market Maker's Edge - Day Trading Tactics" by Josh Lukeman.

It's not an easy read, and he uses a lot of trader jargon without explaining it, but there are some good pointers. My hope was to find out more about what market makers get up to so I could try and explain what's happening with share prices. What's clear from the book is that market makers are actively trading the stocks, as in shorting as well as buying and selling, and that they rely on the psychology of private investors quite extensively.

I've been scratching my head wondering who has been trading some of the shares I own so aggressively, and now I realise it's been the market makers all along.

The first read hasn't sunk in, especially as I've been reading it in bed with a wee dram. I'll need to do a second read during the day and take some notes, with pauses to look up what his jargon means.

One key message is the importance of candlestick charts. I was always very skeptical of technical analysis, as my feeling was that the share price went up with good news and down with bad, but now I realise there are not many days with news, so on all the other days traders are watching those charts and acting on what they think they should do. The chart becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Learning to read that should make a huge difference.

The first thing I'm watching on a few shares is what happens on days when the share price breaks higher than the previous day's high. That's meant to be the best signal that it's about to go higher. I want to test that theory before using it to choose when to buy. It would certainly be a lot easier than learning all the candlestick patterns.

The other take-home from the book is that when trading, you should aim to be selling the shares on the same day you buy them, unless there's a sound reason to keep them. That's a very different mindset that I've not managed to develop yet.

The virtual magic formula portfolio is -21.17% this week, compared to -18.09% last week, so it's been a bad week all round with a 3% drop. The shares that had gone into profit last week have gone back to loss, leaving just PLUS:Plus500 and IGG:IG Group Holdings in profit. CARD:Card Factory is now 65% down, which if they stay in business until the end of the lockdown and make changes so they are less vulnerable next time, could suggest quite a bargain.

I'm not going to rant at length about the utterly pathetic performance of Legal & General at fulfilling my pension transfer request. I don't believe their reason is to do with staff shortages or anything like that - I believe they are holding the cash for as long as they can get away with. It's despicable and is going to cost me as all the stocks I wanted to buy bounce back. Some already have, but soon they will have bounced too far for me to want to buy them any more. I can't plan what I'm going to do as I have no idea when the cash will arrive.

I'm really hoping we have an OPTI:Optibiotix trading update this week. I was expecting it last week, so can only hope the delay is due to another deal being imminent. If the share price stays this low I will be buying more when the pension transfer arrives. Part of me hopes I don't get the chance.

I suspect at some point CAML:Central Asia Metals will announce the reinstatement of the dividend, as I don't think their production has been affected by Covid-19. I want to get my holding to 5,000 shares before that happens. I'm considering using the proceeds from selling SBTX:SkinBioTherapeutics to do that if the pension transfer still hasn't arrived. Then buy back using the transfer money if the price drops. That's actually a genius idea - given it only arrived due to me writing this. There may be some action tomorrow!