Archive for August, 2009

Anybody who has been trading the market for any length of time will know the importance of ‘framing’ the market. A sports market is significantly different from, say, the stock market as a sports market will always gravitate to 100%, the stock market could go anywhere! In a sports market it’s impossible for anything to move in any direction of any length of time before a corrective sets in and pushes the market back to 100%. With this is mind we created the market overview screen.

The concept of the screen is to give you all the relevant information you need in an easy to view format. This means you can see all or some of the runners plotted in scalable graphs and also where they are in the trading range as well as other vitals bits of information. This allows you to carefully monitor where any pressure is building in the market and see how that will influence your trading position. It also includes a risk meter which gives you a clear and definable measure of how volatile a market is, very useful for scalpers.

Watch the following video to get a better feel for how this new feature works: -

Actually the day didn’t turn out too bad in the end, despite the quality! It was a good finish to the evening racing which now predominately switches to the all weather courses. Ffos las broke another great winning streak so I think I will have to wave bye bye to the chance of beating my longest winning run this year.

Watched the Barca vs Shaktar match and it was incredibly dull, I should have done something more useful in hindsight. I guess the pitch didn’t help, it was just deadful. When you see a match like that you do wonder why it’s called the ‘super’ cup.

Logged on this morning to see Hamilton washed out on the last proper evening racing of the ‘summer’. A disappointing end to the evening racing. Having had a pretty positive week I was hoping to finish in style this week but it looks like I will have to settle for a more mundane performance. That said, it does look like I will hit my highest ever strike rate this month so it’s nice to end the summer on a bang.

I did a lot of additional research on other sports during the summer so I am putting that into practice now. I’ve decided to shore up lower racing activity with a lot more activity elsewhere this winter. I’m also taking a first look at sports in other countries. I sense those markets are quite immature compared to the UK so I am drifting in and out of those. I think this is the sort of stuff I find most exciting. Walking over well trodden ground can get a bit monotonous so I am always looking for some fresh ground to explore, something to discover or see. Whether I find it or not is secondary, I think the thrill is in the discovery.

It’s funny where you can get inspiration from. I’ve been meaning to watch the film ‘Man on wire’ for a little time and finally got around to watching it.

It’s an amazing story with a lot of depth in it. It’s very inspirational as it shows that you should always us the word ‘impossible’, with the greatest of care. Well worth a watch.

I don’t know how many times people have told me that something is impossible or not realistic but if I’d listened to any of those doubters I wouldn’t have achieved a thing. I think this film shows you something similar and is very uplifting.

Pleased to see Ebor get off on the right foot. Nothing spectacular and I could have done better, but a really steady start and best of all it felt ‘nice’, so I will put my foot down now. It has lifted my spirits and with the evening racing still to come I’m looking forward forward to a bagging decent day and extending that out into the week, hopefully.

I thought the markets were pretty steady today, no surprises and the most intersting race of the day was the feature race. With the favourite priced at 1.29/1.30 the price just stuck solid till just before the off. It was essentially a game of chicken as to whether you got one side matched or another. I don’t think I did a particulary good job, but then it was only a four runner field and pretty much just a two runner, I should have held my nerve a bit. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Couldn’t stop laughing when Usain Bolt put “Bunny ears” on his compatriots’ head in the moment of glory on the podium this evening. Since I taught my kids this prank, many a photo has featured this gesture. I did some research: -

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/the_bunny_ears_prank_a_history/

Or the more amusing: -

http://tomhoehn.1000words.kodak.com/default.asp?item=508833

I’ve received a few emails about the exchange secrets site. I would just like to point out that I have nothing to do with this site, so I can’t comment on it or it’s contents. I do not have and never have had any involvement.

The first I knew about this site was at the same time as you, so I’ve no particular information that will be of interest. I also haven’t seen any of the type of information that this service will provide so I can’t comment on that either. You should direct any queries to the site owners, not me.

While I’m on the subject, I’d like to clarify a few things. Adam approached us late last year and asked if were interested in linking to a blog he was going to do in 2009. As with similar requests, we agreed. Our paths had crossed before as Adam had attended two courses of mine and I also bumped into him one evening at Kempton races. But prior to his blog we really didn’t have any awareness of Adam’s skills.

The difference between Adam and other bloggers became quickly apparent when his blog got underway. It was a pleasant surprise to us as well! We’ve linked to many many blogs in our time and no doubt the reason for Adam’s profile is down to his success. That, unfortunately, has overshadowed a lot of other, perfect good, blogs. There is loads of good information out there if you are prepared to look.

I’d also like to point out that there is no commercial linkage between Adam and Bet Angel, I am happy to swear under oath on that.

Hope that clarifies a few things.

EDIT : I note that even despite this statement people are still prepared to position things differently. Please be assured I am more than willing to take matters further if people deliberately mis-represent the truth.

When you are busy on a market, especially scalping, your eyes should be intently watching the screen. Your brain should be carefully analysing everything in front of you. But it’s your reactions that will gently click that mouse to swing a trade into action. Well that’s the idea anyhow.

I had an interesting test of my reactions this weekend when I nearly had a car crash. It’s amazing how quickly your brain and body can react when required! Food for thought for traders.

I was accelarating away from some traffic lights on a narrow ‘A’ road when a car four in front of me decided that a narrow A road was a good place to attempt a U turn, not only that but suddenly and without warning. No need to guess what happened, the car behind that one swiped the rear of the ‘U turn’ car, the car following back ended that one and there was me, unaware at the back of all of them. Seeing the traffic stop so suddenly I didn’t really have time to think but instinctively swung the car away from the third car and into the other side of the road, within a split second I done the opposite and steered the into the gap between the 1st and 2nd car. Before I knew what had happened I had weaved my way around the entire accident.

My fear of hitting that car had passed and I was suddenly euphoric at somehow managing to successfully avoid the entire mess. The kids were less pleased as they had been flung around the car unexpectedly, but at least they were safe!

It reminded me just how important quick thinking and reactions can be. You’ll be interested to know that we have thought about this and implemented some interesting new concepts in a new version of Bet Angel, at the end of the day you need every edge you can get, even if it’s only a fraction of a second, as my near accident demonstrated!

Can’t help but notice that volumes on the horse racing have often been very poor of late. This evening I was watching the ‘feature’ race of the evening a grade two race at Newmarket. Volume failed to reach £400k and most of that was on the favourite, that’s pretty poor, even for an evening race. There is also way too much bias on the favourites now in terms of volume. Volume on the favourites has always been dis-proportionate to the rest of the Field but even more so recently.

If you want to test this try getting a resonable sum matched at the back of the book. In a flat market it can take ages for it to get matched, not ideal.

Not me, the markets. Evening racing never has as much volume as the afternoon racing, but this evening it is very poor. Much lower than even my revised expectations. I don’t know what has caused this but it’s been hard to get any decent money matched this evening. Would have been much better enjoying a beer down the pub!

Edit : I just checked last year and it was exactly the same! How curious, I guess there could be an underlying reason for this in which case? Anyhow, I did better this year than last so thats a postive to take out of the evening.

I was sat here this evening trading on auto pilot. Some times the markets are like that, yesterday wasn’t but this evening was. I decided to fire up YouTube and watched, not some related content, but some videos on sub atomic particles, very deep. It reminded me of what drives me in everything I do. A thirst for knowledge and understanding.

I seriously doubt that CERN will call me up to help search for the higgs boson any time soon, but back when my father handed me a football pools coupon I never guessed where that would lead. It lead me on many paths and one of them ended up with the result that I can now predict the price of a draw in a football match to a 99.9% accuracy, somewhat removed from my fumbling first guess all those years ago. One of those paths also lead into betting exchanges which spawned Bet Angel.

The reason I can do things like the draw prediction, is because I spend a lot of time researching why things happen in the market and what influences that. I recently spent a couple of months looking at what shapes prices long term and the very very short term. The goal, to create a theory that can encompass the two across a number of areas. Of course, all processes display some element of entropy so I can often only say ‘On average’, but it’s those sorts of quests that drive me forward each day.

Whether I make money or not from what I do isn’t important, though it undoubtedly helps, and it’s great if it becomes a subset of that broader journey. But ultimately, my quest appears unchanged from those early moments. It’s all about understanding, a thirst for knowledge and trying to get things to the next level. That’s what really excites me.

I think its a decent philosophy whatever you do. Reaching out for the next level will always be more preferable, fulfilling and exciting than existing within the status quo.