Betfair Trading since June 2000!
The Melbourne and I cup go back a few years now. Many moons ago, in the early days of my trading career, I got interested in the ‘race that stops a nation’ and learned that it really did stop the nation, they have a national holiday today in Victoria.
So, intrigued, I got up at 4am one dark winter Tuesday to see what all the fuss was about. Nothing really happened apart from a lack of sleep and I returned …
Tomorrow we have the finale to the flat turf season and a curtain raiser to the flat turf season. How can you have both? Let me explain.
Ascot champions day
First, we have ‘Champions day’ at Ascot and it promises to be a real feast of racing.
Champions day only came into being in 2011 so it’s relatively new in the scheme of things but it’s a weekend I wouldn’t miss for anything now. It’s the last shot at a …
The oldest classic horse race in the world is almost upon us again and while it marks the closing of the flat turf season, tradition dictates that it also marks an upturn in financial markets if folklore is to be believed. “Sell in May and go away, don’t come back till St Leger day”
Come back on St Leger day
There is a general ‘theory’ that during the summer stocks languish and only when everybody is back to their desk …
It’s that day of the year that you either love or hate. The August bank holiday in the UK brings a whole bunch of racing, all on the same day.
There will be lots of meetings on Monday and about a billion races. This may seem like heaven for some, but it’s a nightmare for others. Quite a few races will attract little liquidity, a lot isn’t of quality and many races will clash meaning that you can’t do much …
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week.
The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. It should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, …
You may have seen me post up results or information along the lines of ‘If you did this with £100 you would have managed to achieve this’.
I collect and analyse a lot of data and it’s all with the aim of identifying biases and the structural nature of a market. You would be surprised how many markets exhibit biases. Some have exhibited a structural bias for my entire trading career. I’ve casually dropped hints now and again and it’s …
No that’s not a typo! There are two meetings that should get your attention this week.
From a trading perspective, I like multi day high-quality meetings. They usually throw up some good opportunities and are a welcome addition to any month.
Goodwood
As you may know, these higher quality meetings produce extra volume and that can change the characteristics significantly. But don’t let Goodwood fool you into thinking it’s the same as a Royal Ascot or Cheltenham, it behaves very …
The Newmarket July meeting starts today and is a decent highlight on the journey through the Month.
I’ve had mixed results over the years and is the sort of meeting where you want to do well, but you can’t push it as hard as at other meetings. If the opportunity strikes, you can usually make the most of it and get a decent result.
Last year went well, but, in my experience, it’s the sort of meeting where you can’t …
I’ve been meaning to summarise Ascot. It’s always worth doing as you can refer back to it next year for comparison, so here goes: –
Turnover
Betfair ended up matching, at post time, around £70.5m which was up on last year by about 23%. Last year was down quite a bit so this returns the matched bet turnover to levels that would be deemed ‘normal’.
In the run up to Ascot, I reckoned it would trade around £65m so that’s …
We have reached the time of year when Monday and Tuesday racing drops to two cards in the afternoon.
The impact of just two race meetings
It’s an important time of year, as this changes the characteristic of these cards to the negative. But also it allows you to do a few other things and skip these cards if needed. Racing tends to be lower quality on a Monday and Tuesday and that combined with the 15-minute gaps in-between the …