Category: Trading strategies
Marray, Murray, Wimbledon,Tennis and Fish
Really looking forward to the Wimbledon mens final today, when history will be made one way or another. Maybe we will see a Marray / Murray double, how funny would that be?
Unfortunately I will not be able to witness it first hand as I will stuck in mud / traffic at the British Grand Prix. I didn’t figure Nadal would go out of the tournament so early and that Murray would make it to the final. It’s also a …
Darwin would have been proud
I try and actively monitor everything I am doing in the market, often this can pay dividends in unusual ways.
As a general approach I would recommend storing as much information about what you do as possible, even if you don’t need it right now. I’ve collected loads of data recently from Wimbledon and Euro 2012 but I have no practical purpose for it at the moment. At some point in the future I may revisit it, or find a …
The camera never lies?
I stumbled upon an interesting article about the Euro 2012 championships: –
How TV Lied To You During Euro 2012 – https://deadspin.com/5923264/sorry-mario-balotelli-didnt-really-make-this-german-fan-cry-how-tv-lied-to-you-during-euro-2012
I’ve always had a healthy mistrust of what you see on TV. It spawned from some very odd results and betting on Reality TV shows many years ago. Careful editing and production can show up a story that isn’t, in reality, being played out. The real scandal followed though when it turned out insiders where betting on the …
A different way to profit from Euro 2012
As you know Euro 2012 is a seeded tournament. When the little balls came out of the bag it was designed so that the higher ranked teams would progress to the latter stages of the tournament and make UEFA more money, sorry, make the tournament more entertaining.
To be fair to UEFA, it is the same in most modern tournaments, the big teams and big audiences fund the sport and therefore want to be favoured. Tennis grand slams are …
Rain stops play, starts trade
After a generally uncompetitive end to the women’s Tennis at the French Open I was looking forward to a decent final in the men’s. Fresh from the Aussie open blockbuster I had hoped we could see some very competitive action, not forgoing Nadal’s dominance on clay.
The first set was a bit of a mish mash with five breaks in seven games before Nadal went on to go two sets up. Djokovic needed some something to turn it around and …
Will Eurovision get the hump?
Over the years I’ve had a good play on the Eurovision song contest. In 2006, after boring myself with the entrants, my evening was lit up by the performance of Lordi which was hilarious to see in a straight laced contest such as the Eurovision. Soon after the voting started it was clear the voters were sending a signal to the contest and the rest, as they say, is history. As soon as I saw the voting patterns I had …
Frankel Fever
Frankel is back in action as he goes for win number ten in the Lockinge at Newbury today. It’s difficult to forget his winning Guineas run and it will be an interesting race to watch at Newbury.
I flunked the Guineas market when he ran and I’m hoping Newbury will be different, but I’m not so sure. At the time of writing he was trading betwenn 1.30 and 1.40. Looking at the race the market is effectively pricing in a …
Next manager markets
Not so long ago I asked for more next manager markets. We now have three in play at once!
We have managerial vacanies at West Brom, Liverpool and Aston Villa . The interesting this about these markets is that there are a number of mutually exclusive outcomes. For example, Roberto Martinez can not be manager of all three, so two of his prices in the other markets must be false; but which ones?
I don’t actually try and make special …
Some key stats from Man City vs QPR
Well that was an interesting match wasn’t it? I went from thinking ‘I’d hate to be a Man City fan right now’ to ‘I’d love to be a Man City right now’, all in the space of a few minutes. You go all season without losing at home then almost blow it on what should have been one of the easiest matches of the lot. It was like Barcelona vs Chelsea but in reverse.
In total the match odds market …
Last day nerves, apathy & the weather
When we approach the end of season crunch games, when relegation or promotion can be decided on the last game, look out for shocks. Also, in the mid division stuff, where there is little to play for; also look to the outsider. It’s at moments like these that you can find value in the markets. Normal statistical analysis becomes much less reliable at these points.
Look for early signs that a team that ‘has’ to do something is showing nerves. …
London Marathon
Good luck to all those running the London Marathon today. I still harbour ambitions to do one more marathon, but for the moment I will remain on the side of the road encouraging support. Not a big trading market but it can throw up the unexpected. In 2005 you could have backed the women’s runner in running at 1.50 at 22 miles while firmly in the lead thanks to an unusual situation. It’s worth laying low or backing high …
Lay the draw – Revisited
Whenever you look at all strategies, no matter how complex, there is always some simple underlying key metric that is essential to whether a strategy works or not. This is also true in the case of ‘lay the draw’.
I’ve recently been looking again at value backing. There is a little more depth behind what I am doing, but one of the key issues you face if you pursue a value strategy is deviation from mean. You may be able …
Craving more Craven
Stuck in a pretty good performance on the first day of the Craven meeting and was pretty pleased all round with overall performance. Some of the testing I’ve been doing on new ideas came good as well, so I’m really chuffed. The champions league didn’t really through off a quality opportunity last night, but apart from some stuff before the off I didn’t really get that involved. Second legs should be interesting.
I prefer to know whether I’m in a …
Nuts, lightly roasted
I’ve been experimenting with a new strategy recently. I’ve learnt from past experience that data mining can be statistical deja vu. So whenever I make the transition from theory to practical, it always pays to be cautious. So on this occasion I have hedged my position on separate accounts to understand how the main strategy performs but without putting myself at too much risk.
Immediately the strategy started working, with a couple of glitches, so the main account started to …
After Aintree – Time for some R&R
With the Aintree meeting now behind us it’s time to take stock and get some R&R ready for the start of the flat season proper.
Aintree meeting
The Aintree meeting was a peach and I had good days most of last week, including the important races at Aintree. The Grand National was pretty eventful overall and lived up to expectations in all respects. We captured extensive data, which we are analysing in the early part of this week. But the …
Why a lack of fuel is linked to sports trading
On the walk into the office this morning I passed the local petrol station, there were a queue right out into the road. I saw somebody I knew who had driven in from some distance and he revealed a similar story across a wide area. It’s all down the fuss about whether tanker drivers will go on strike. People are scared that fuel may run out if this happens. You can summarise this situation up quite simply, people are acting …
A question of scale (part three)
Click on the text for part one and part two
Curiously for some, it is actually quite easy to work out the maximum upside you can get in any market over time, that’s a definite calculable variable. See my previous blog post ‘profit exists everywhere’. You can also do the same for losses. When you look at those stats, you suddenly realise that the market is capped in either direction. That has advantages and disadvantages.
But the ‘market capped’ thing …
Profit exists everywhere
Somebody asked me the other day which markets have profit in them. Well the answer is that all have profit in them, it’s more a question of where it ends up. But all, have the potential for payoff. There are a couple of other key factors, which I will explain later.
Long before the market really gets going, each market can be split up and broken down in infinite detail. If you know how volatile it is then you can …
F1 is back – Australian Grand Prix
Well my tickets for Silverstone are already booked and I’m looking forward to the new season.
I don’t tend to do much on Motorsport, but over time I’ve become adept at picking out opportunties on F1. Have a browse of some previous blog posts.
Comments from winter testing and early season practice tend to show you whose cars are competitive and whose are not. Other teams will catch up over the course of the season and rule changes can …
Happy St Patrick’s day
Best wishes to our Irish customers. Whatever you are doing today have a good one.
After the frenzy of Cheltenham we return to earth with a bump today. Lots of racing, but little of note. Use today to adjust yourself back to the melee of lower quality racing. On the football however we have the FA Cup quarter finals, so that looks interesting and will throw up some opportunities. I may dip in out and of those markets.
For main …
Don’t Panic!
This afternoon, for an experiment, I was wired up to a heart rate monitor. It was a test to see how I reacted throughout a busy day and to see what sort of stress I went through. As it turned out it measured a different sort of stress from normal!
The day started as normal and pulled in a couple of OK results. On the approached to race three though something seemed to be going wrong and the response I …
Nightmare
I have a little diary next to my desk. In it I scribble notes on the markets and what happened and any mitigating circumstances. I also keep a spreadsheet where I track what sort of activity I have been up to.
Both are key pointers for me to look at and to set expectations from. If I look on the spreadsheet and see a really good, or really poor day. I’ll flip to the diary to see what actually happened. …
The 49 bets
Here is something interesting. Well I thought it was interesting anyhow, so I thought I would share it.
On Saturday I was working a position into the Liverpool vs Arsenal match. I’ve often maintained there can’t be many big gamblers / traders out there as I rarely see big amounts in the market. OK there are reasons why I may not be able to see them, but even then, I rarely see anything that looks like a bigger player.
In …
A question of scale (part two)
In part one we talked about how scale could be an issue in the markets, but how?
If you are betting there is a maximum amount of money that you can bet ‘at value’. Obviously there is little point in betting outside of value, so by default that means it’s impossible to fulfill an unlimited amount at value. It’s also impossible to take all the money on offer and get value, so you realise quickly that there is only a …
Creating a profitable strategy (Part one)
Lots of people want to know how to do a winning trade. But very few ask, or think hard enough about how to create an overall postive strategy.
In the context of trying to do something positive over the long term, a trade is just one component of a broader strategy. Trades will win but also lose and therefore it’s the overall strategy where we want to get the balance right rather than getting too focused on each individual position …
Profiting from next manager markets
Just a couple of weeks ago had a change in the England manager job with Capello walking out. A week later and we had another ‘next manager’ market to deal when Wolves sacked Mick McCarthy. Then Lee Clark is sacked from Huddersfield, Warnock joins Leeds. It sometimes feels like the managerial merry go round will never stop. I’ve actually studied what effect sacking a manager has, but that’s for another post. I think I may have written about it already …
Administrators appointed at Portsmouth and Rangers
The state of football’s finances and excesses was put into the light again today when another two clubs applied for administration orders.
While it’s a difficult time for both clubs, administration is generally done as a last resort and gives the clubs a chance put their affairs into order.
For punters it can be an opportunity. Search for Porstmouth on the blog to see the fun and games I have had in the past with relegation and promotion markets when …
On average.. The essense of value
Let’s start by proposing something simple. If you back or lay something it’s impossible to be right 100% of the time. I think most people will realise that it’s impossible to win every bet you ever placed. Therefore you have to accept that you will place losing bets. If you place losing bets you need your winning bets to cover your losses, that’s the only way to make money in the long term.
To get your an overall profit you …
A question of scale (part one)
I got a phone call from the Financial times the other week about the collapse of Centaur. They wanted to know how I knew it would collapse long before it did, they originally phoned me for an opinion when Centaur first started up and I told them then what I repeated recently.
When you looked at the proposition there were in fact many, many flaws in there; but the top one for me was one of scale. Mainly because I’ve …
Have you got the X-Factor?
Last year I made a killing on X-Factor, but I’ve been a bit quieter this year. Mainly thanks to not being able to get the risk/reward mix right.
The interesting thing about reality TV shows is that there are no rules or models that you can apply to the market. The unexpected can and will happen, often. Therefore I am always looking for outliers, things that are seem certain or very un-certain but that any producer or editor can catapult …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.