Category: Trading strategies
Using Bet Angel football ratings
You may have seen me post ratings from time to time and a debate raged on the forum about what exactly I was posting and what was it? So I thought I would take time to explain the rationale behind the ratings. You can find the ratings posted to this thread on a regular basis.
How did the ratings come around
Way back when I was trying to win the football pools I realised I needed to understand how to …
95% return on stake
I thought that headline may grab your attention that the screen shot!
Basically it’s an accurate description on what I did last night before the champions league matches started, only I tend to do it on a larger scale and that reduces percentage returns. For this example, which I am documenting in detail for my course, I did it using highly replicable £10 stakes. It would be easy to add a zero to this number. Harder to add two!
Before …
Trading the Ryder cup
Once every two years the sporting world turns its attention to what is turning into a classic sporting Rivalry, the Ryder Cup.
Many years ago it didn’t have anything like the profile it does now. Post war it was a chance of US golfers to show how much better they were than UK players. Then the rules changed to make their opponents UK and Ireland but that was still dominated by the US. Then in 1985 when it became the …
Part timer
I’m back onto Betfair markets properly today. I’m currently taking the opportunity to enjoy the late summer sun. I had my first round of golf for a few years this morning! Having worked hard during the busier periods of the year, I can skip the quieter days at the moment without remotely denting my yearly performance much. Though I did take a look at the champions league last night.
I also nipped in on Sunday to have a pop at …
Millions by the minute
It seems every now and again a trading documentary pops up now and again on the TV. The most recent one aired last night, click on this link to watch it: –
Traders : Millions by the minute
I thought it was entertaining but quite lightweight in the scheme of things. It was curiously positioned as new and exciting but online trading in financial markets has been around for ages. I liked the way they focused on the psychological side …
Trading news flow
The importance of liquidity
One of the most important aspects of a successful trading market is liquidity. You can enter any market at any price, but sometimes you will want to get out quickly as well. That is why liquidity is important when trading, it gives you control over your position.
Sometimes you can find liquidity markets in the most unusual places, hunting them has become something I enjoy doing. We’re less than a week away from the Scottish vote …
US Open Tennis – Trading short priced favourites
I was chatting with a few fellow traders on Skype during day three of the US Open this week and we commented that there seems to be a lot of surprise results in the WTA tournament, and in particular that both the ‘big name’ players appeared to be very short for starting prices in Grand Slams, and that they were losing the first set much more than they should be – allowing some profitable lay to back trades.
[Editor – …
Summer has almost gone
Seeing Wolverhampton on the card again made me realise another summer has almost passed into the spreadsheet of history.
One of the realities of sports trading is that summer is peak season across a number of sports for me, so it’s a valuable time to get into top gear. I mourn it’s passing. But my attention will now turn to Tennis for the US Open and back to Football for the winter months. Racing, of course, is an all year …
When to use form and when not
Each day I flick through the available sports on offer and have a quick look for anything interesting.
On the racing today something jumped out immediately, Battle group in the 16:00 at Kempton.
Battle group famously refused to race at the Grand National and caused a false start. They restarted, but it didn’t make it past the first fence. Today it is running over 1m4f at Kempton. One look at it’s form and it’s a miserable recent record, three refused …
Valhalla beckons, will Rory roar?
Some of the stats I’ve used here have come from the excellent Golf Stats website.
The golfing world’s attention now swings, excuse the pun, to Kentucky and to two golfers in particular.
I like competitive golf tournaments where the winner is uncertain but currently, despite Rory McIlroy’s comments, we do appear to be entering a new era in golf. Tiger Woods dominated for a number of years and each tournament would start with him as a clear leader. Thanks …
Peter’s laying system
Slightly tongue in cheek title – If there’s one mistake I’ve made in my time in the markets it’s not sticking my name on a concept. As a consequence there are a lot of phrases out there that most probably originated from this camp but are now in general use. Therefore I’m probably the ‘hoover’ of the Betfair trading world, the ‘biro’ the ‘sellotape’. To be fair this happens to everybody who is a pioneer so a also tip my …
Little and often
This is a phrase I’ll often quote when advising people on how to trade. I posted up a full list of results from yesterday and it got a fair amount of commentary because it illustrated exactly that point. More information further down this post.
It’s really nice to bang in some massive results now and again, but generally, that’s not what trading is about. Well. not 80% of the time on racing.
Most of the time I’m in a market …
Gearing up for Goodwood
I’ve been having a quiet week as you can probably tell from various social media bits. After fourteen years on the markets a really busy summer requires an effort to not completely burn out so I’ve been taking it a bit easier. Also my twins turned to teenagers this week, so that’s worth celebrating. You may have noticed that I still can’t resist a rock solid opportunity however!
In the Summer it’s possible to skip some sessions as you know …
Sweet spots
Every market has a sweet sport. Odds that will be reached more often than others, a score.
This also applies to trading. Depending on how you chose to enter and exit, there is a sweet spot in terms of when it’s best to trade in and out.
When I model a market I’m looking for sweet spots. Optimal places where it makes ‘sense’ to open, close to trade to in a market. At first you can’t do this going forward …
Tennis trading
In my journey to understand Tennis I had to work out how and why the market moved, so it was with that in mind that we created Tennis trader. It allowed us to probe the deepest detail of any Tennis match and set up strategies that would allow us to profit from that. Using Tennis trader you can get an idea of what is required for any strategy to pay off, what risk you are taking and when this will …
The trading dead zone
It doesn’t happen often, but now and again all things conspire to produce a dead zone in the markets. We are currently in that dead zone.
First off, this relates to the racing markets. Racing markets are seasonal and peak and trough around major meetings. The last was, obviously, Ascot. So you can get a trough before a major meeting, but you almost certainly get one after it.
Summer racing can be a bit weak as there are more meetings …
Gamble fail, trade win
A quiet end to Ascot week, but I’m relieved that I can now return to more ‘normal’ trading patterns.
I did OK on the day, but one trade stood out. The 17:00 at Ascot.
‘Absolutely So’ was gambled massively, more than any horses I think I’ve seen at Ascot. Widely tipped, It had a terrible race and finished 15th in the end. But it highlighted the beauty of trading. You could quite easily see it was being heavily backed, so …
Profits and (losses)
Last week I got a few comments about P&L’s I’d posted up; this is quite common.
I was asked more than once, what stake did you use to achieve that? But there are so many ways to answer that question. You could have a hundred different answers depending on how you trade. If you don’t understand this answer, have a deep think about it.
A debate also broke out on the forum about posting winners and losers. My view on …
Trading the Premier League title run-in
With West Ham vs Liverpool on the agenda this afternoon I thought I would have a close look at the premier leagues remaining matches and how they will affect the run in for the title. View the video to see how I’m looking to do this.
Using traded volume to trade on Bet Angel
In this video I describe how to use the two traded (matched bet) volume indicators on Bet Angel. A simple but effective way of understanding where the short term volatility is driving market prices.
What you can do with a £10 stake?
I’ve done this experiment a few times on the blog where I use a £10 stake and do something with it. Last week, with Cheltenham looming upon us, it’s well know that the Cheltenham markets will be well and truly stuffed up with money. That can be tough and it’s likely you will need more money to make some this week. So I thought it would be a nice reflection to trade with small amounts again as a demonstration and …
Seasonality in Horse Racing
Winter racing markets can be a struggle and traditionally produce less opportunity than at other times of the year. This video discusses this.
It’s always darkest before dawn
In the UK we have had a tough winter. Storm after storm, rain, flooding, unprecedented weather not witnessed for 250 years. But it will end and this is where the title on this blog post comes from.
We all know that day follows night and vice versa, but in a period of time relative to yourself, sometimes it seems there will be no end. But I can assure you that everything in life works in cycles.
Remember 2013? Only last …
Pre Match football trading
In the absence of racing today I’ll be dipping into Kempton to have a look this evening, though I doubt I’ll trade it, and I’ll also be welcoming the premier league football into my arms.
Football was one of the first markets I actively traded on Betfair and I still do it today. Trading before the match starts allows me to get off to a head start on things and, if necessary, carry over the profit to play around with …
A question of scale (part four)
I have finally completed my quartet of posts called ‘question of scale’.
Parts one, two and three have been looking at the question of scale in the exchange markets. Four looks at what this effectively means for me and it starts with a simple question.
OK, I’m going to give you £500,000 to invest. Where will you invest it and what return will you get?
Let’s put that in a savings account. Hmm, only 1-2% interest means we will …
My Sports trading journey – Part five
A new year seems a good place to try and round off my story of how I got trading and my journey through the markets.
Click on the links to catch up with parts one, two, three and four
The jump
So I had taken the great leap into the unknown. For years I’d worked diligently up the corporate ladder and could have stayed in a senior position, but had now stepped off. At the back of my …
A year in the life
You may recall my blog posts a day, a week and a month. So what better way to sign off 2013 than a year in the life.
The year
I tend to follow a predictable pattern each year, skipping between major events where liquidity is highest. I used to do everything a few years ago but as my percentage return on invested capital shrinks, I am much more picking nowadays.
So I can tell you at the start …
Consistency
So the festive trading period is over and we now return to more mundane matters on the racing front.
Nothing outstanding occurred for me on the trading front, but Sprinter Sacre pulling up at an SP of 1.20 was probably the high or lowlight of the period depending on which side of the book you were on. You could hear the howls of anguish like never before coming from the crowd. Another reason why trading is much better than traditional …
Sometimes you win, sometimes you……
LEARN!!!!
I came across this phrase this year and I think it’s a neat one. It encapsulates the mental process you need to go through to be successful in pretty much anything in life.
What is talent?
It’s nice to think we are talented or some how ‘special’ but in fact a lot of talent comes through good old fashioned hard work. We have discussed it often in the psychology section of the forum. Generally there are no short cuts, …
Another graph
I’m presenting another course today; if you are interested, I’ll be doing one more course on 9th December before I change the format in the new year. We still have a few places left on that one.
Amongst many things I’ll discuss and explain, I’ll be talking about this graph today. It’s curious how different strategies can throw out similar graphs. If you have seen some recent graphs I posted up you will spot the similarity, but the strategy …
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