the madness continues: after making money on FER, though not as much as I could (and now being nervous about buying back into it), I was considering selling out of LAF, a mining co. that was hit by a typhoon a week after I bought in. luckily I didn't, as today they had some news about some resumption of operations - as yet unconfirmed - and on Thursday will likely get the go-ahead from the relevant government. the shares have now risen to my target price (a $500 profit instead of the $800 loss I was looking at), and I think I will wait and see what happens Thursday, as I'll be at my desk and able, I hope, to pounce at the optimum time. of course the news could be bad, but I think I'll take the risk on that. have no cash free right now as it's all tied up and waiting waiting. which means I risk having to sell out to fund ongoing other projects, which I don't like. so I hope the news is good Thursday and I can make $1000 and get my "stake" back as well.

i am trying to finish some very tedious paid work, which has fully occupied me for a month's worth of free time and will pay maybe $1600. but meanwhile Fermiscan, which I bought at 70, sold at 99, then bought again at 1.17 and watched dive to 88, has zipped up 27 per cent today. just today. I sold 5000 at 1.25, and now am not sure what to do with the rest; probably sell another 4000 and keep 2000. meaning I'll have earned two-thirds of what this boring paid work will bring me in a single day.

then again, you don't get days like this very often. never. and this is a weird and volatile stock with a really stupid p/e ratio and no actual product as yet. still, at least it's ethically good: beating breast cancer is a nice idea (well, early detection: same thing, really).

7/12: bought 10,000 FER at .70 for $7000
12/12 sold 9,000 FER at .99

profit - about $2800 plus retention of 1000 shares.

now THAT'S more like it. even the fact that it's currently trading at 1.04 can't dampen my pleasure. and even though this probably only brings me marginally above break even when interest etc is considered, I still feel quite rich. even better, FER does a Good Thing - it has a seemingly reliable non-invasive test for early breast cancer. a bit wistful in that I wonder if I kept the whole 10,000 I might not clean up even more. but a policy's a policy and a 40% gain in five days screams SELL.

several other shares - BTA, REA, and the dreaded silver miner struck by the typhoon - continue to limp along at 10% below purchase. ah well. they'll get there.

someone told me: buy silver. so I did: MMN and LAF, in equal parts. MMN is now up 25%. LAF's mine suffered a typhoon and is down the same.

not sure if I should, but I'm going to take the profit on MMN, keeping $500 of shares, and I guess LAF will recover eventually.

biota is gradually crawling back up. I think that, dotcom booms aside, the real time you lose in this game is when you are forced to sell low.

ah right. so remember on Friday I bought $10,000 worth of BTA, in the hope it would show a small rise, and had to sell them at the end of the day for a total loss, including costs, of about $500, because I don't have $10,000 to cover the settlement?

well of course TODAY they announced a new sale to the US government and it peaked at about 20 per cent up on what I paid on Friday. in other words, instead of making $2000, I lost $500.

here's a stick. hit me, will you?

resolution: never, ever, ever to put myself in a position where I risk being forced to sell. of course that means slower profits. but it also means no forced losses.

I haven't totalled up last financial year, from January to June, yet. but I suspect I'll come up about $300 in profit. is this just a learning experience? for you, maybe. for me it's real money.

time does strange things when you're waiting for a price to move. bta put out a soothing "letter to shareholders" at 9.30 this morning, so I bought some shares at 10.05 when the market opened; I'm going to have to resell them today, profit or loss, and at 11.15 am I'm already feeling pessimistic, though the market day isn't even a third through.

I've been scaling things back, partly because the market was making me edgy, partly because I've bought too much art and needed my cash back. I sold out of ASX in two tranches at a loss of $450 all up; yes, the ASX shares I declined to sell at a profit of $600 a month or two back. (though I did buy some of the ones I've sold at far less a while back, so the loss is mitigated.) I sold out of PSV at a profit and bought back in at 20 pc less, with a lesser value overall. I sold out of REA, again at a profit, and I'm waiting for it to drop so I can rebuy a smaller parcel.

but I held and held to Biota. yesterday it dropped to $1.25. I paid an average of $1.75 for those shares. in my opinion, Biota is a special case: it's way volatile and the slightest sniff (hah!) of bird flu pushes it up. as I write, it's rising, for no apparent reason, at about 1c every couple of minutes. of course this doesn't mean I'm making money. but it does mean my losses are shrinking. it's the kind of stock people think may "go off" one day, and therefore when it starts to move, I think they jump in fast.

all I want is $1.82 and my money back. really.