It’s been a bit of an odd week on the Index. I’ve written extensively about the IPO malarkey already but what I didn’t mention there was the build up to this with traders shifting money out of existing holds to prepare a cash balance to take advantage of the IPO release. It’s easy to miss a 1p drop here and there but they soon add up when you look at your portfolio at the end of the week.

So it’s been a poor week for the Performance and Potential holds in particular, with both seeing a small pull-back. The biggest drop in the Performance fund was on Thiago Alcantara of Bayern – a 7p drop. I can’t see any real reason for this so it might have just been a case of a big trader dumping before the IPOs. Other than that, it was largely 1p, 2p and 3p drops across the board and few significant rises either, except a nice 5p increase on Stefan Lainer, equivalent to over 10%.

All a bit frustrating but not every week can be a good one and I’m still pretty confident in my holds (although I will be reviewing them this week to see if any changes are needed).

The Potential fund saw some similar pull-backs but with more volatility. Various players saw drops, including Hudson-Odoi, Eric Garcia and Amine Gouiri but the biggest loser of the week was Chelsea youngster, Conor Gallagher, down 11p since my last update. This comes on the news that he wasn’t joining the squad for the rest of their overseas tour, meaning a loan deal looks likely. In hindsight, this was a predictable drop so I should’ve sold on this news. I’m still holding now as I fancy his prospects in the long term – but I’m not sure that counts as ‘good trading’ so I’m putting that one down as a bit of a fail on my part. Fellow youngster Ethan Ampadu is holding his price at £1.20, despite his loan move to RB Leipzig being all but confirmed – but this keeps him in a PB league so I can understand the trader logic there (and of course the big winners this week were any traders who invested in Billy Gilmour…)

It wasn’t all bad news in the Potential fund. Andrea Pinamonti jumped 8p during the week after scoring back-to-back hat-tricks for new team, Genoa. I’m really excited about his prospects for next season – he ticks all the boxes for me, including being a forward.

Another forward doing bit for me was Matheus Cunha of RB Leipzig. I said last time that his ability to pick up minutes next year looks under threat if Werner stays at the club but that doesn’t seem to be dampening trader enthusiasm.

One change in this fund – I sold off part of my holding in Umaro Embalo on the news that he would miss the U19 Euros through injury. I invested the money into CSKA Moscow striker, Fedor Chalov, who is apparently being tracked by various EPL clubs. This has also been a bit of a fail so far – after shooting up to 99p (when I should have sold) his price has dropped back down as the rumours have dried up. Still, he’s only 21 years old and looks destined for a move at some stage, perhaps after next year’s Euros. I’m content to hold him until that point, even if I missed the chance for a quick profit.

Bucking the trend was the Premium fund. This makes a lot of sense – if you’re looking to shift money around quickly, you don’t tend to sell your Premium players – the spread is too large and the commission too high. All of them saw a slight rise during the week, particularly Pogba, who not only jumped 35p (5%) but also picked up another £14 in dividends. There have been a few ‘squeaky bum’ moments with Pogba during the transfer window but, so far, I’m glad I’ve held.

One change here – I decided it was time to start re-investing some dividends so topped up Jadon Sancho with an extra 15 futures. For me, he looks the best medium-term investment in the fund so I intend to steadily build my position in him between now and Christmas.

I’ve updated the pages for each fund with the current profit/loss figures. Overall I’m now just shy of 8% up from my initial investment with the ‘Potentials’ continuing to be the most profitable players for me, although the gap is starting to shrink with the new season approaching.