I’m not entirely sure the statement out of China that “the government will make fiscal policy more forceful and monetary policy more flexible to keep growth in a proper range in 2016” has me entirely convinced it is the end of the end for the mining sector. Clearly the market feels otherwise, however, and the Contrarian Miner portfolio is up more than 3% today to £92,238 (lets not talk about the Anglo shares I sold yesterday shall we).

Although Petra remains arguably good value at current levels, its balance sheet concerns have not vanished – banks waiving the December covenants has simply bought them six months. The shares are up 60% in the last month, and that feels to me a bit too far too fast. So I sold half of my holding today (3,000 shares at 88p per share) realising a 22% profit. This is more of a trading call than a fundamental call (and I would be tempted to buy them back if they were to revisit 70p).

After weeks of vacillation, I finally decided today to take advantage of the 9% (dead cat) bounce in Anglo since last Thursday to exit my position. And so today I sold my 900 shares at 288p per share, crystalizing a 45% loss.

What changed my mind about Anglo? Since I bought it on 6th November, copper and thermal coal prices are down a further 6%, platinum 7% and iron ore 17%. By my calculations, that wipes a further US$1.1bn off Anglo’s 2016 revenue. And I am not convinced the balance sheet, which was already stretched, can withstand that additional pressure without an equity injection.

That is not really a contrarian view, however when the analyst community is increasingly in agreement the company needs equity – and at spot prices that view does not seem wrong – the risk is the share price continues to slide until an equity deal is announced. Pressure from the markets can become self fulfilling.

Following today’s trade, the portfolio stands at £89,185 – up 2% from last week’s low.

With Contrarian Miner down a further 4% in the past 2 days to £87,338 it is tempting to lose faith. The portfolio has lost 13% of its value in less than 2 months with the worst performing stock (Anglo American) down a massive 47% and BHP Billiton (-30%) and Lonmin (-28%) not far behind.

So a bit of welcome perspective to cheer me up a little. The FTSE 350 Mining Total Return Index is down a whopping 27% since I launched Contrarian Miner on 3 November. Despite my 13% loss I have actually outperformed my benchmark by 14%! Chart below.

I theory I should be disappointed to see Contrarian Miner down a further 4% last week to £91,043 but quite honestly given the performance of the sector last week and of some of the individual stocks I am relieved it is not  significantly worse.

Anglo American continues to plummet sharply and their attempts to reassure investors at the strategy day last week appear if anything to have made things worse. When the analyst community’s line of questioning goes down the line of why are you not raising equity now “while you still can” the sharks can smell blood in the water and it is difficult to see how that will turn. There is part of me wondering whether I should simply join the queue of sellers and cut my losses while I can.

But the positive surprises this week have been a 21% recovery in the price of minnow Ferrex following a change in strategy from the company and a new deal. And Roxgold was up 11% following a positive update on project progress.

My holding in Lonmin is down 12% from a total investment cost of £8,618 (not reflected correctly on the account) – the benefit of septupling down.

The Contrarian Miner portfolio currently stands at £94,553 – little changed in the last 10 days as further 8% losses in Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto were offset by a 13% increase in Semafo and an 11% recovery in Petra Diamonds following the announcement from the latter that banks have agreed to waive the Dec 15 EBITDA covenant tests. It is reassuring to see some individual stocks in my portfolio outperforming the sector but without a meaningful improvement in commodity prices, contrarian miner can’t really hope to see meaningful gains overall.

In a fit of madness late last week I bought a further 300,000 Lonmin rights. Whilst that set me back just £15 it means I now need to cough up £7,600 to follow all of my rights. I still have the rest of today to change my mind, but following the significant bounce in the platinum price late last week, the fundamentals for Lonmin are looking far better than they were and that is not to my mind being reflected in the share price so I am inclined to go with this. No-one particularly wants to put cash into Lonmin (and the banks that underwrote the rights issue are no doubt feeling a bit tender), but in my opinion once the cash is in the bag the market can start to think about the long term value of this company again.