Saturday 24 December 2011

Turkey is not just for Christmas

The Homer is starting to pick up again with 7 wins and 1 scratch in the last 9 trades. Three of these were Turkish league games with teams that I can barely announce. It was surprising how high the liquidity was for these games. It was not tremendous but certainly more than enough to trade. Perhaps it was because there were not too many games on at the same time.

I traded a Portugal game for the first time. I decided to trade it as I had a considerable green from scalping 0-0 and the fact it was a cup QF game and the other three ties all finished as overs. Unfortunately it was all over in two minutes and the game was a scratch. The final score was 2-2.

December trades at single stakes is currently showing a profit of £94. Not fantastic but a welcome change to November.













I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very happy Christmas.

Thursday 15 December 2011

December Update












It has been 10 days since my last post but it only seems like yesterday. I seem to be far busier than when I was working and can't believe that Christmas is almost upon us. I know I said that I would be posting every day but it really is an impossible task at the moment.

Above is my P&L since last time (P&L blog bashers look away now) and as you can see I have been treading water. Positives are that as the first two days were very good, the monthly profit is £253. Negatives are that £23 over the10 days is not going to pay the bills!

I have updated the Homer traded results page and December is more or less running level. It is an improvement on the struggle in November but not anywhere near the fantastic performance before then. So what's gone wrong? I took the day off trading to concentrate on evaluating my results. Is it just unlucky or was my previous six months of success just a lucky streak? I think I may have a contributing factor and it's in England!

Between May and September I traded 23 English league games:
16 profit
1 scratch
6 losses

Between October and today I have traded 27 English league games
10 profit
3 scratch
14 losses

I have traded a total of 86 games since the beginning of October and the English games has counted towards 34% of those. It is the only country where losses are more than the wins. My best success was between May and August where English games were few.

How many English games did I trade between May and July? The answer is zero.

If I remove the English league my trend continues as normal. My overall no loss strike rate increases from 69% to 72%.

Having said all that I have examined many statistic sites and cannot find a trend that differs in the English league so perhaps I am just trying too hard and picking far more English fixtures than I should to make the weekend far more interesting for members. I will certainly be cutting down in the future. I am certainly not relaxed as I used to be and this could also be affecting my judgement.

I am currently testing a new variation. Extreme HomerDog. This is where the away team is by far the favourite and a winning trade should give a profit around the forties against single stakes ROI should be at least 75%. I have traded three with two winners of which one was the FG and one loser.

The horse racing has been hit and miss too. I have been upping my stakes which has only meant that instead of winning and losing £5 to £20 I am now winning and losing £10 to £40. I traded 146 races over the past 10 days and have come out with a profit of £83 or £1.76 per race. This is a mixture between pre-race and in running. I just can't get out of the 'round in circles' mode that has affected me since I started trading horses nearly five years ago. I invested in some pre race training a few months back which I have not focused on as I have been so busy with Homer but will be devoting time towards it especially as I now have time to trade in the afternoons.

I will give the trading until the end of January and if the results do not show significant improvement to sustain a decent living then I will be looking for a more stable income.



 

Friday 2 December 2011

Boxing Clever












December has got off to a super start with profits across Horse Racing, Football and this evenings Boxing match which I had no intention of getting involved with.The football P&L is a little lower then the months Homer P&L to the right due to a losing non Homer trade.

I was watching the WBA middleweight clash between the champion Sturm and outsider Murray. Sturm got off to a good start but Murray was slowly coming into it and by the end of the ninth round I had them level. I had a look at the market at that point and Sturm was trading around the late 1.30's and the draw was 42's. First thing I did was look to see if I was watching the fight live or was my Sky Plus running behind! No, everything was in order and I just couldn't believe how the market and priced the fight up. To say there was value was an understatement!

I don't know too much about the Boxing market but my eyes are in good working order. So I placed a lay of £50 on Sturm and popped a tiny £1 back on the draw  which added to the amount from the lay. Perhaps in hindsight I should have lumped on but I wasn't totally comfortable as this sport is one that I rarely get involved with.

At the end I thought that Murray had just done enough to win but was extremely pleased to find that the fight was a draw and a nice £90 profit. You can see below that even after the fight had finished Sturm was 1.25.