ASOS have dropped quite significantly in the past week for no particular reason and I view this as the perfect opportunity to invest as I can see them bouncing right back up to the 5.50p mark in the next 2-3 weeks. STRONG BUY!!

SHARES mag. has 6 of ASOS Challenge Portfolio - 5 are buys (with PET the exception)!

ASC - as above. Comment is by John Marshall who I reckon is the best guide around. He was recommending Glenmorangie a little while ago. If you see the comment "The writer holds shares in..." its bound to be John Marshall. I suspect he always gets in before I do (I suppose he's bound to if I'm following him!).

MPH Chart analysis. "Because the rise has been so extreme, it would take a serious slide to put a dent in the uptrend support".

PET Results. "We have spent the last 7 years in pursuit of our goal of becoming an independent oil producer in Iraq." Answer could be known on Monday (see bb). Shown as hold but I suspect that this is fence-sitting between exploding through the roof and crashing through the floor. One thing for certain - it won't be on the level!

PCI Play of the Week (second for portfolio after YOO). "The current acreage is promising and provides a decent spread of risk". "If Sidi (current drilling in Tunisia) is a gusher the field could be worth 65p a share to PCI".

SEY Results. "The oil and ags comany has reaped dividends after its purchase of Osprey". "The new purchase is making a big difference". "Focussing on extracting maximum value from our existing assets".

YOO Results. "A great way to tap the soaring interactive TV revolution".

Quite some portfolio! Quite some team! But not one for a quiet life!

Eric

EWRobson: superscape is in their too pg 10&40

Just a normal day so no comments. Price up 2p with buys to sells 3:1; buyers to sellers 7:1. Volume just chugging along. Nice gentle ramp up without news. Another 16 days like this and we will have reached 1 and then the good news is welcome! What a lovely share - I love it!

Eric

Eric: Key for me is that we have an end of week closing at these higher levels. It really has been a good news week for ASOS, a sharpish rise through resistance followed by consolidation. Just keep buying..I have been reducing other holdings and adding ASOS and will continue to do so. John

John

At 40% already. Was at 65% but succumbed to a bout of profit-taking - would have been better to have left them alone, although the YOO switch was worthwhile. I have built the ASOS Challenge portfolio to about 35% but mainly at the expense of YOO and AZM - good fun, if not so profitable overall. All readers should certainly be following an ADD, ADD, ADD policy until considerably overweight!

Eric

ASOS Challenge Portfolio weekly report

company________ EPIC price,p shares__ shares_ price_ value_ cap.(m)_ gain/
____________________ buy____ in issue _______ 22-Oct 22-Oct ________ loss

Yoomedia_______ YOO_ 22_____ 125.538_ 22700__ 27.50_ 6242.5 34.52___ 25.00
Civilian Content CCN 16.25__ 41.883__ 30700__ 20.00_ 6140.0 8.38____ 23.08
ASOS___________ ASC_ 56_____ 67.97___ 8900___ 68.50_ 6096.5 46.56___ 22.32
Petroceltic Int. PCI 15_____ 484.975_ 33300__ 17.50_ 5827.5 84.87___ 16.67
Broker Network H BNH 77.5___ 15.065__ 6450___ 85.50_ 5514.8 12.88___ 10.32
Sterling Energy SEY_ 17.25__ 822.712_ 29000__ 18.50_ 5365.0 152.20__ 7.25
Stanelco_______ SEO_ 4.5____ 78.225__ 111000_ 4.50__ 4995.0 3.52____ 0.00
Marchpole Hold. MPH_ 33.75__ 120.455_ 14800__ 33.25_ 4921.0 40.05___ -1.48
CFA Capital Gp_ CFP_ 0.7____ 619_____ 714000_ 0.65__ 4641.0 4.02____ -7.14
Petrel Resources PET 124.5__ 58.625__ 4000___ 114.50 4580.0 67.13___ -8.03
cybit holdings CYH 1.82___ 988.952_ 275000_ 1.55__ 4262.5 15.33___ -14.84

total______________________________________________ 58585.8_________ 6.52

smallcap index ____________________________________ 54560.7_________ -0.80

Sandrew referred to this portfolio as being virtual in the sense that it was not held by anyone in this form. No doubt, true. Johngtudor and I bought into each of the holdings but I think John, like me, is very much overweight in ASC. I have built up approaching 9% (of my portfolio) in CFP and PET, but that doesn't deny potential of others.

YOO, CCN and ASC seem to have established bases up 20% from start and have considerable upward momentum. CCN has benefit (for the investor) of a low cap. YOO and ASC have clear leadership in a niche market and appear to be a one-way ticket - upwards.

Exciting times for the 3 energy shares with all reported on in Shares this week: PCI being Play of the Week. Reference there is made to risk but I suspect that most of us are comfortable with risk - no downside possibility, no upside potential. The decision on PET's bid for Iraqi contracts could well be published Monday, so it may be too late to make your gamble on it being positive - nevertheless it is worthwhile reading recent posts on the bb.

The other shares have generally had very little news so it is too early to judge. Happy to have them all in the portfolio, though.

Eric

Thanks for the update Eric. Great week for ASC, hopefully next week will be a great one for PET as well.

Eric: Just closing out on the New York market and catching up with your weekly close on our 'virtual portfolio'! Exciting!

For the record I am not in CFP, SEO or CYH, primarily because I would have had to close out some of my other holdings, such as SPS in order to have made the holding worthwhile, plus I liked the other selections more. I currently have a 40% ASOS weighting (in this companies case I do not think it is too large -after all we all want to maximize our gains)....I went into YOO thanks to your tip and the BB comments from mac and yourself....great stuff! I am a long term holder of PCI & SEY and as for PET we will either be happy or sad when the news breaks...am not sure the it will break next week though. I am really impressed with CCN & MPH and look forward to another week of overall growth for the Portfolio.

Over the weekend I may well decide to reduce some of the other holdings and increase Oil and ASC weightings further...and how much will overall market sentiment..(Wall St very unhappy tonite) impact the portfolio I wonder? Just an idea but perhaps we should plot an Index value as well each week as it will provide us with a useful reference? Off to read that pit of doom 'Money Week' now, I usually need a stiff drink after the first few pages!

John

Back to ASOS for a moment. Not sure if this has been picked up yet on the thread but it's really interesting news from egg......

"They say home is where the heart is, and that's never more true than at this time of year. With the nights drawing in and a cold snap in the air, now is the time to make the most of your creature comforts.

That's why we've put together a range of offers to make 'staying in' the new 'going out'. From DVDs to videogames, fine wines to celebrity-style clothes from our new partner ASOS, we've got all you need for a fine old time chez vous.

As if that weren't enough, not only will you be eligible for cash back for many purchases made with your Egg Card, you will automatically be entered into a free prize draw to win a trip to New York (see below).

Truly, life doesn't get any better than this."

queen1: Thanks for post...just goes to prove that the marketing power of ASOS just gets better and better!

John

Thanks for post. Having done some research on each share in the protfolio it was clear that what they had in common was good prospects. Normally, I wouldn't hold nearly so many shares, a min. of 5000 or 5% is my guideline, but a lower stake of 2000 in several of the shares means that you follow them more seriously and then you can either build up the stake or get out. Of these, I have already built up CFP because they will almost certainly be a major beneficiary from AIM market expansion and are very cheap, in my view, with a cap of only 4.33m. I have also built up in oil from scratch, increasing stake this week in PET. There have been some brilliant posts on the PET column (incl. your own!, flatter, flatter) including good reasoning why mega-major Iraq oil contract(s) should go to a minnow like PET. Boom or bust of course. I still think our friend, Sandrew will win this contest and not too long in the future at that!

Re the comparison, presumably with the FTSE, it seems a good idea - can probably take a weekly figure from Shares for the starting point. There's an interesting review of analysts views this week of where the FTSE will be in a year's time and the general concensus seems to be around 5300. There doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon that could cause a major fall. The other point about this scenario is that most of the portfolio is too small to see much institutional holding, including pension funds (which could be net sellers): the market in them is just too small. That could change with the oils and, quite possibly, ASC which can only help the price as the institutions start seeing the need for a stake.

Eric

Evening Eric et all.

Hope all is well in the world. Well believe it or not I nearly bought some ASC shares on Friday, but hadn't realised that the Market had closed, DOH! I shall have another look on Monday morning. Superscape are looking really good at the moment. I thought about them a few weeks ago, but you know what thought did, (or didn't in my case!). Also quite like the look of PET, but on balance, decided to go for SEY, who already have a steady income, plus the possibilities of current exploration. Too many risky shares in my portfolio already. Like many others, I still believe CFP are poised for take off, just wish I could have bought some more at 0.61p! Problem with this share lark, there is only so much money to go around some very exciting prospects.

Regards

PTH

Eric: Thanks your post. I do agree that it makes a huge difference to the interest one has in a share if you have a holding...no matter how small. I must confess that I have a difficulty holding a share like CFP at these prices...but will have another look at things over the weekend following your comments as well as those of ptholden.

Re FTSE Index I think we need to be careful about which one we choose, perhaps the 250 or smaller companies? I am not so sure about FTSE at 5300 next year! As I am naturally more 'bullish' than 'bearish' I would like to think that will be achieved but there are other forces at work. I must say the Forex market is a concern and on Friday the US$ started to crack, that could impact Wall Street as I do not see anything around to stop the Oil Price rise..do you? So if Wall Street starts to fall, that will in turn hit the FTSE100, but less so the smaller companies where we are placing our bets!

Re ASC I have been looking at the PEG ratios which I think is a good way of judging, small racy companies, and according to the Seymour Pierce figures we are looking at 0.39 for 2005(E) and 0.72 for 2006(E)...not bad at all. I do hope readers of this BB do not think I or others are ramping this share in any way, but the figures I am quoting are from the House Broker...and were updated recently so any change to those estimates would have been reflected in their notes. Full steam ahead for ASOS and long may it continue.

Finally re PET I am posting on that BB especially for Tokyo who is all shaken up after today's ground tremors so I want to cheer him up!! John

Great guy, John, all altruistic to be cheering others up - Tokyo deserves cheering up as he is a great source of knowledge. I think the SP (house broker) notes preceded the informal leak of the five month trading position at 85% up so these figures are probably conservative. We both have ASC at 40% of our holdings: I have not held another share at this weighting and I believe we have both done our homework. I'm not building up further as you are but would at least keep at the 40% level if the PET price goes sky high in the next few days. Agree that small-cap and AIM is place to be because these are generally upwardly mobile and not affected by things like pension funds and oil prices - unless we are talking about the PCIs and SEYs and PETs of this world!

Agree we should take the small-cap index and will add it to the portfolio post.

Eric

I have updated post 542 to show the benchmark small-cap index; down 0.8% since 6th October using the Hemscott weekly report. So portfolio is doing quite nicely, thankyou. Its interesting that the starting post on this bb refers to an ASC price of 5.5p and therefore a cap. of less than 4m, effectively a penny share. What attracts me to our smallest cap. shares, CFP and SEO (and to a certain extent, CCN) is the multiplier coming through once positive trading is established. I was interested also in the Shares letter this week about when to take profits. Timon Day responded that one rule of thumb was to take half the profits when the share doubles (so that the net cost is zero). In fact, thats more or less what I did with ASOS. But, whilst taking 22K profits, I actually have left something like 35K on the table. This time I am at least going to run the profits until I conclude that they are fully valued - probably not before that they have actually doubled.

Eric

i must agree with with some of the concerns over the ftse 100/350. Normally 'a glass half full type of guy' but i think we need to keep an eye on a few things. High oil prices, weak dollar and falling DOW, big trade deficiets (in us and the uk), slowing housing market, and the worsening situation in iraq. Its no use shoving these problems under the carpet and pretending they are not there. My biggest investments at the moment are now in smaller companies so hoping they will be shielded a little bit from their big brothers. What do others think about the general market?

Kivver: I agree that the points you raise are real concerns, and from a charting perspective we have a falling 200 day ma, on the DOW which will take alot to turn around, and we all know the effect the US Mkt has on the FTSE! IMO we all need to be very careful and closely monitor our chosen stocks. As you say, and I think we have a consensus among the posters on this BB, small stocks, well chosen and researched is the place to be right now. JOhn

I agree John, i just hope sentiment doesn't turn too much against the market, because that will effect all shares. I suppose we might also say it may lead to good buying opportunity. Not a good start today but seems to be levelling off. We need some good news quickly. Fingers crossed! Kivver

Morning guys,

Just to throw my two pennyworth in. I agree with Kivver and John, the FTSE follows the DOW to closely for my liking, and whilst holding FTSE 100/350 stocks, I felt constantly aggrieved at the US affect on companies that had little or nothing to do with the US Markets. I am a lot happier investing in AIM stocks. OK it may be more risky, (depends on your perspective), but it is a lot more exciting and much greater returns are there to be had if you pick the right ones!

Regards

PTH

I know it's hard to isolate one particular factor, but what effect would a housing crash have on the markets? Does the market historically go up on an initial housing price fall as investors move their resources into shares? Am I right in thinking that the markets crashed a few years after house prices started dropping last time? I wasn't an investor then so wasn't paying enough attention to be able to answer my own questions.
Any thoughts anyone?