I’m having a quiet time of it here on the farm. We’re very exposed here and it’s very cold - we’ve all had the flu and are mostly staying in. The kids (and me) have been spending a lot of time on the Wii, which can be a bit dangerous. There’s this game called Mario Kart where you career around a racetrack crashing into all sorts of obstacles as you go - I popped out to run a few errands after playing on it and was driving like a boy racer without realising.
I’m not even looking at the horses at the moment. Most of my trainers have shut up shop over Christmas and haven’t really got going again after the freeze - I think a lot of horses are going to be short of work and results are going to be unreliable. Gary Moore keeps on going (he never rests) and Kings Head will come out in a claimer on Thursday. Tifernati has finally arrived at his stables after the operation to remove his wart - I’m looking forward to seeing him come out. Peitre D’Argent is aiming for a 10f 3yo handicap at Lingfield on the 17th.
The markets are good, which doesn’t surprise me. The beginning of a new year often brings a bit of good cheer as the city salesmen start peddling the new stories. My brother-in-law runs a toy company, and it was interesting hearing his views on the terrible Christmas that the retailers had. He put it more down to fear than anything else - the buying public had money to spend but all the talk in the press of banking collapse and impending recession shook them up so much that they cut their Christmas spending dramatically.
I’ve been spending a lot of time researching matings for my mares. I’m reading everything I can find on genetics (and conducting a bit of private research as well) and Mick has refined his database to allow for more flexibility in looking at sire/damsire combinations. I feel like a complete amateur, but I’m going to play my part in decisions like these. One of my big philosophies in life is that you have to get in the mix as soon and as often as possible and learn your lessons (and make your mistakes). It goes completely against my nature to do this as I’m naturally shy and retiring, but I’d never do anything if I didn’t try and drive myself forward.
Has anyone checked to see if Phil Taylor has the markings, 'Made In Taiwan' anywhere on his body? After demolishing Barney in a very one sided contest, the man from Stoke made it 14 World Titles and ended a glorious 12 months in style. He really is a freak and it baffles me how he can be so far ahead of the others. Okay, he practices - alot - but I'm sure most of the players do these days with the amount of prize money on offer, so what makes Taylor score 20 points more than the rest every 3 darts?
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It has to be the psychological advantage he holds and the way he uses it for maximum effect. The pre-final interview revealed a significant amount when he admitted that at the first sign of weakness he would look to bully his opponent. Do all the top stars think this way? I'm sure they do, and when they have the game to back it up they become formidable opponents. If ever there was a man who deserved to win 'Sports Personality of the Year' then you'd need not look further than 'The Power'. Sadly, it seems that prize is one that will elude him.
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Elsewhere, things have trickled along nicely. The NFL Playoffs results have so far edged in my favour and after adding LaToya Jackson to my Celebrity Big Brother portfolio I'm feeling a little more comfortable. An interesting few weeks lie ahead.
Familiar story again today with no jumps racing . Nothing doing tomorrow either and Thursday sounds equally hopeless.
Best chance of action seems to be Friday's card at Kelso, while Ayr have scheduled an extra meeting for Saturday so with a bit of luck that will go ahead. Kempton have abandoned Saturday's card and replaced it with (another) all weather meeting, and Wetherby's got no chance unless it warms up round here pretty sharpish.
Three bets today, but once again nothing doing as none of the selections troubled the judge.
Bets Advised
SLH A/W
Tadlil - win bet at 3/1 - LOST (SP 3/1)
Tipping Legends
Ishibee 1pt win @ 11/4 - LOST (SP 5/2) The Tatling 1pt win @ 7/1 - LOST (SP 7/1)
Hi, Apologies for delayed post but I was really busy. Anyway it's time to start talking cricket again. I'll post about cricket trading schedule tomorrow. Bye. Dip
Nothing new to post really, started a new contract yesterday so back to the grindstone :o)
Thanks again for the comment JP, nice to get some dialogue going on this blog! The levelling off has saved me this season in a couple of games. The big one being the Barcelona v Real Madrid game, for the sake of 5 quid I got out of a £150 loss and to be honest I'm probably in profit at the moment for my 'levelling off' of games. I don't do it to often, for instance on Saturday i watched the closing stages of the Preston v Liverpool game, I knew i had a -£40 hit on Liverpool if they scored again or +£80 if nothing else happened at 0-1. 10 seconds from time Liverpool broke away and got their second, not a major hit but if I could of been bothered to get off the sofa, get my laptop and level off I'd of saved that hit for the sake of a few quid. I think the odds at the end of games get very hazy and it's difficult to put an exact figure on the value I'm giving away, probably betting on a 7 or 8% chance as opposed to a 10% chance. The powerstats just aren't hitting the figures that, according to my findings, they should be so therefore I've got to bite the bullet and admit that something is wrong with my working out somewhere. This has gone back to a work in progress and I'll start trialling the new powerstats once I've reworked them.
Nothing much from The Form Analyst at the moment, the weather is obviously hitting the racing. Small win on Sunday and small(er) loss yesterday.
The in play app made a good recovery on Sunday night for a £17 profit. Fell over a bit last night though with a £31 loss, glad I've reduced the stakes!
To kick the When You Bet Today (WUBT) Radio show back into action for 2009 we have “The Badger” as our guest for this week.
For those who do not know, The Badger is a highly experienced Betfair Trader (who uses Bet Trader from Racing Traders). He can be found helping out in the Racing Traders forums and has released an amazing set of videos which can be found by clicking here.
We also have one of his videos you can watch at the end of this post.
We also have the Juicestorm Xmas draw, Adam Todd and Mark Baker will be making a short appearance to announce the winners for each prize, there is still time to enter, click here for entries.
The show will be live at 13:00 (UK Time) Using the Audio Player in our side bar (you can pop the player out using the button on the top right)
So, a great show? Will the Technical difficulties cause chaos? Will our new Radio Player let us down?
If you have any questions for The Badger, Adam Todd or Mark Baker, add a comment to this post or contact us directly at Juicestorm.
Update: Taylor to win all 8 TV events 2009 - 4pts - 50/1 - Skybet
Having backed Taylor at 33/1 to win all 8 TV events at 33/1 at Stan James, I'm suprised to see Skybet open up this same market at 50/1. I appreciate 8 events is a 'Big Ask' - Taylor will be especially vulnerable in the early rounds of the some of the events where fewer sets are required to win. However, 50/1 is an insult against one of the greatest sporstmen of our era - a 7-1 drubbing of van Barneveld yesterday in the PDC World Chmapionship shows Taylor is right at the top of his game.
Here we go. Chalfont St Peter at 16/1 to win the Fa Vase with Skybet (only firm to have priced up at the moment) Slashed from 25/1 today (I guess a few people are on now!) but they still remain good value at the price. We had a dodgy October to mid November, mainly due to two of our strikers being out injured. One is back (scored 10in 3 games!) Hopefully the other is not far away. We have made a loan signing from Maidenhead United for the rest of the season, who are 6th in Blue Square South (3 divisions above us!)
We are scoring for fun from absolutely anywhere on the pitch, and are hitting form exactly at the right time (http://football.mitoo.co.uk/TeamHist.cfm?CI=4208&DivisionID=2401&TblName=Matches&LeagueCode=SMID2008) as you can see - I did try putting the link in but it came up as unauthorized! It's very likely too late for the league, but the Vase is a different matter, and as most of our players come from London, what an incentive to play just up the road at Wembley! We are away to Dunston Federation (Gateshead) in the 4th round on Jan 17th (weather permitting!) and, in the words of the coach "We aren't going 400 miles to lose" It will be our first ever trip by plane, not bad for a village side! The team are flying there on the night before for good preparation, we will probably find a local club where we can have a training session in the morning! We dont have to play any other side from a higher division in the tournament, we have already beaten a team two divisions above us in the FA Cup, and also had an unlucky single goal defeat to Team Bath in the same competition (3 divisions above us) where we were the better side! As far as I am concerned we are well capable of going all the way.
A mixed start to the year gambling wise, had a great run on the dyms to win 7 in a row before losing the next 3! Came 6th in the .3k gtd last night to put the month back in profit.
A new addition to the blog links opposite, Would be is an incredible story of someone who is battling against various demons, and trying to cope with all manner of happenings in his life. A very deserved winner of the Gatsby Blog of the Year, I can't wait for the book to come out!
Well a full on nosedive for the in play football app last night, from a +£211 profit early evening, a series of nasty hits took all the profit away and a minus £1 loss on the day. It hasn't run mch today, I've had problems with my broadband connection overthe last few days and these have resulted in connections timing out to the Betfair API. It's run on a couple of games and is currently £76 down, can it turn around before the bank gets wiped ? :o)
Just the one tip today from The Form Analyst, 1.5 points each way. It traded 1.01 in running but finished second, feel my current poor run is rubbing off on his selections :o) Small loss on the day with the service for me then but could/should of been a decent day.
Chancellor on 31st Dec 2009 - Ed Balls - 5pts Win 25/1 - Ladbrokes
Labrokes have a market as to who will be Chancellor on 31qst Dec 2009. If Brown calls a General Election (and loses), it is quite possible that the Chancellor will be a Conservative, most likley George Osborne (8/1). However, I suspect Brown is unlikely to call an election in 2009 if it will result in a Conservative victory, therefore the most likely Chancellor is a Labour Chancellor.
The most likely Labour Chancellor on 31st Dec. 2009 is the present incumbent, Alistair Darling (4/6). However, if things start to go wrong with the economy recovery plan from Labour, it is possible he will be replaced. In my opinion, the most likely person to replace him is Ed. Balls (25/1). As Brown's Economic advisor when Brown was Chancellor, Balls is idealy placed to take the role of Chancellor now Balls has some ministerial experience. I would expect thsi to happen during a reshuffle around the time of the Labour party conference in Sept. 09.
The other possible scenario is a government of 'National Unity' with Vince Cable (20/1) being appointed, however I think this is much less likely option.
I tried to have 5pts (£125) at Ladbrokes but was limited to 1 pts (see screen shot above). I therefore put the other 4pts on in a Ladbrokes shop!
Update : 8.00 p.m. 2 hrs later and betting is suspended. Looks like I have had some affect on the market!
As promised, here's the first profit and loss summary for the new year.
Profit and Loss w/e 04/01/09
Loss on week £288
Loss year to date £288
Results by service (per my staking plan)
Maths - Account Bets.....................0 Maths - Selections....................(190) Maths Bad Horses (Lay)...................0 The Form Analyst......................(118) Optimum Racing...........................0 SLH - Private............................0 SLH - Premium (Lay)......................0 SLH - A/W.............................(450) Tipping Legends........................470 Personal Betting / Trading...............0
TOTAL.................................(288)
I am also going to do a weekly profit and loss showing the advised stakes and prices of each selection, this is set out below with explanations where necessary.
I will show the weekly p&l in terms of points and also attach a value to it by using my previous staking plan. Trying not to make it unduly complicated - see below......
Mathematician
Account bets are either staked at £100 or £50 by maths.
His "selections" are not staked but they are bets he recommends which are not strong enough to be account bets.
I will show these seperately and apply my old staking plan which was account bets at £100-£200, and selections at £50.
Call it £50 per point.
Maths (Bad Horses)
No stakes advised on these, but will lay to lose £100.
The Form Analyst
Bets advised win or each way up to a maximum of 5 points. Staked £50 / point previously.
Optimum Racing
Bets advised win or each way up to a maximum of 10 points. Previous staking plan £25 per point.
SLH Private
Bets advised win or each way up to a maximum of 10 points. Previous staking plan £25 per point.
SLH Premium (Lay)
These are recommended lay bets on short priced favourites, and I will be laying these to lose £100 (same as on my old plan)
SLH A/W
No advised points on this service so will settle at level stakes (1pt win or 0.5 pts each way). Previously I used £100 win / £50 each way on my old plan.
Tipping Legends
Bets advised up to a maximum of 3pts win. My old stakes were £50 / point.
Results to advised stakes / prices (prices used are prices achieved unless stated)
Maths - Account Bets.....................0 Maths - Selections....................(150) (-3 pts) Maths Bad Horses (Lay)...................0 The Form Analyst.......................(90) (-1.8 pts) Optimum Racing...........................0 SLH - Private............................0 SLH - Premium (Lay)......................0 SLH - A/W.............................(390) (-3.9 pts) Tipping Legends........................440 (+8.8 pts) Personal Betting / Trading...............0
One of those days which would drive you mad if you let it.
Four horses advised, three of them finish second - one beaten a nose (traded at 1.01) and another beaten a head (traded at 1.05).
Added to that I'm back to work tomorrow for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. Not looking forward to it one little bit, alarm set for 7 which is about 5 hours earlier than I've been getting up lately. No doubt won't sleep too well and feel like shit when I get up and spend all day walking round like a brain dead zombie - at least I'll be in good company !
Plus I've not had a cigarette for four days now so I'm not good to be around today !!
Bets Advised
The Form Analyst
Rock Anthem 1.5 pts e/w @ 4/1 - 2ND (SP 7/2) beaten a nose, caught on line - traded 1.01 in running
SLH A/W
Cap St Jean e/w @ 11/2 minimum - 2ND (SP 6/1) beaten a head, just failed to get up - traded 1.05 in running
Mathematician
Selection - Fortunella @ 6/1, saver on Oberlin @ 7/1 - 2ND (SP 9/2) / LOST (SP 9/2)
Bets Placed
Rock Anthem £100 win @ 4/1................(100) Cap St Jean £80 win @ 6/1..................(80) Fortunella £80 win @ 6/1...................(80) Oberlin £70 win @ 7/1......................(70)
The 12th edition of the Carnival of Gambling is published today and 11 new articles discuss online poker, sports betting and betting odds. As always, if you have a blog and have been an active blogger, why don't you send one of your popular blog posts to make it in the following edition of the blog carnival of gambling, here in Jimmakos.com.
Back once again with the first post of 2009. Glad to say that it's going to be a positive one as well, December was a bad month for me but after a few days break (mainly due to lack of football this week) I've come back a bit more refreshed and positive.
I've halved my usual stakes for my in play app, I'd of liked them to remain the same but the truth is if I took a few days of bad hits over the weekend I'd of wiped my depleted bank out and I didn't want that to happen.
Today it's done well though and is currently £211 up, I also got it involved in the Cup games but at massively reduced stakes, the only downer is that if I'd run my app using usual stakes on all games then I'd probably be talking about a profit close to 1k :o) Never mind, slow and steady is the way.
The Form Analysts picks have been a little up and down recently, it needs a good few days to recoup the losses I've had from it since I signed up, just hope the winning days come up before the next subscription is due....
Thanks for the comment JP. I rarely level bets off, I only do this if I happen to be watching a game and I want to enjoy the last few mins, it normally really is just the last few mins and if I've built up a max loss (was £150) on an outcome then I don't mind using 5 or 10 quid to get out of it at long odds. As you say, its probably not value but I do it for my stress levels :o)
So my current plans for 2009:
Keep with the lower stakes with the in play app and try and get the bank built up again ready to increase it back to usual stakes.
Rework the powerstats and paper trade them for the rest of the football season.
Keep with the form analyst and hope things pick up there.
Look into downloading a SQL database of horse stats from smartersig and start working on them to produce my own horse picks.
Continue using my valuestats application for trading in play football matches. Add an Over/Under 2.5 goals feature to it, log the odds into a SQL database and finally get it re-written in .Net or VB and possibly look at selling it on a monthly subscription basis.
Wasn't expecting too much action today once three jumps meetings failed to beat the freeze. However there were seven tips between three of my services, producing one winner and 4 fourth places which were advised each way 1/2/3 !! Happened to me so many times last year, so again feel vindicated in my decision to switch to backing win only.
Won £7.50 today, which won't exactly change my life, but on a very uninspiring day I'll take anything positive. Didn't bother with the football today. Not too keen on betting on the FA Cup these days, and with matches being called off throughout the morning I decided to pass.
Bets Advised
The Form Analyst
Pegasus Again 0.5 pts e/w @ 11/2 - WON (SP 7/1) Muktasb 0.5 pts e/w @ 11/2 - 4TH (SP 4/1) Forest Dane 1pt win @ 6/1 - LOST (SP 11/2) Mind Alert 0.5 pts e/w @ 15/2 - 4TH (SP 9/1)
Tipping Legends
Muktasb 1pt e/w @ 11/2 - 4TH (SP 4/1)
SLH A/W
Whistledown win bet at 3/1 - LOST (SP 3/1) Pevensey e/w bet at 7/1 - 4TH (SP 8/1)
The 'Big Four' have an excellent record in the FA Cup in the past decade. However, I think the tide might be changing with Porstmouth's win last year. The 'Big Four' no longer take the FA Cup as seriously as they did in the past - it is now a long way behing the Chmaions League/Premier League in their priority.
I have chose to oppose the 'Big Four' with Fulham. At 66/1, they are a more than fair price. Roy Hodgson has made Fulham into a solid mid table outfit with a good defensive away record against stronger Premier League teams. Their third round tie away against Sheff Wed. is not too bad - hopefully they will get favourable draws from now on.
By backing with Coral, I have I had a 'free' 2pt E/W bet on a Championship tem- I have jhad 2pts E/W on Birmingham (it was a choice between them and Wolves as I know Reading will likely field an understrength side in teh FA Cup.)
N.B. I backed Everton last year and they went out in the 3rd round at home to Oldhamk so I hope I haven't jinxed Fulham!
Celebrity Big Brother got underway last night and even though it may seem a little sad, the thought of all these prima-donnas arguing over the milk gets me excited. The line-up is a good mix of personalities but one in particular looks to have stolen the show already.
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Verne Troyer is best known for the role he played as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series of films, and even though he only measures 2 feet 8 inches it seems he's been keen to explore other opportunities since the last movie 'Goldmember' was released in 2002. Gus from the Tellybetting blog has already pointed out that Verne has some form when it comes to reality shows and as I'm a big believer in first impressions I've decided to make a play after just the first show. I'm opposing the female contestants as voting usually goes the way of the males when the decision on who gets evicted gets put to the public. Here's my book as it currently stands:
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. Tonight also sees the start of the NFL playoffs and as usual I've tried to predict the eventual winner of the Superbowl. Last year I did quite poorly so I'm hoping to rectify things over the coming weeks and the following rankings are how I see the teams at the minute based on them meeting at a neutral venue. The latest Betfair odds are in brackets. . 1. Pittsburgh (6.4) 2. Baltimore (16) 3. Philadelphia (16.5) 4. Indianapolis (12) 5. NY Giants (4.1) 6. Tennessee (7.2) 7. Carolina (7.0) 8. Minnesota (42) 9. Atlanta (36) 10. Arizona (65) 11. Miami (55) 12. San Diego (22) . With the way the seeding system works it's not just a case of backing the top team, so after trying to decipher the outcomes of each game I've dutched the following teams: . . The big gamble is opposing Tennessee. I think they've flattered to deceive this season and even though they finished the regular season with a 13-3 record I can't see them pushing past the likes of Pittsburgh at this stage. They have afterall, lost 3 of their last 6 games. Famous last words eh?!? . The PDC World Darts Championships also now rolls onto the Semi-Finals and how good was it to see Barney take out a 9 darter last night? He was on fire against Klaasen and the thought of him versus Taylor in the Final is a mouth watering prospect. I can't see Wade causing him too much of a problem on current form. . I blew a bit of profit last night but at least I've started the year in a positive way: . Darts King v Bates : £25.54 Taylor v Stompe : £44.97 Nicholson v Wade : £49.73 Van Barneveld v Klaasen : £79.26 .
I thought I’d return to play an old poker adversary who’s always ready for a game here. I am playing against BluffBot 3.1 with a deep stack. We obviously started equal.
World Champion Poker Bot
BluffBot is a World Champion “poker bot” created by Teppo Salonen for the purpose of competing in the first three annual AAAI Computer Poker Competitions.
In a 2006 competition (held at the 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence) the first version of BluffBot finished in the 2nd place in limit Hold ‘em competition beating such opponents as GS2 by Carnegie Mellon University and Monash BPP by Monash University, losing only to University of Alberta’s Hyperborean.
In 2007, BluffBot 2.0 went undefeated and took a convincing 1st place victory in the no-limit Hold ‘em competition beating all other opponents, including Hyperborean07 by University of Alberta, GS3 by Carnegie Mellon University, as well as bots from Gomel State University, Milano Polytechnic, University of Manitoba and University of Minnesota to name a few.
As you can see above I am leading at the moment and I’ll play a bit more tomorrow. I’ll leave the browser open so it should be okay to start again where I left off. Can I beat BluffBot? We’ll see. But I doubt it.
BluffBot can give even experienced poker players a run for their money - at least until they start figuring out certain counter strategies because the bot is still vulnerable to some degree.
The real question is, however, when will BluffBot (or any other no-limit AI for that matter) start consistently beating the top professionals? Personally, I agree with BluffBot’s author and have no doubt in my mind that it’s just a matter of time until bots will be able to beat all human poker players. It’s already starting to happen in limit hold ‘em in the form of University of Alberta’s SparBot/Hyperborean/Polaris bots. And it might not be too long until no-limit bots also evolve to the expert level by any human standards. If you play at heads up tables regularly at certain sites the chances are you have played against a bot already. And lost your money! Please let me know.
Newsletter subscribers have now received a preview of a post going out next week concerning the poker bot arrangement I use. But please note that it is against the Ts and Cs of any poker site to use a bot and it is now even against Full Tilt Poker’s rules to use any form of odds calculator or data mining software. Poker Edge and Poker Inspector are specifically banned. Use them at your own risk. I still have one winning profile up for grabs so the first newsletter reader who contacts me after your set up is working gets it.
For new readers here, welcome, and if you haven’t subscribed yet you’ll get the low down on what was available and my view on poker bots next week.
Good luck to you all, as always. Have a bottastic week.
It's 3am in the morning and just been called out by work (on my day off!) to fix a problem, so thought I'd add a update of yesterday's trading.
Been loving the PDC darts as usual this Christmas and started to trade the games over the last few days. Nothing yesterday as at the in-laws but looked forward to the Wade-Nicholson and Barney-Klassen quarters today.
Before we started, placed a £25 stake on Under 2.5 goals in the Spurs-Wigan game in hope to trade out early on for the first bit of footy green in 2009.
I then sat down to watch the darts as Mrs FG and her gran watched Mama Mia in the living room. I nipped in and out on Wade, laying him when low and backing back for small £10 stakes. There wasn't a lot of movement as both players were shocking but eventually backed Wade at 1.61 and as he went 3-1 up managed to have a £10 win on him no loss on Nicholson.
By now the footy had started but price wasn't moving, so continued to hold positions. I then had to nip to shops for Mrs FG and decided to green up on both postions, to have £6+ wins on footy and darts. I came back from the shops to find the darts was switched off and gran was watching Corrie! Wade was now odds against and looked a good move to green up before.
I managed to get the game back on and found Wade back in control. Missed a good trade but moved the green back onto Wade and he eventually spluttered to victory to win £7 odd.
I then laid Barney before the next game as looked too short at 1.45, however after Klassen won the first set, I failed to green up as Mrs FG distracted me and by time I was back at laptop it was 1-1. It was then one way traffic for Barney as he looked in outstanding form including a amazing 9 dart finish with not a flicker of emotion.
I laid him several time in the match for a loss of £8 in the end, to leave me slight down on the darts for today but about a fiver up with the footy.
Not sure I can trade tomorrow as going to a first birthday party in the afternoon and wetting a baby's head at night. Hopefully Sunday will be able to instead.
Welcome to 2009 everyone and the start of another attempt to make my footy betting pay. This time last year I tried to start off a project call LOFT (Living Off Football Trading). It failed apart from the idea to create my now defunct BRAVO rating.
So this year as usual, I will try and re-invest myself and look to move things forward for the better.
So a quick review of 2008 would suggest as before, as a break even year. If this blog was a business I guess this would be a good starting point. All new businesses are suggested to aim to break even in their first year. Successes were the 3-3 draw system on the last day of the season and the next West Ham manager market. Failures were definitely playing the Under 2.5 goals market and many in-play disasters. The main failing though as always is preparation for games. Not enough knowledge of what is likely to happen before entering a market.
So how to I plan to improve things. Well we'll start with a list of things I'd like to get done:-
- Audit all betting activity
- Create a corner betting related website
- Create new rating systems for teams and corners, which would lead to predicting league positions for all English leagues.
- Create a set of trading rules to follow and stop too many silly mistakes.
- Create a trading bot for automatic trading.
The first 3 maybe easier than the last two for me, but I need to assess my best skills and adapt them to trading as best I can. I'm not a quick thinker, so need to have a set of parameters in place to follow, so I know what to do if this or that occurs. This also could lead to a bot to trade for me instead, so they will follow the rules regardless.
The creating of ratings for both teams and corners is something I really hope to going soon as I found it very enjoyable last time and reading Alex Deacon in the 'Racing and Football Outlook' each week, makes me want to emulate his successful predicting using his Index.
I aim to publish the trading rules in a separate post when I fine tuned them, in the meantime I will be create spreadsheets to record all the ups and downs on Betdaq for now and hopefully produce some useful stats as highlighted in the Punt blog last year.
On we go to 2009, and a happy new year to all readers of the blog. I’ll leave my resolutions for now (still a work in progress…) but here are my investments for the year;
2009 is already booked to be a pretty poor year - the recession is unavoidable and the earthquake that was the banking collapse is stull rumbling. Sterling has collapsed against the Euro - having traded at around E1.50 for so long we are now close to parity - E1.00. The price of oil is now around having run up to 7 in the summer. These are huge moves. Gold ended the year at around 5.
Oil must recover in time, although the short term looks a mixed picture. Sterling’s move looks a bit technical and I suspect it will come back at some point, but it won’t come all the way back. I think gold has to go higher, possibly quite a lot higher, and it feels like a good investment for the year.
The world’s economy may be in a terrible state, but the show must go on and there’s going to be value in the equity markets for the selective investor. It might be an extreme case of “out with the old and in with the new” - 2009 won’t be easy for anyone who has fallen behind the curve. Woolworths is perhaps an example of a business that was past its sell by date long ago but had been hanging on - they had no chance in the new tougher environment but the online retailers will thrive at their expense.
The gambling industry will probably be fine - it has proved more recession resilient than one feels it should be in the past and there is sure to be consolidation at some point. The right tech companies will do well, although the market will be applying different models now and will not show much patience waiting for revenue. Ecology should still be high on the agenda and this maturing marketplace should hold opportunities.
Three picks then for 2009;
I’m very happy with progress at Betfair, but they are not quoted, so my betting industry pick is Sportingbet. I like SBT because;
They’ve been a dog for a few years because of the disposal of their US facing business, but it feels like that stuff is fully in the price now. They’re not far off their all time lows.
The Euro move looks big news. The bulk of their revenue comes in Euros, and in Sterling terms this just grew by 30%. Their operational costs of the business however are spread far and wide, but with plenty in sterling. They report in sterling. There is, to some extent, a “double whammy” here.
In the tech arena I’ll go for Phorm. This is a very tough read - they have complex technology that sits within ISPs and optimises advertising revenue. There are privacy issues which are tough to fathom (see Wikipedia), and they have no revenue yet - the revenue opportunity again is not easy to assess. Their share price has fallen from £35 in early 2008 to £2.90 now.
Phorm is a greed and fear play - the upside is huge, the downside is 100%. It has next to no defensive value and in a market running scared it is the first stuff that gets chucked out. It might be a bust but it could also be a ten bagger - I like the odds.
Hydrodec have a unique process that invigorates and cleans toxins from transformer oil (and thus recycles the oil). Transformer oil is a highly refined oil used in large quantities in electrical generators - it becomes toxic and has to be replaced regularly. Recycling this oil is clearly more environmentally friendly, and is possibly also more economical.
The value of HYR is, to some extent, a function of the transformer oil price - if oil is cheap it is cheaper to replace than to clean and vice-versa. There is a lot more to it - it takes a long time to build a recycling plant and it isn’t possible for companies to react quickly to oil price movements. There are potentially ecology type grants and regulation that could play a part. 2009 is a big year for the company as they go from concept to a revenue generating and hopefully profitable company.
That’s it for investments - I’m not an expert analyst and there could be horrible errors/omissions in the above analysis (also I am, to some extent, selling my own book as I have decent shareholdings in a couple of the above). I’m interested to hear any alternative investment ideas from any other blog readers.
Gravelines-Dunkerque v Chalon/Saone over 157.5 @ 1.85 stake 6/10 (154) lose Cleveland Cavaliers v Chicago Bulls(6) 1 half time @ 1.85 stake 6/10 (61:47) WIN Cleveland Cavaliers v Chicago Bulls(12) 1 @ 1.85 stake 7/10 (117:92) WIN New Jersey Nets(3.5) v Atlanta Hawks 2 @ 1.85 stake 5/10 (85:85) lose
Ahead of the FA Cup 3rd Round, The Guardian's Dan Roebuck identified some value to be had in the top scorer market this morning, picking out Leicester's Matt Fryatt at 28/1. This price has now gone, but it's worth considering the only other player to have scored four goals in the FA Cup so far, Scunthorpe's Gary Hooper, who's notched five in his last six games. At 33/1 you are getting 8/1 on the place part of the bet, which is decent considering four goals has been sufficient to secure a place in each of the last four seasons. Of course he is likely to share any placing with a number of other players (reducing any returns as 'dead heat rules apply') but at this price it's worth an interest.
So, a great show? Will the Technical difficulties cause chaos? Will our new Radio Player let us down?
