I suppose if I had to have a bottom-line message about the last tumultuous three months and its impact on my self-invested personal pension (Sipp) portfolio I could sum it up as: it could have been worse. I've been aggressively bullish about the energy space in particular and resources generally for at least the past three years and look where that got me. Back in November last year, for example, the resources stocks within my portfolio were still running at 22 per cent of all my equity investments, with a big weighting towards oil and gas. I'm not sure any reader needs me to tell them what happened next in terms of oil prices, but what I find much more interesting is that the whole resources sector including mining has been dragged down with energy stocks.
The movers table accompanying this article details the full horror of it all, as I desperately hung on to nearly all my resource positions despite what can only be described as catastrophic losses. Highlights - or should I perhaps say lowlights - of this rout included Praetorian Resources (PRSS) which only floated a few years ago at 50p but which is now worth a grand total of 3p a share having lost 50 per cent of its value in just the past few months. Petrofac (PFC) shares also crashed in price by a stomping 26 per cent closely followed by oil equipment business Noble (US:NE) which fell 25 per cent over the past three-and-a-bit months. These whopping losses compounded some existing dogs within my portfolio, namely Agriterra (AGTA) which has fallen yet another 38 per cent since last November.
Given this tide of red ink I have to say the fact that I have managed to eke out a positive gain of 0.45 per cent is nothing short of a miracle. My portfolio's meagre advance was helped by a few standout performers, not least my investment in recently floated Allied Minds (ALM), which has doubled since I last updated readers - I have to say I'm astonished by this advance but I honestly believe there's even more good news to come so I'll hold on to my shares for the time being. Biotech Growth Trust (BIOG) has been yet another star performer, up 16 per cent over the period since November 2014, as has Sky, which is up 12 per cent.