Spring Cleaning

It’s been a great start to the year and my portfolio has increased by 18.4% since January – comfortably above FTSE 100 and Nasdaq!

That said, I’ve noticed a fair bit of weakness in my portfolio so far, and wanted to record all my recent transactions here. I will still be doing a quarterly update to detail all my winners and losers at the end of March – this is just going to be a quick overview of what I bought and sold.

The main theme was that 14 positions was simply too much for my high risk reward strategy. I want fewer positions, in higher conviction plays. Ideally getting down to about 6-7 positions in the near future (if I have enough conviction in them).

Sold – Global Petroleum (GBP)

Learnt a valuable lesson here. Saw this tipped to perform well upon the announcement of initial 2d seismic data and thought I’d take a small punt. It should have paid off as the SP soared up 30% pretty swiftly from my buy in price on the back of results. I expected it to go further however and held on. Big mistake. Kept waiting for the share price to go up further, but to no avail as the SP kept creeping further and further down. Ended up holding for much longer than I wanted to, and eventually into a heavy percentage loss – thankfully never put too much in.

Honestly, I should have been pretty happy with 30% and banked it. Looking at the company now I think its complete rubbish! Non existent PR and no shareholder focus. Interesting prospects, but without any shareholder presentations or updates etc, they’re never going to attract volume from private investors. The irony is I banked a 30% profit on Argo Blockchain – 2 months later and I could have banked 900%.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Lesson learnt: set myself a target for any short term punts and be realistic with the prospects given the factors.

Sold – Armadale Capital (ACP)

Simply wasn’t doing much for me. I think what they’re doing is fine, I just don’t have the same conviction as some of the other shares I hold, and believe my capital would be better elsewhere. Prospects are good, but further research on Bushveld Minerals and Tharisa has led me to believe my money would be better there.

Sold – Deepverge (DVRG)

For the same reasons as above, it’s my belief that my money could be better off elsewhere. Plus I only held a small amount anyway – so it was destined for the chopping block when I realised that I wanted fewer positions. Apart from a few Covid plays, (which I’m not too confident in) I can’t see much short term upside here. That said, it’s a very interesting company and will remain firmly on my watchlist for re-entry points in the future.

The water monitoring side of the business is interesting (and Affimer based) but I remain very sceptical of the ‘Labskin’ and the new ‘Skin Trust Club’ unfortunately.

Sold – Power Metal Resources (POW)

I like Power Metal. I do. The CEO really knows his stuff and the company has a bright future – I think. That said, I ended up sitting at about 30% down which meant it was (at that point) a tiny position in my portfolio. It didn’t make much sense to keep and would rather reinforce the positions I’m more confident in. Like Deepverge, this will remain firmly on my watchlist, and I hope some of their initial drilling results are positive.

Sold – Simec Atlantis

I’m really disappointed with my holding here. It’s been the worst performing share I’ve held after I bought the peak in August. I was new to investing at the time so I didn’t really monitor for the best time to buy. Normally I don’t like to crystallise a loss – 42% in this instance! But that said I’m not sure I like the way the company is looking. Interesting tech but everything is just moving at such a slow pace here. Market is clearly sensitive to the updates at Uskmouth which could provide a short term catalyst (in either direction), though my view is that sentiment has gone here and an explosive rise if the news is positive could be muted.

Disappointing to bank such a large loss but I’ve learnt lessons in trying to look for better times to buy, and the importance of judging news flow.

Bought – Avacta (more)

Nothing needs to be said here. Bought more at 180 and already made 40% on it! Beast in the making and I’m so so tempted to add more. That said, another 50% to the share price would mean it is over half my portfolio – so I think I’m happy to let this run.

Very tempted to add even more.

Bought – Tharisa

Really like the look of this. Essentially just very undervalued given the basket price of the PGM which they mine. Helped greatly from a large increase in the price of Rhodium. Planning on doing proper research notes on this soon.