Posts Tagged analysis
Important Information
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on May 12th, 2011
Well day 3/6 on jinx week has passed without catastrophe. Yesterday wasn’t a great day by any means and I really fouled up on one race, but I’m still moving ahead on the week and hope for a better day today.
I’m always experimenting and there is no better way of doing that than directly in the market itself. I will always recommend this, as it’s the best way to really know what is really happening and how your actions shape the market. That’s important. You can back test and practice as much as you like but I can assure you actually doing it will always be different for one reason or another. This is why I recommend you get your hands dirty as quickly as you can.
I recently looked at a new strategy, gathered some data, tested it and then wrote a spreadsheet to put it to use. Spreadsheets are fantastic tools for trying out things with little effort. The end results can either confirm, confound or point you in a new direction. You can put some simple commands in and let Bet Angel do the rest throughout the day (or night) automatically. Some of the best ideas and understanding I have had, come from doing this. I was sure my new strategy would be net positive with a bit of tweaking. So I unleashed it on the market and promptly did my nuts, though my nuts were done in a very controlled manner. You may think that’s bad news, but for each negative on the exchange you will always find a positive.
I was a little perplexed, but not surprised, as it’s tricky to nail something on the first attempt. I carefully re-examined the data and checked my assumptions, they were OK. To eliminate confirmation bias, I handed the data to a third party and asked them to check it without telling them what they were looking for, that was OK. So, I had to dig around to learn what was different; eventually I found an answer.
In the data, I was measuring the strategy from a certain time forward; this time was variable. In the market I was using a fixed time. I had to do this as I wanted to carry on my ordinary activity while the spreadsheet pursued the new idea. It took a while to understand but the conclusion was inevitable, the time between the two fixed points contained important, predictive, information about the future of the market. This is something I hadn’t noticed before or had been quick to discount.
So, while one path is blocked, while heading down it I have noticed a gap in hedge I hadn’t spotted before. This leads to a new path and one I shall now enjoy exploring instead!
Waves
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on March 31st, 2011
For some time I’ve noticed curious elements within betting markets. I love analysing and studying what happens in the market, and it’s all to find out that critical question, why?
Getting a deeper understanding is useful because it allows you to build a firm framework around your decisions. I’ve often seen people stumble on something that works and then come up with things to justify that. Eventually they will fail a little while later and slip out of existence, why? Finding success can gives you false belief that you ‘have it sussed’ when in fact just finding something that works could just be a fluke. Failing to examine the “why” question is a key error for a lot of people in any market. I saw this a lot in financial markets. Sometimes people think they know why but they are only just scratching the real reason.
I’m interested in why things fail, or specifically exactly why does something really work. Each year I modify my strategy in a constant game of cat and mouse as a result of my research. It could be just to improve what I have, or to respond to a change in the market. When I do that, no doubt somebody else responds to that change and so the game continues. If I stayed still I would also get pushed out of existance.
For some time I’ve been aware of a general ‘wave’ in the market that determines how favourable it is for certain strategies. The market ebbs and flows and when the wave is peaking, that is the time of greatest opportunity. I never really, truly, understood why until recently. With a clear head after my holiday, I set about solving something unrelated and too my surprise I realised that it mapped very well on top of the wave. Within a few hours I had finally worked out what generates this phenomenon. The unfortunate thing is I can’t influence it but at least I understand another new thing about the market.
