Tracking

Monday 29 November 2010

Good day, today

Today the FTSE fell by 2% and lots of shares were down but my portfolio did well by comparison. Only 1 share was down, Low and BonarLWB and all the rest were either non movers or went up. Greencore continues to pump out RNS and the sp went up a little today, I suspect because Friday is the record day for final dividend.The dividend is 4,5c which on today's sp is about 3.33%. On my purchase price of 1.31 including dealing costs this works out at 3.4% which is a lot better than I am getting at my bank.
VOG has started to move up a little and tomorrow is the AGM so it will be interesting to learn what occured there.We are still waiting for the licence and tomorrow is the last day of the month. This means that my sell order for 10p expires. So, should I renew it or decide not to sell as a number of people of the BBs have suggested that it may go to 20p very soon. Is this fantasy or is it likely to happen? I will do nothing for the moment and find out whether I can sell my shares over the phone so that I can react to any new market conditions?
Ah, well we will see what tomorrow brings.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

The Irish problem

It has been very sad watching events unfold in Ireland,  when it is ordinary people who are picking up the tab for greedy, incompetent bamkers.I transferred some Euros to my TDWaterhouse account with the intention of topping up on Greencore shares. They are issuing a final dividend and the cutoff day is 3rd Dec. Just before I placed the order I thought about buying some Bank of Ireland sharesBKIR, as they had dropped from their spike to 50c. However, I stuck to my original plan and bought GNC. I was relieved this morning when I saw that BKIR shares had dropped from 37c yesterday to 34 after all the shenanigans that went on in Ireland last night.As I write they have now dropped to 33 and are likely to go lower. I feel the pain of the guys on the BB who are losing money like water flowing through your fingers.It seems that if you are shorting BKIR then you are  making money. I have never tried shorting, its contrary to my nature but it seems that is the only way to go for BKIR.

Saturday 20 November 2010

Interesting week

Funny old week really.I was tempted to buy some Bank of Ireland BKIR shares last week but bottled out and didn't only to see them go from 37c to 48c in the course of a week. Ah well. MY big news was the statement from Greencore Limited GNC, who issued an interim profit statement showing it would increase profits by 21% this year! Then there was a flurry of RNS all week as they are going to merge with Northern Foods NFDS to form a new company. Shares in both companies went up and I am going to buy more GNC shares next week as the divi date is Dec 3rd.I feel that this is a company to build up a holding in in order to get a good dividend. Currently, the dividend is 4c so on an sp of €1.31 that is about 3% return which is better than the bank.
After Vog announced that they were issuing more shares, the sp fell but recovered a little to close at 5.4p for the week. So I am still in profit and looking forthe sp to rise until it hits 10p.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Patience, Patience, Patience!!!

Yesterday I placed a limit order for Western and Oriental (WEST) for 1.8p and despite the fact that there were no trades all day, my order still wasn't filled. It remained at 1.75- 1.85 all day, so just before close of business, I cancelled the order and bought VOG shares instead, @6.62p. I decided that I would keep these for ages and sell my ones held in HSBC France when it hit 10p. Imagine my surprise when I received an RNS this morning saying that VOG were issuing a load more shares to raise £10.8M. The net result would be a fall in sp!! During the day the sp fell to 5.4p so I lost money on paper. Still I am confident that it will go up so just a case of waiting. If I had stuck with my order for WEST I could still have cancelled the next day and then bought more VOG shares but at a cheaper price. I MUST learn to be more patient.
Then I was interested to see that Sunrise Resources SRES had shot up to over 3p. I sold mine at 2.1p and I was happy with the profit BUT if I had more patience I would have more than doubled my money with lots more to go. I am not dissatisfied with my profit but it just shows that patience is the number 1 requirement for share trading.

Saturday 13 November 2010

Saturday Morning

On Saturday morning I like to finalise my figures for the week, relax and read the bulletin boards and then do a little research. Today I was looking at what P/E ratio is and how it helps.

How to Find the Price to earnings Ratio of a stock
This ratio is simply a mathmatical expression for how much you are paying for each pound the company earns every year.

For example:

Company A makes £1,000
Company A has issued 100 shares of stock
Company A stock is trading for £50 a share
The P/E is simply the earnings per share divided by the price per share.

So,

£1,000 (Earnings) / 100 (# of shares) = £10 per share.
Company A had £10 in profit for every share it has issued.
This is the Earnings part of the Price to Earnings Ratio

£50(The Price of each share) /£10 (The Earnings of Each Share) = 5

Company A would have a P/E of 5
.

I then went to the LSE site and found the P/ E for each of my shares and recorded them on my share spreadsheet. The P/Es varied between 7.7 and 200 and 2 were n/a as they weren't making any profit. The non profit making shares are my more exciting AIM shares where perhaps i will make some money if they shoot up rapidly. The others are where I have invested for dividend and modest growth but with perhaps a little more security. So of the 7 shares I currently have, 2 are not making any money and 4 are. 1 is French so I don't have the same figures to hand. So I have a ratio of 2:1 in security versus risk. I don't know whether this is good or not but it is a start.
After yesterday I decided to caancel my BKIR order and use all the money from my SRES deal to increase my holding of WEST and buy some shares in LDP Leeds Petroleum. LDP was tipped by Motley Fool as a share capable of doubling in price soon. We shall see. I emailled SRES and asked when their final results would be published and received a nice email from the Company Secretary saying probably the beginning of December so that is why I increased my holding. If I am right then I should make some money quickly. If I am wrong then I will have to wait a lot longer!

Friday 12 November 2010

What an interesting day!

I woke up this morning to find that the telephone and ADSL were not working. Rang SFR to find there was a problem with the line and they were working on it. I had no idea what was happening in the markets until the afternoon when it came back on. Then I found that VOG was up to 5.6p but more interestingly Sunrise Resources SRES had been over 2p in the day. Yesterday I had a sell order for 1.9p just for 1 day. I got on to TD Waterhouse website and put a limit order for 2.1p. I checked several times and althought the Ask price was over 2.1p the Bid price wasn't. I wondered whether I should cancel my order  and sell at market but I decided patience was better. I didn't need to sell the shares so I could afford to wait until it hit my target. Next time I checked it showed that the order had been executed and I had made 42% profit on a 6 week investment. I was very pleased, much better than the bank!
At the end of the day VOG finished at 5.77p which was very pleasing but Edenville Energy had been the second highest traded share of the day with 2 delayed trades  equalling 78M! However, the sp hadn't fallen much but it does beg the question - what is going on?
Now the key thing is what to reinvest in. I am torn between Leeds Petroleum(LDP), topping up Edenville and buying Bank of Ireland(BKIR). So far I have decided on BKIR although I may change my mind before the market opens on Monday.

Thursday 11 November 2010

Another RNS !!

Woke up late this morning and found another RNS from Sunrise Resources SRES, this caused a rise in share price of about 13%. After the barite results last week, they have now started drilling for gold in Long Lake, Canada. Certainly, for a small company they are having a go and I hope they are successful. Results are due in 6-8 weeks time!
After the excitement of the last few days at VOG, the share price (sp) continues to stay over 5p. It was intreresting to read the views of Broker Man Daniel on VOG
http://brokermandaniel.com/2010/11/11/victoria-oil-gas-fireworks-update/
I would be delighted if the sp gets to double figures as I will be selling my shares. I will then try to get back in on any dip in price but this time using my UK dealer.
Currently I have 7 different shares and my aim is to have a share in each market sector. I have taken the market sectors from British Bulls, http://www.britishbulls.com/, and as such there are 14 different sectors. It does mean that my investment in each share is small but also the overall risk is reduced. The other side of the coin is that the potential for big gains is reduced!

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Victoria Oil and Gas VOG

Well today the share started to move steadily upwards and at one point reached 5.4p! Also at one point in the day it was the top volume share on LSE. The BBs were full of posts and a number of long holders were able to sell at a profit and other new faces appeared. There was much talk of what would happen when the licence is received and what the sp will be in 2 years time. I am still with my sell target of 10p. It is difficult to change because of the situation with my French bank. If I was with a UK online dealing company then it would be easy to decide when to sell. Indeed, today some people sold at 5.15 or more and bought back in on the retrace. I think that is OK to do near the end of the day but in this instance I wouldn't do it in the morning or you may never get back in.
All my other shares showed a little movement up or stayed still, better than losing money! I also took the time to get verified on Interactive Investor website so that I can post comments. They had some problems with people posting negative comments and were threatened with High Court action, so now everyone has to be checked to avoid possible litigation.
I wonder how VOG will do tomorrow and when it will receive the licence?

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Lots of excitement !!!

The second share I bought was Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG) and having held it since March, it finally showed I was in profit last Friday. I am not getting very excited as it is currently at 4,5p and I have a sell order in for 10p. The company has discovered gas onshore in Cameroon and when it receives a licence for exploitation everyone expects the share to rise. Currently there is a lot of excitement on the BB and it amuses me that the same thing can be found on other BBs where there has been some movement.One thing I have learned is not to get too excited. Everything that goes up, will come down. It may come down a little and then go back up but nothing moves in a dead straight line up!
There have also been some very sad sights with ROK, a building company going into administration. Reading the BB it was plain that many investors have lost money, some- a lot of money. Also, reading the YELL site there are a lot of worried investors there as the sp keeps falling and some keep raising the spectre of administration. What I find irritating is people who are not invested, rubbing the noses of people who are invested. Why??
Whilst I am waiting for funds to arrive from the sale of one of my shares I am looking for the next share to invest in. Looking at some of the technical analyses of variou shares, it amazes me that some companies are still in existence and some people want to invest in them. Before investing PLEASE READ THE FINANCIALS before buying.

Friday 5 November 2010

Interesting lesson!

On Wednesday  tried to buy some Biome (BIOM) shares at 0.2p and had an order in just for the day. I wasn't successful so tried again yesterday morning but after a couple of hours the sp moved up and away from 0.2p so I cancelled my order. Today there was an RNS and the sp went up to 0.29p then returned to 0.23p by lunchtime. The quantity I was interested in wouldn't have made much profit so I lost nothing.
Instead I bought some Edenville (EDL) for 0.88p and in the afternoon someone bought 25M shares!! Today the sp has gone up 0.02p to 0.9p so perhaps I made the right decision. If I sell any shares soon then I will buy some Biome as I am interested in green energy.
I am also closely watching Bank of Ireland(BKIR) as not so long ago it was €1.40 and recently it has been in the 0.5 - 0.6 range. However, today it was down to €0.45 and I think it will fall further because of the situation in Ireland. However, when I get some more dosh then I will be buying these as they will recover and today's price is very good. Long term this will make money.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Today's RNS

Well today I received a Regulatory News Service(RNS) in my email from Investigate http://www.investegate.co.uk/index.aspx?sector=AIM  
giving good results on the barite mine in Ireland. I was looking forward to seeing the share price go up and shortly after the market opening it did indeed go up. I have my sell target as 2.6p and it got to 1.9p before going down again. This was mainly as lots of people were taking profit. The question is "Should I have sold at 1.9p and then bought back at 1.65p or was I right to hold for 2.6p?" If I had sold it might have continued to climb and I wouldn't have got back in but I would have had a profit. As it is I still have my shares and will possibly make more in the longer term. We will have to see if I was right or not.but as one of the posters said " With miners they can't find less mineral in the ground unlike trading companies who can have a bad quarter of half year"

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Pitfalls

After I had made my first trade, I was reading the LSE BB keenly. I don't know how it happened but I stumbled across Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG) and the view was that they had just made a gas discovery in Cameroon and this was going to shoot up so better get in quick. I had a brief look and they had discovered gas and the share price had risen to 4.2p so I persuaded my wife to lend me £1000 and I invested £2200 in 50000 shares! I was going to make a lot of money very quickly. WRONG!!!
Immediately after buying the price started to drop and kept dropping. Then they needed more money for various work in the Cameroon so they issued more shares, and the price went down. All along some people were saying that this was temporary and it would shoot up soon, whilst others were saying it was a dog and would never make any money.
One thing I have learnt is that to deal in shares you need patience and sometimes lots of it. So, you don't make a loss until you sell therefore, I held. Now about 7 months later it is back to near my buy price and I am just waiting for news that the exploitation licence has been granted and the sp should go up. However, there are some who feel the price will drop but I am still holding and have a sell target of 10p. I was seduced by the thought that I must get in quick or I wouldn't make any money, I didn't do enough research and as such my money has been tied up for 7 months and I haven't made a penny.
Yesterday, I bought some more Sunrise Resources shares(SRES). I already have some of these and now I have about 40000. I bought my first ones at 1.0p and yesterday they cost me 1.499p. I am hoping for some good news on a Barite mine in Ireland, and have a selling target of 2.6p. We will have to see.