Virtual trading portfolio update

Some of you may remember that I started a virtual trading portfolio in early June. This was just for a bit of fun, but I thought I'd revisit it this morning to see how it's going so far. This is what I said back in June:-

"On a separate note, my virtual trade in Vesuvius is pretty much flat so far, although I notice that Directors are still keen buyers with a further purchase reported on Friday, and a small tick up of around 3% in the share price.

I am adding Vodafone and Morrison to my virtual trading portfolio. Vodafone is yielding over 5% and is off it's recent highs as investors "park" there special dividends elsewhere. My buying price for Vodafone is 207p. Morrison's I mentioned in my blog 31 May. Just to emphasise that these are all virtual trades, and I'm doing this just for a bit of fun. Of course I will continue to report on my actual holdings and purchases at regular intervals as usual.

Virtual portfolio                 Price paid                      Current  price               Price sold

Vesuvius                            £4.57                             £4.58
Vodafone                           £2.07                             £2.07
Morrison                            £1.93                             £1.93"

Well what's happened since? Not a lot really. The current state of play is given below:-

Virtual portfolio                 Price paid                      Current  price               Price sold

Vesuvius                            £4.57                             £4.59
Vodafone                           £2.07                             £2.02
Morrison                            £1.93                             £1.72

As you can see, both my virtual trades in vod and vsvs are pretty flat and mrw is down. Hopefully today's news from mrw about the appointment of Andy Higginson may provide a fillip for the share price.

As a measure of my success, I am going to assume that I have invested £1000 in each initially. My budget will be £10,000 to start with, and I am going to set a 3 month time limit as my maximum holding period for each share I purchase.

Those of you who read the blog on a regular basis will know that this is not my actual investing style. I try to find small/micro cap companies that I perceive to be undervalued and then hold for the long term. The virtual portfolio requires a totally different mindset, and I'll need to be a little more reactive to news stories and sentiment with my future trades.