Tag: trading
Travelling trader
This post has been prompted by this thread in the forum. I don’t know if you remember my post of 2/3 years ago, where I kitted out a holiday cottage so I could trade.
Why? I’ve learnt from past mistakes that if you see an opportunity you take it, in full. So while I’m still in my trading prime, I’d be a fool to turn down the opportunity. Plenty of time to enjoy it later. I also love travelling …
Flat racing falls at the first hurdle, but…
Hopefully the start of the flat season isn’t a portent to the rest of the season!
I always enjoy the Lincoln handicap this Saturday as it can be a pretty useful day and a kick start to the season proper. But not this year, yet. Hopefully things can return to normal and by next weekend we can really get moving.
While we are missing what would be a normal card, opportunity is always in the market if you look at it. …
From feast to famine
That was a really nice finish to the Festival, I can therefore declare Cheltenham 2013 as a success. Now its back to the grindstone trying to sort the wheat from the chaff; I am findingb lost of chaff.
Cheltenham went well and it was really nice to do that because you tend to measure yourself on prior years and hope you are still moving in the right direction. So it’s reassuring to know you can still do it and in a bit …
Cheltenham – Finishing post is almost in sight!
Gold Cup day is upon us and that means all this weeks fun and games at Cheltenham are almost over.
Yesterday continued the trend of a decline in turnover that we have seen this year. Yesterday was 12% lower than previous years. We also got to add back in the XC chase to the mix and rebasing that back to Tuesday indicated that day declined 7%.
I’m not expecting to break any records this year, to do that needs everything …
Improving conditions at Cheltenham
After a bumpy start on the first day at Cheltenham, day two proved more predictable and productive.
Overall turnover on Betfair was down 10% year on year, which was a surprise. Especially given the incredibly, and completely justified, short price on Sprinter Sacre. It was one hell of a performance and fully justified the price. I wasn’t sure what to the make of the market at first other than it would be almost impossible to trade. But I went for …
Conclusions from Cheltenham day one
And they are off. Sort off, after a delay then a cancelled race.
Hmm, that was a bit of a messy start to Cheltenham but that’s never stopped me in the past and it didn’t yesterday. When I heard that race times were to be put back I wasn’t sure what I would see. Would we get a double surge in volume? No was the in-direct answer to that question, but it obviously did lead to an increase but also …
FA Cup fifth round
So the FA Cup trundles on.
No real surprises so far in terms of how the tournament is playing out. I’ve pointed out in previous blog posts that from a tournament trading perspective it’s dominated by the top teams. So far this year premiership teams have dominated the book% in all rounds and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change.
Volumes on FA Cup matches are lower than higher profile so I’m starting to find it a bit annoying! I …
The depths of winter
So here we are at the start of February, in the depths of winter.
Australian Open tennis has just finished, Cheltenham isn’t too far away but for now the immediate outlook is a little weak for me.
It can be pretty tough, especially on the racing front, at this time of year. So it’s only with experience that you learn not to worry, it’s just part of the annual cycle. In the summer opportunities come thick and fast and you can …
Is Tennis trading a load of old balls?
Ever the researcher, I have been browsing some books and documents recently. I stumbled across an interesting document that relates to whether new or old balls are an advantage in a Tennis match, it gave me some food for thought. It relates mainly to Wimbledon but it’s got me thinking about other surface types also and whether the same thing would be applicable there or whether this is an anomaly.
So for my first serve, stop reading for a second …
Snow way!
With racing cancelled today, I took the opportunity to regress to childhood and went outside to play in the snow after the Australian Open Tennis had finished for the day. That’s the useful thing about having Children, you can act like one!
I didn’t anticipate doing any racing at all, but drifted back behind my desk to set up for the Tennis tomorrow morning. I saw Dundalk was on and thought I’d have a quick go. Profited on every race …
A strange sort of day…
Markets in the winter months are not known for their fluid liquidity, or solid nature. But yesterday was an odd day in the racing markets by any standard.
Probably the stand out moment was a massive divergence in price on the 16:30 race at Kempton, a very rare occurrence. While the on course market was pricing the favourite at odds on, Betfair’s market was showing it as a persistent drifter. It just shows you how incredibly thin the underlying …
The Academy
Back in 2004 I stood up in-front of some financial market traders, in Clitheroe of all places, and talked to them about how I traded on Betfair.
Such was the interest that the company that invited me asked me to do a full day of training for them and that was how I started offering advice on how to trade.
Since then things have moved on a lot. It was tough back then as people hadn’t really grasped the concept of …
Tactical football trading
As is well publicised, I started my odyssey in sports when I was very young, analysing footy matches looking for draws.
I still endlessly search for new information, a quest to find something that hasn’t been found before. To give you some hope if you are doing the same, I am always finding new things. Sometimes by looking for something else.
I recently revisited how a football match unfolds and if there was information contain in the first half stats …
The comeback kings
When trading you are looking to lay at the shortest possible odds first then trade out at much higher odds, or vice versa. Doesn’t matter which, I’ll take either!
However you need something to happen for that opportunity to arise. In football there are many ways that this can happen but the main method to see a swing in odds is goals.
The perfect scenario is for a team to conceded a goal then comeback to win the match. This …
Newton would have used exchanges
Newton’s Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes people are perplexed at how you can correctly call price action on an exchange, but sometimes it’s quite easy; thanks to referancing Newton’s third law.
Every betting market must add up to 100%. It’s impossible for it to exceed that value in either direction for any prolonged period of time. So if something is coming in, in one direction, this means something else, either in isolation or in …
Trading the unexpected
Reading 5, Arsenal 7 – This was obvious the stand out football result from the last week. A most remarkable scoreline.
For so many goals to be scored in one match is rare, especially seven goals away from home; though Leeds fans may have more recent memories. But to win 7-5 from 4-0 down is remarkable. I’ve been scanning my records to see if I could find an example, but I can’t. 4-4 draw’s are rare, but I do …
Trading psychology in a nutshell
Some time ago I sat two people down and gave them each a simple trading strategy. I wanted to observe first hand how people executed them.
The reason I did this, was that it had become apparent to me sometime ago, that given the same set of instructions, people often execute differently. The difference appears to be psychological.
On one desk we had one person executing fairly well and making a small profit. On the other desk we had another person who …
Trading the Ryder Cup Golf
Looking forward to the Ryder cup this weekend. Nothing like a bit of Patrotism to spice up a sporting event!
I did a full write up on the Ryder Cup last time around but have been too busy to do so this year. One thing I remember really well from th 2008 Ryder cup was how ‘the tie’ played out in a competitive competition.
This year looks very competitive, though I was surprised to see home advantage priced in as …
What Betfair traders have forgotten
Back in the ‘good old days’ when gambling meant just backing only, your objective was clear. Back then, excuse the pun, you had to back something that won more often that the odds would suggest.
Participate in these modern markets and you would think that this quaint old fashioned strategy had long since completely died a death. Everybody seems to be doing all manner of things in the market and you could be forgiven for thinking you couldn’t do anything …
Losers, winners and strike rates
Further to my previous post about strike rates, I thought I add some flesh to the discussion.
At the end of the day people have a variety of different risk profiles. Your tolerance and reaction to risk is predominantly a psychological factor. The good thing is you can learn to overcome any psychological failings. When I was not as experienced as I am now I would often over analyse things and let the market be my master. Now I am …
High probability Betfair trading
Sounds nice doesn’t it, winning positions regularly topping up your account?
If you look at any ebook or system sellers nearly all of them focus on high probability trades. Basically positions that win very frequently. That’s great, it makes the person who just shelled out some cash feel really good. They keep winning on a regular basis and in an excited hubris they often credit the author with some positive feedback, then booooooom; It all goes wrong. Eventully reality dawns that …
Tennis trading – Faking it
Great match last night between Tipsarevic and Ferrer, probably one of the best of the tournament for trading. I was getting a bit tired though near the end. Two of three kids are back at school and it’s early mornings again!
Ferrer went a set up only to find himself two sets to one down, only to turn it around and win on a tie break in the fifth. This match is a great illustration of how some matches are …
Trading Tennis – The US Open
While the summer evening racing markets have finished, thanks to the US Open tennis there is still plenty to do in the evenings at the moment; as long as it’s not raining! It’s raining at the moment, which is why I thought I would pen this post.
Because of the time difference to the US, it is a really useful tournament to trade and the level of interest in a grand slam will ensure good liquidity. It’s a good opportunity …
Manic Monday
The late summer bank holiday brings with it, not just the traditional rain in the UK, Cartnel is abandoned due to waterlooging; but a plethora of racing as well.
That’s an issue. Even with the one abandoned meeting there are still 64 races in the card. But quite a few of them clash directly and during the day it’s unlikely that all will go off on time so that will bump up the number of clashes.
It’s going to be …
Trading the Olympics
Wow, what a busy few weeks it has been!
For me the School holidays and the Olympics on home soil has been too much temptation to miss. There are not many chances in life to do what I have done over the last couple of weeks, so I’ve jumped at the chance to do it. It has been really great experiance.
Doing that has meant putting trading on the back burner recently. But that’s no problem really, a couple of …
Home advantage when trading the Olympics
So it’s here, never thought it would be possible but I’ll be going to the Olympics on home soil. At 08:12 this morning bells rang out across the country, which woke me up, and announced that the Olympics games has officially started.
When I was young, I was very sporty and dreamt of being in the Olympics. That never happened but I did join at Athletics club when I was older where some of the members were Olympians and we …
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 seeded …
A tale of two different tournaments
You couldn’t wish for two more different tournaments in the French open this year. On the men’s side Nadal is playing consistently and has eased through to the latter stages. His opponents meanwhile have stuttered and at times looked in real trouble. If you look at the men’s draw; all this has meant that Nadal, ‘the king of clay’, has shortened from 1.72 at the start of the tournament to just 1.58. All the other top seeds have drifted.
On …
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 …
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 on …
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