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.