Posts Tagged racing
Eboring
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 19th, 2010
OK the racing has been entertaining, but the trading has been less fulfilling and lacked a bit of spark about it. This is probably due to a participant(s) in the market that is causing grief for quite a few traders.
On Tuesday I seriously underperformed in light of this activity, but on Wednesday I turned it around having monitored the activity. I think that’s the problem with this tactic, it is easily exposed. We put the autotrading spreadsheet on the market using small stakes and analysed the resultant data to understand what is really going on. This answered quite a few questions for us, but still left some unanswered; but it was a big step forward. We think this person could get seriously caught out given the right situation occurring in the market, so we are just waiting for the that opportunity. We will continue to monitor this unusual activity.
The Ebor turned over £1.6m vs £2.3m last year but on a like for like basis it was about level. I underperformed on this race, but still got a reasonable result.
Ten pound trader – Day five
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 7th, 2009
As predicted Monday was a tough one, but I failed to predict that I would actually try to trade it with TPT. What a fool, I shouldn’t have bothered as I initially indicated. TPT made only a tiny amount on Monday but it was still 5% of stake. Yesterday was a bit better and boosted the stake to up to £21.58 overall for today a gain of 15%.
So, in five days we have gone from a stake of £10 to a stake of £20. If we factor in a growth of 10% per day on average we should be able to get our stake up to £50 in around ten days time. So far, we haven’t really had any blockbuster days. I think I started this at the wrong time of the year. It’s a lot tougher out there at the moment.
At smaller levels the gains are tiny so far, an average of just 11p per race at the moment, but so are the losses! As we compound up, we should be able to start accelerating that amount. This is exactly how I started many years ago. When your confidence is fragile, slowly building your stake up should slowly lift your profits up without putting yourself under two much pressure. If you get a bad result, that doesn’t hurt as much either. Pretty graph attached!
Ten pound trader – Day one
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 2nd, 2009
After a great September I had considered posting up the P&L for last month and also the last three months in total as they are absolute stonkers. But as I went to prepare the image for upload I paused for thought.
I guess they show what is possible, but having been around for so long you would suspect that I should be able to pull in something special, especially with bigger amounts of capital to hand. So I had another idea, what would happen if I took my bank right back to something that somebody starting out would have? I think this may be more interesting to a lot of blog followers?
So, today I funded a new account with £100 and started trading at £10 stake sizes. Of course, I can’t forgo my normal trading so Mr Ten Pound trader is going to have to run alongside my existing activity. It’s going to be quite a task to manage both so I am expecting the odd mess up and bad day but then, if I was starting out from new, that would probably be a similar story.
I know I am very experienced and don’t want to set false expectations, but I do believe that with the right approach it’s perfectly possible to squeeze something out of the market. I also believe that it’s definitely easier to use smaller stakes than big ones. With big stakes you have to gamble on getting filled, that’s not a problem using tiny stakes.
Each day, in line with sensible money management strategies, I will increment or decrement my stake by the prior days profit (or loss!). I’ll take Mr Ten Pound trader up to a notional value and then stop. I could go on forever but I just want to show that even from small amounts your bank can grow quite quickly. When finished I’m going to donate the profits to the injured jockey’s fund.
It could be a miserable failure and prove impossible to trade two accounts at once, but here goes anyway!
Iffy the comeback
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 23rd, 2009
I think I may have to buy this horse, I follow it’s fortunes so often. It ran, yes that’s right, it ran, this evening at Kempton. It has such a dodgy record for running I had my finger poised but it actually managed to race tonight. Maybe it’s something to do with longer races that it doesn’t like? Anyhow, for the record, here is its record: -
Early bird doesn’t catch the worm!
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 19th, 2009
Hmmm, bit hacked off this morning. Up very early to look at the Aussie group racing. Did a nice trade at Caulfield only to see my profit wiped out in a manner I hadn’t seen in the UK.
As the race started two horses reared and one chucked it’s jockey in the stalls. In the UK that would have just been tough luck, but the stewards in Aus called one or both non runners, not quite sure what they have done at the moment. This obliterated my trade and I went from a nice profit to nothing. So all this rhetoric about the early bird, well no juicy worms about this morning! In fact I feel like at cat just snuck out and bit my head off! Such is life.
Off to play Tennis at 07:45 so hope I have a good game and return to UK racing in a better mood.
St. Leger so far
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 11th, 2009
Things seem to be going OK this week, better than I expected. The Doncaster markets are a bit jumpy but by and large I am pulling in some steady but unspectacular results. My strike rate continues to improve and in the last 106 races I have lost in only 7.
Yesterday was fair, but acceptable and we still have the two biggest days coming up today and tomorrow, so that should help get to a good week. That said the card at Doncaster doesn’t look particulary strong and on top of that racing experts are saying that the St. Leger isn’t a strong race this year.
The issue I have today is that we start the card with a Group 2 race all out on it’s own at 13:35, not a helpful start to the day. I always find the first race of the day a struggle and usually my objective is to just get a small profit to get the day off on the right foot. Today I will have to push a bit harder on the first race which will make me feel uncomfortable.
We also have to look forward to the three runner at 16:25!! I will trade this as no matter what the market, there is always a strategy to put to use on it. The favourite Al Zir will be going off at 1.42. If you been on my course you should know what to do, especially as it should attract a lot of volume.
The two grand race
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 11th, 2009
Ok not quite two grand and also it shouldn’t have been! But thanks to Betfair’s well documented problems this week, a failure to turn markets in play, I fluked a big gain on one race today. See below: -
To be honest I’d rather forgo the money and have the whole system working as it should do. It serves no one to have a faulty platform and it would be much better to be sure that you know what is going to happen next. I also take issue with the fact that Betfair were not correctly backdating “at inplay take sp” orders. A very errant approach in my opinion. While a bonus is nice it isn’t real and these things work both ways. Earlier in the day at the 15:00 at The Curragh, I got a big negative. I decided then not to risk anything further but the issue didn’t seem to be present at UK races so I got suckered at Nottingham. As luck would have it, the right horse won and I got the benefit. But that’s it for the moment, no more till I am confident that Betfair is working properly again.
Betfair quote ‘technical issues’ as the problem. I strongly suspect that it is the SP reconciliation process that is broken. I also suspect that Betfair are placing their own SP orders into the market at this moment. I can’t confirm this but from the evidence I have seen, the way the SP is shifting, this problem and the delayed SP reconciliation this evening make me suspect that this is what the problem is. I’ll ask Betfair and let you know what they say. Clarification on the issue would go some way to pacifying what must be a whole bundle of unhappy customers. I was lucky today to escape, but I suspect there are many out of pocket.
Look over your shoulder
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 3rd, 2009
When trading it’s easy to get carried away with a move in the market. The prices is rising and you instinctively want to follow it as it charges off in one direction or another. You sit there and ponder your move then make the decision to jump in. Just as you do it goes the other way and you sit there waiting for it to rebound into profit, it continues to fall and then you can’t stand it any more and cut out. No sooner do you cut out than the price moves the other way, you jump back in and then you find you exit too early as the price soars off in the direction you picked. At that point you look over your shoulder as you could swear that somebody was watching you and waiting for you to click that button!
Why does this happen?
The answer lies in a little bit of psychology, namely fear and greed. I’ve published this image before, a couple of years ago in the newsletter, but I think it illustrates very well why people get into the market at the wrong time, exit at the wrong time and then fail to take their full profits.
Initially as the price moves, you feel a need to jump on a price movement, fearing you may have missed out. It turns out you were too late and the move has already happened and as the price falls back below your entry point, you bail out. This time you get in again and as the price rises you get nervous so you close your position, to be safe. Of course it sails well past your exit point and typically, if you have been in and out already, your hand is forced again by your previous memory of your prior unsuccessful entry.
This graphic illustrates these issues better than words but the summary is, let the market be your slave, not your master. Don’t follow it, try and be contrary.
Betdaq signs sponsorship deal
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 21st, 2009
Betdaq has signed a deal with Arena Leisure, a racecourse management group, to sponsor four of their racecourses in the buildup to this year’s Cheltenham Festival.
According to the online betting exchange, the agreement includes sponsorship of 72 races at Lingfield Park, Wolverhampton, Southwell and Folkestone.
“We have had a long standing relationship with Arena Leisure, and this new deal demonstrates our commitment to both flat and National Hunt racing in the U.K.,” said Russell Wiseman, Betdaq’s public relations director. “We are looking forward to a strong presence at these four courses in the build-up to Cheltenham.”
The deal runs from Feb. 14 until March 6.
Cheltenham volume
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 24th, 2009
Just traded the 13:30 at Cheltenham and I have to say it had some of the worst volume for a Cheltenham race I have ever seen on Betfair. Hopefully it will improve during the day but the total was worse than some of the poorer quality fare I have seen and nothing near what it should be for a quality race. Not sure what to interpret on that count.