Splits, Hikes, and NHL 2023

It would normally be rather concerning that a stock closes at $3283 on a Tuesday and opens at around $64 the next day, but the long anticipated 50:1 split for Chipotle has finally arrived. 

As I wrote a few months back, I bought this stock ($CMG) in September 2020 with the expectation that a split would be coming much sooner, and like many Southern Californians my wife likes her Mexican food, ("your Indian food is my Mexican food") but it's performed well while I've been waiting. 

What hasn't been performing quite so well of late is Bitcoin with a 10%+ pullback in the last month providing an opportunity to "buy the dip"; or to throw good money after bad, depending on your point of view. 

More on my financial investments next month as we close out the first half of 2024, at least in months if not quite in days. I'll be away for a couple of weeks in early July, with a family wedding in Faversham followed by another long anticipated event, my hike up Ben Nevis. My sister will not be happy that the reception potentially clashes with an England Euros Quarter-Final game should we advance from the Round of 16, but I did warn her several months ago. 

As for Ben Nevis, the exact date will be weather dependent. I got lucky two years ago with Snowdon, and last year with Scafell Pike both days having clear skies and fantastic views, so I'm hoping for the hat-trick. Tuesday the 9th is my preference, but I have two, or at worst three, reserve days if necessary. 

As for sport, the NHL season is now over, with the Edmonton Oilers falling at the last hurdle with winning four consecutive games proving too much against the Florida Panthers. The wait for Canada goes on. 

For the 'official' NHL System, the 2023 season's results were disappointing with Killer Sports showing a negative ROI from 416 selections of -1.0%. However, given that Killer Sports' odds are generally to an overround of 104% or greater, (it was 104.84% for the Stanley Cup Finals for example) that 1% loss doesn't look too bad. While there is much to admire about Killer Sports, it's fair to say that their numbers are generally beatable by shopping around or using the exchanges.

But there is always room for improvement, and I'll be taking a closer look at the numbers in the next few months. Certain matches between teams from different conferences (Eastern v Western) have long shown a bias, and a system with just four losing seasons out of the 18 for which we have data sounds good at first, but when three of these have come in the last four seasons well, not so good. Markets typically adjust unfortunately. 

Lost Bloggers Found

One of the blogs on my list to follow is Wayward Lad which has been going since 2010. Not quite as long as this one, but in the world of sports investing - Horse Racing in this case - 14 years of almost daily updates is a very good run, but no updates since the end of March had me wondering what had happened. 

Author Ian is of a similar age to myself, not quite as advanced, but in the same decade, and without being too morbid about these things, one never knows what lies around the corner. 

Ian also writes the Pension Builder blog, although by its nature, that was always only updated periodically, but the lack of updates since July 2022 was extreme even for Ian. 

With a little research, I was pleased to discover that Ian is still actively posting these days, albeit on Substack, a medium I know very little about, but may look into.

I also received an update from Steve, the legend from the daily25 blog, after asking out loud about him in this March post, and he is taking a year off to travel the world, although his initial plans have been disrupted. 

He did mention that he's not had a sports bet in three years due to challenges with being able to get a decent bet on (more than $20) at acceptable odds, but he's staying busy and waiting for the NFT markets to bounce back from "their deep bear market" - his words, not mine. I suspect he may be waiting for a while for that to happen, but I have been known to be wrong. 

I mentioned last month that "one subscriber had very generously donated a College Basketball System for my review, with the possibility of it being added to the Sacred Manuscript for next year."

Since the next College Basketball season is some months away, it took me a while to get around to reviewing it, but it's a very interesting idea and the data shows that it has some merit. I promised not to divulge details on the blog, but just to say that I like the fact that there is some rationale to it, and over the last ten seasons, with a logical adjustment to the types of games included, the system has a 1 in 2432 probability of not being this profitable from luck. 

I shall be adding it to the Sacred Manuscript because, as the contributor noted, "surely it is good to add another league to bet on".  I agree, and something to look forward too when conference games start up in January. 

The Stanley Cup has a Game Seven tonight, with the Edmonton Oilers recovering from a 0-3 deficit to tie the series with the Florida Panthers. With home advantage, the Panthers are slight favourites to win, but with 18 goals in the last three games, the Oilers have momentum. Not to mention that ice hockey is Canada's national sport and no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993. No pressure. 

NBA 2023

In NHL's Stanley Cup Finals, the Edmonton Oilers have so far survived two elimination games versus the Florida Panthers and trail by just one game with Game 6 upcoming this evening in Edmonton. A comeback from 0:3 down has been done once before in the Stanley Cup, 82 years ago during the Second World War when the Toronto Maple Leafs rallied to beat the Detroit Red Wings.

So the update on the 2023 season for this sport will have to wait, but the 2023 NBA season is over, with the pre-season favourite Boston Celtics defeating Dallas Mavericks 4 -1 in the final series and winning their 18th championship - a record.

For subscribers to the Sacred Manuscript, the six systems recommended a total of 939 bets, and generated 38.38 units of profit, an overall ROI of 4.1%:

After a losing 2022 season, these results were very welcome. I'm pretty sure that no one would have placed 939 bets, and there's probably an opportunity to reduce this number next season. 

System 3.0 is the Overs system, and while the Total varies from year to year (last season was 239.5 points),  about one bet a day through the season is a good number. Too many selections and a system becomes a pain to manage, but have too few (2.1 for example) and you risk missing out on selections because you lose interest in running the query each day. 

The Graduate

Of the 156 NBA teams that have trailed a best-of-7 series 0:3, and not a single one has been able to rally and win four straight. After last night's Game 3 loss at home to the Boston Celtics, the Dallas Mavericks find themselves the 157th team in this unenviable position. They are currently slight favourites to win game 4, but past history suggests the value is on the Celtics with teams in this position (3:0 ahead and small road 'dogs) 9-4-1 ATS.

In the NHL Finals, the Florida Panthers won the first two games of their series at home to the Edmonton Oilers, and game three is tonight. Historically Western teams returning home as favourites after losing the opening two road games of a Final series are undervalued with seven wins out of eight (small sample size of course, as is always the case with playoffs).

I'll post a review of these two sports once their seasons end, which could be very soon in the case of the NBA with Game 4 on Friday.

The adjustment to retirement continues, and apologies in advance if I waffle on about this too much but it is a significant milestone in life.

I'm sure some of you will have seen it already, but Roger Federer's commencement address at Dartmouth a few days ago is worth checking out. 

I know the word is “retire.” “Roger Federer retired from tennis.” Retired... The word is awful.

You wouldn’t say you retired from college, right? Sounds terrible.

Like you, I’ve finished one big thing and I’m moving on to the next.

Like you, I’m figuring out what that is.

Graduates, I feel your pain.

I know what it’s like when people keep asking what your plan is for the rest of your life.

They ask me: “Now that you are not a professional tennis player, what do you do?”

I don’t know… and it’s OK not to know.

So what do I do with my time?

That's a very good question! Training for the Ben Nevis hike next month is ongoing, although I had another fall last Friday on a local hill which wasn't too clever. No broken legs this time though, but I left some skin at the scene and my coccyx doesn't feel great. Sit ups are on hold for now. Fortunately it doesn't seem to affect me when cycling, and I've been out of the road bike a couple of times a week getting in some miles. 

There was another part of Federer's speech which has received some attention, and that was where he contrasts the percentage of matches he won during his career (almost 80% of his 1,526 games) with the percentage of points he won in those games - "only 54%."

"Only"... Such a small word, but it's a similar situation in sports betting. If you can hit winners betting the dime line at just 51.23%, then with compounding you can be very profitable over time. Of course, no one wants to get rich slowly, so very few people actually have the mindset to achieve this, but as I wrote in 2019 here:

Given that my grandmother would be expected to pick winners at a rate of around 50%, and she's been dead for over 30 years, this didn't seem to be a hugely impossible task.

Most systems can be fairly easily improved and just by eliminating a couple of losing propositions from every 100 bets, you're in profit. 

 

I updated my profile a few days ago. Since day one of this blog, my profile ended with my saying that "retirement wasn't too far off and that anything made from sports investing would bring that day forward." 

Well, it didn't play out like that - it almost made my Chipotle stock split prediction look timely. In March of 2008 I turned 51, so while it was good that I was thinking about, and planning for, retirement, in hindsight the "not too far off" prediction wasn't too accurate. Maybe at that time I was still thinking early retirement was a goal, but as my career progressed it became clear that retirement wasn't the goal I once thought it was. 

Besides, profits from sports investing exceeded my net salary for a couple of years, but didn't result in any change to my retirement date, and work became less like work in recent years - working from home with a little travel was very comfortable and what was there to retire from, or more importantly, to retire to? However, the clock was, still is, ticking, and it's certainly possible to work too long and limit the good years of retirement when you are still physically active and able to travel before the body and / or brain start to give you problems. 

With my redundancy payment now in the bank, my spreadsheet has been updated and projections for the next few years are in place. The markets have been kind to me so far, with Tesla on fire the past couple of days pending the outcome of the vote regarding Elon Musk's pay package. Per the latter:

With the vote still in progress, this statement had better be accurate or there will be another sizeable fine coming. 

Transitions, Bitcoin, Errors, Euros and Copas

Time flies, and even faster in retirement than before it seems. The early retirement days have been taken up with a few administrative tasks. The most important was having my redundancy agreement reviewed by an expert in these things, and as expected for a large company, all was in order and the advice, given the fact that I'm not looking to take my skills to a rival employer, was to accept and sign, which I duly did, although the final payout hasn't yet been received. 

I also met with my financial advisor and all was good there, with no changes required to the balance of my investments at this time, much to the chagrin of Signora Cassini who is a little more risk averse than myself. I received some welcome support that it would be crazy to pay off the outstanding mortgage - which is at a very low interest rate - and, in the advisor's words, "let the bank off the hook", but I probably shouldn't have told her that I'd (literally) doubled down on Bitcoin, this time via BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ($IBIT) - but so far so good with Bitcoin on a strong run right now. 

I'm not a crypto expert, but I feel now that Bitcoin is maturing, is becoming accepted as an asset, and has a certain future. Whereas my initial investment in Bitcoin (via $GBTC) was driven by FOMO, this latest one was made based on at least a basic understanding of the Bitcoin Power Law Theory. Anyway, I BIT - hopefully not more off than I can chew.

The redundancy money should see me through to next year at which time we (financial advisor and me, maybe the wife if she behaves) will meet again and see where we're at. 

Hopefully that will be at, or close to, an all-time high which would certainly be psychologically much more positive than starting retirement with a market downturn. Sequence-of-Returns Risk moves from theory to practice very rapidly once that steady income stream is turned off.

Onto sports investing, and there's a new, and much improved, look to Killer Sports these days. The original site with results displayed in the old format is still available for now as the site transitions to its new look, but the updates look great and include some new features. 

Old: 

New:

The new features include ROI, Profit and P-Value calculations, which will make my life a little easier as I update the Sacred Manuscript this summer.
 

The European club football season is over, and the NBA and NHL competitions are both down to their final (best-of-7) series. 

I did notice that I had inadvertently posted some incorrect numbers for the Regular Seasons of these latter two sports. I'll put the errors down as due to jet lag rather than from any post-retirement senility creeping in.

I wrote that:

In the NBA, the regular season finished last month with ROIs of 2.4% (from 476 selections), 10.2% (171), 10.3% (69) for the primary systems, -0.5% (55) for the Rested Team System, and 4.2% (164) for the Totals System, a total profit of 42.38 units for the season.

Unfortunately the NHL Systems lost a combined 14.64 units this season, but ahead overall in the US for these two sports.

After taking a second look, this is what I should have written:

In the NBA, the regular season finished last month with ROIs of 2.1% (from 464 selections), 8.8% (166), 5.1% (65) for the primary systems, 4% (77) for the Rested Team System, and 4.2% (164) for the Totals System, a total profit of 37.48 units for the season.

Unfortunately the NHL Systems lost a combined 17.15 units in the regular season, but ahead overall in the US for these two sports.

The error I made was to include the playoff games in these calculations, so apologies to anyone who is validating these numbers for themselves and noticed the discrepancies. 

I'll update the English Domestic and European Competitions in the next few days, and then it's a bonanza of international tournaments with the Euros in Germany and an expanded Copa_América tournament running simultaneously in the United States. The latter tournament features ten teams from South America's CONMEBOL federation plus six teams from Central and North America's CONCACAF. 

For those of who enjoy backing the Draw in the elimination games for these tournaments, the results historically are:

It's worth mentioning that CONCACAF's Gold Cup tournament tends not to follow this pattern, as I have pointed out before.  How the presence of any of these (CONCACAF) teams making it out of the group stage affects results will be interesting to see, but with only the USA and Mexico expected to advance, I suspect the tournament will play out as it would for a Copa or a World Cup. Argentina and Brazil are joint favourites to win this tournament, while for the Euros it's England in this position - no doubt due to the presence of no fewer than FOUR Crystal Palace players in the squad. 

New Chapter, Mindset, Addiction and Target

It's been a while, with the world being denied a post here for a full calendar month for the first time in more than 16 years. I ended my previous post with these words:

All being well, I shall be back on May 8th after my third Total Solar Eclipse, either employed or retired. How boring life would be if we didn't have such uncertainties in front of us. Stay safe and stay lucky.

In the end, I extended my trip by a few days due to the fact that my long awaited retirement finally became official midway through the trip. 

I've mentioned 'severance' a few times here, and while I'd like to say that I expertly negotiated a good 'voluntary' severance package for myself, the truth is that I ultimately had little say in the matter. 

For quite a while now, I've been telling anyone who's interested - in other words, basically talking to myself - that a year's salary would be great, but that I'd be happy with six months', and so the 39 weeks 'involuntary' severance package awarded, which also allowed to keep all my stock options, was more than satisfactory.

While I've been planning for this day for a few years now, it's one of those moments in life when you don't really know for sure how you'd feel until it happens but, so far at least, there have been no moments of panic or doubt. The transition to retirement will be an adjustment of course, - going from being responsible for a team of 60+ people to not even being the CEO of my own house - and will likely take a while to fully process, but at the age of 67 and after almost 49 years of working - my first job was with the NatWest Bank in Oxted in August 1975 - it's time.

It's definitely helped psychologically that the markets have been on a good run in recent weeks - my net worth spreadsheet hit a new high this week and that's not counting the package since I've yet to meet with my financial advisor and confirm that I should sign the agreement - but it will be interesting, and possibly quite challenging, switching my mindset after almost half a century from one of accumulation to decumulation, if that is even a word. 

That's the personal news almost out of the way, other than to say that the Total Eclipse was awesome, with totality lasting for 4 minutes and 11 seconds and clear skies in our viewing location (Russellville in Arkansas) and that I gained almost 11 pounds on the trip, a number which could have been worse given that my wife and I were unfortunately introduced to the previously ignored (I'm not a fan of yellow custard) world of Frozen Custard by friends, and developed an unhealthy addiction to the product with twice daily visits occurring more than once. I can resist anything but temptation.

Moving on to sports and there's a lot to catch up on. The club football season is almost over, with the lower leagues in the midst of their playoff games and the Premier League wrapping up in less than a week. The European club competitions have their finalists all set, with no English clubs involved for the first time since 2019-20.

In the US, the playoffs for both the NBA and NHL are in progress, while MLB is into its second month.

Starting with the National League playoffs, and the strategy for these games detailed in the Sacred Manuscript produced a profit for the sixth time in the seven seasons under the current format. The total profit increased to 15.68 units from 38 matches.

The National League playoff final (played on a neutral ground) finished as a Draw for the fourth consecutive season, and the ROI on backing this result over the last 21 seasons is now 38%.

The Regional Finals for each of the North and South Divisions are hosted by the highest seeded club, but as is often the case with Finals, the Draw is value nevertheless, and the ROI on this results over the 30 matches climbed to 39% with the South's Worthing v Braintree Town Final delivering.

Wrapping up the non-league season was the FA Trophy Final, and again the Draw delivered with the ROI on 20 finals now at 36% and the ROI on all English Domestic Finals (including play-offs) close to 20%:

If we include the Community Shield matches, the ROI does climb to 21.6% and while I see the match as more of a glorified pre-season friendly than a competitive fixture, the data suggests it's more the latter.

In Championship play-off Semi-Final First leg matches, the ROI on laying the Home team is now at 16%, and in Second Leg matches where the first leg was a Draw, the value is in backing the Away team (ROI of 62%) although the sample size of 12 is small. The more conservative approach of laying the Home side has an ROI of 4%.

For the European Competitions, the basic strategy for the Champions League knockout rounds made a profit with an ROI of 8% and 19% for matches between clubs from the Big 5 Leagues.

Results from the Europa League were very poor, with the ROI from 25 selections -9%. Rubbing salt into the wound, the selection process for this tournament is somewhat convoluted, so I'll be revisiting this system in the summer.

The Europa Conference League, which is still in its infancy as a competition, but for which I expect results similar to the Europa League, also had a losing season with an ROI of -5% from the 22 selections.

I'll review the other leagues in Europe as well as the Premier League once the season is over.

In the NBA, the regular season finished last month with ROIs of 2.4% (from 476 selections), 10.2% (171), 10.3% (69) for the primary systems, -0.5% (55) for the Rested Team System, and 4.2% (164) for the Totals System, a total profit of 42.38 units for the season.

Unfortunately the NHL Systems lost a combined 14.64 units this season, but ahead overall in the US for these two sports.

I'll look at the MLB later, but a quick review shows that both the Hot Favourite and T-Bone Systems may be cooking again, at least in the National League, but for now I'm just observing this sport following the significant rule changes. 

I did attend my first College Baseball game in Arkansas last month with the then number one ranked Razorbacks beating Florida in game one of a double-header, and speaking of College Sports, and one subscriber has very generously donated a College Basketball System for my review, with the possibility of it being added to the Sacred Manuscript for next year. 

IF you find it has value and you would like to add it or a version of it to the Manuscript, as surely it is good to add another league to bet on, please go ahead, but do not divulge details on the blog

It would indeed be good to have another sport included and I'll be taking a look in the next few days while, of course, remaining respectful of the request not to give anything away. I think I've mentioned that I'll be working on the 2024-25 manuscript over the summer with a view to having it completed by the end of July following the Euros, and if anyone subscribes today, they will automatically get the updated document for free at that time. 

Finally, Jim Simons "The Man Who Solved the Market" - as his biography by Gregory Zuckerman was titled - has passed away at the age of 86. Many of you reading this probably know his story, but he was a gifted mathematician who turned his talents to the financial markets with huge success.

Medallion, the largest of these funds, earned more than $100 billion in trading profits in the 30 years following its inception in 1988. It generated an unheard-of 66 percent average annual return during that period.

While hedge funds typically charge 2 and 20 (2% fixed fee and 20% of profits), Simons' fund was able to charge 5 and 44! An inspiration to us all and with more time available to me now, I need to up my game, although beating that 66% average could be a challenge.

Daniel Kahneman RIP

I've often mentioned here the importance of psychology in investing, and probably the top expert in "the field of psychology of judgment and decision-making" passed away yesterday.

I've mentioned Daniel Kahneman him several times over the years, and if you haven't read his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, you should.

It’s a book that will take some effort to read because the ideas are dense, and even though they are well-presented, they’re not cloaked in the clothes of story. If you’re willing to do the work, though, Thinking Fast and Slow may be one of the most important books you ever read.

His Prospect Theory explains why investors typically consider the loss of a specific amount twice as painful as the pleasure received from a gain of the same amount.

When they made decisions, people did not seek to maximize utility. They sought to minimize regret.

Michael Lewis wrote a great book about Kahneman's relationship with Amos Tversky, called "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World" which I also recommend. 

Some light reading for you while I am away for six weeks as I mentioned a few days ago. 

Although I have yet to receive a response to my mentioning that I might be open to a voluntary severance agreement should one be on offer, I have been immersing myself in the topic of retirement finances by listening to podcasts on my daily walks and reading while less active and I suspect much of my time away will be spent on this topic. 

One of the more interesting papers I've come across on the topic of how retirement funds should be invested (many experts say that one should move from stocks to bonds as you get older) is a recent one (October 2023) titled "Beyond the Status Quo: A Critical Assessment of Lifecycle Investment Advice" by Aizhan Anarkulova, Scott Cederburg and Michael S. O’Doherty which suggests that a 100% equity allocation may be the safest asset allocation even in retirement.

I've always been of this mindset myself, although my more risk averse wife is not, but fortunately I make the financial decisions. Yes, the 38% expected drawdown would be emotionally challenging, but I've been through a few of these in my time, with the lessons of Black Monday (October 18th) 1987 coming at a very good time in my life. More recently, on March 23rd, 2020, I was down 23.4% but never sold a single share and markets have bounced back as they always have done.

The odds that my next post will be penned as a retiree have moved to slightly odds-on, with an announcement coming on April 18th if rumours are to be believed, but once I've got my head around the sequence of return risk, the 4% rule and switching my mindset from accumulation to decumulation, I should be good to go. With Bitcoin halving around that date, it could be an interesting week.  

Enjoy Spring. All being well, I shall be back on May 8th after my third Total Solar Eclipse, either employed or retired. How boring life would be if we didn't have such uncertainties in front of us. Stay safe and stay lucky. 

Towel Throwing

Back in November, I mentioned a fairly well known tipster who, during a poor run of results, suggested that increasing stakes might be a good idea.

We're currently a few points down for the season with both official and unofficial picks, so if you've been thinking about upping the stakes at some point, this should prove to be a great time to do that.

I pushed back on this idea for what I hope are obvious reasons, but if anyone did actually follow this poor advice, they would be seriously regretting that decision. Hopefully many took a 'good money after bad' approach and scaled down the size of their investments. 

The ill-advised recommendation was made after 10 bets and a manageable loss of 4.02 units, while the subsequent 27 selections have now resulted in further losses of 14.76 units, a total ROI for the season of -50.8%.  

These are the 'official' bets with the towel having been thrown in this week on the 'unofficial' bets after 82 selections and a -24% ROI.  

All this is to point out that chasing losses is not a smart strategy rather than anything else, but with the National League less than four weeks from concluding, a losing season is now guaranteed.  With the acknowledgment that the edge has gone for unofficial picks, I'm sure some subscribers must be licking their rather deep wounds and wondering whether the edge has gone for official picks also. 

It happens. Markets are Darwinian - rather than Newtonian - in nature, and they evolve, and it's quite likely that the increased interest in the National League has sped this process up. We'll see how the remaining weeks go, but end of season games can be tricky with the motivation for teams ranging from nothing to play for to must-win for a play-off spot or to avoid relegation. Chesterfield have now won the League and promotion, but eight teams are realistically in with a chance of making the six club playoffs, while at the bottom Oxford City have gone with a tight battle between several clubs to avoid filling one of the other three relegation places. 

16 Down

This blog is now into its 17th year, and not too many sports investing blogs can claim this longevity. 

Matekus' Sports Trader blog has been going since September 24th, 2009 which by some incredible coincidence is the exact same date as Steve Mullington posted his first entry on the Horse Racing oriented Mull it Over blog. The latter is updated almost daily while Sports Trader is a little less frequent with his posts.

Wayward Lad began posting in March 2010, with his Pension Builder blog making its debut in August 2013. There may be other long-standing blogs out there, and if you know of any that should be added to the blog roll here, let me know, and check out those long-runners I've linked to. 

Not so much these days, but in the past I would regularly receive requests along the lines of "Hey there, I've started a new blog. Please add me to your blog roll" but my experience told me that almost all of these would dry up in a very short time, so I would politely decline until a significant amount of time had passed. 

Whatever happened to Steve at daily25? With the benefit of hindsight, his last post is a bit concerning since he seemed to have fallen for the NFT scam. Perhaps 'scam' isn't the right word, but very few people have made money from NFTs. The idea always seemed a bit silly to me and I've never been tempted to go anywhere near these, and I'm still on the fence about crypto although I do have a fairly small FOMO investment in Bitcoin as I've mentioned. Hopefully Steve is doing well as he was one of the good guys and I still remember him sending me a Xmas hamper back in 2012 after my XX Draws had made him a lot of money. Steve wasn't shy about betting big, which is why the NFT thing is a little worrying.

I'm pretty certain the blog won't last for another 16 years given my age, but I still enjoy writing and, as I mentioned the other day, the challenge of finding edges. I'm still working, with nothing yet from my enquiry into a voluntary severance package, but I'm not in a hurry. My suspicion is that cuts are coming and by broaching the subject I've pretty much guaranteed I'll be included in the next round. 

We are off to Arkansas next week for the Total Eclipse on April 8th, the third one I will have experienced following Cornwall 1999 and Idaho 2017. Hopefully the skies in Russellville will be clear. The next one on my list is August 2026 in either Spain or Iceland, and if you have never experienced totality, you really should make sure to add this to your bucket list. 

Seoul Split

Major League Baseball is back, sort of, with a couple of games this week in South Korea before the season starts for real next Thursday with all 30 teams in action. With the recent rule changes, years of data has become pretty much valueless, and the last couple of years have been challenging to say the least. 

The totals markets are the ones where the most disruption would be expected and the table below shows the results over the past ten seasons for a couple of Totals systems (one Overs, one Unders) that, once upon a time, were good:

2020 was the shortened COVID season, but the golden years of 2016 - 2021 are clearly over. 

We do have two full seasons of data from the new world, which is a little over 5,000 games, and there are a couple of edges that seem to be showing themselves so far.  

The two games in South Korea between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres were split.

39 Months of Imminency

On September 21st, 2020, I bought some stock in a company called Chipotle Mexican Grill at a little under $2,000 per share ($1,196.45 to be precise). As I explained almost a year later:

One company I've not mentioned before is $CMG (Chipotle Mexican Grill) which I bought last September, primarily because I suspected a stock split might be imminent.

Finally, it was announced yesterday that the stock would indeed by splitting, at 50:1 no less, the largest ratio I can recall, and as you can see from the Tweet below, it has been worth the wait:

Up another 4% on the news today -  

and up 143.3% since I bought it, the stock is the second biggest individual gainer I have behind $TSLA which continues to lead the way at +718% despite a poor start to the year. 

The loosest of definitions for 'imminent' are unlikely to include a wait of almost three and a half years, but it's an investment that has been worth that wait, and I'll probably not be selling any time soon. 

Patience is sometimes rewarded, and as I mentioned in that August 2021 post:

"Investing becomes so much simpler when you're willing and able to measure progress in years and decades instead of weeks or months."

No news from Berkshire Hathaway on something similar for their Class A stock which currently trades at a mere $622,777.12 a share...

I've owned their more reasonably priced Class B stock since 2020 also, and this investment is up 84% right now, and sits fifth in the table of best performers.  By way of comparison, the S&P 500 is up by 38% since the end of 2020. 

For Only Metal, What a Bore

I also took a further look at how Big 6 matchups played out when the teams meet in the late stages of domestic cups (FA Cup Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Finals, League Cup Semi-Finals and Finals, and Community Shield games) and the Draw over 76 matches has an ROI of 39%. Manchester United host Liverpool in the FA Cup Quarter-Final this weekend, with the visitors currently odds-on favourites.

Once again, the Big 6 produced a winning Draw for us on Sunday, taking the ROI from now 77 matches in the above categories to 43%. 

For the 2023-24 season, in all competitions, the ROI is an incredible 173% (41.45 units from 24 matches):

There are another nine Premier League games this season between these clubs, as well as at least one FA Cup tie, probably two, and possibly a pair of Champions League semi-final games. 

These results aren't normal I hasten to add. The same strategy last season would have lost 9.83 units, although in 2021-22 it would have been up 6.83 units. The Draw is a fickle fellow, but 

My last post about Anonymous Fan being inspired to dig into the data and find a nice NHL system triggered a subscriber to the Sacred Manuscript to write:

Hi Cassini!

Hope you are doing well. I was quite inspired by your last post and no, I am not writing to ask about the query that was sent to you :)

But I might have found another good one and was interested in your opinion. * If it is as good as it looks, please don't share the details of it on the blog right now. *

I don't have Excel at home (using Open Office) so I can't put it through Joe Buchdahl's system to test its validity.

But unless I have done something wrong, it shows a 13.21% all time ROI over 1123 bets since 2006 with only 2 seasons resulting in a small loss.

If we include the 2023 season although it is not yet over, 10 of the 18 past seasons show double-digits ROI, including 6 above 20%.

Once again, it was very encouraging to hear that this blog, the manuscript or perhaps a bit of both have inspired someone to do some research.  

For the record, the probability that these results were from luck as generated by Joseph Buchdahl's spreadsheet was just shy of 1 in 50 million, i.e. very unlikely, and the best part of it is that the market bias it takes advantage off also applies in the NBA, which is similar to the NHL in many ways, including often shared arenas. 

I must admit to being somewhat inspired myself, and was happy to exchange ideas and observations.  As I've mentioned many times, it's not the money so much as the challenge of finding an edge. For only metal, what a bore. RIP Steve Harley, another teenage legend gone. 

Neutral Nuisance

A unique scenario in the Europa Conference League last night as Olympiacos became the first team in European Competition spreadsheet history, i.e. since 2004, to overcome a three goal deficit from the First Leg.

It's not uncommon for a team with a comfortable lead from the First Leg to lose, but previously losses have never prevented the team from advancing.     

Maccabi Tel Aviv were handicapped by having to play their "Home" Leg in Serbia and after winning the First Leg 4:1 in Greece, they proceeded to lose 1:6 at "Home" in the Second Leg after extra time - the score was 1:4 after 90 minutes.

Backing the draw following a goalless First Leg is usually a bad idea, but the Viktoria Plzeň and Servette Second Leg also finished 0:0 and these results meant that the Rounds of 16 across all three tournaments resulted in a loss of 0.82 units although some subscribers may have skipped the Neutral venue game, a scenario I'm ashamed to admit the Sacred Manuscript author didn't consider.

After a rare visit to my Spam folder, I found a very pleasing email from someone who calls himself 'Anonymous fan.' My bad that the email was sent almost one month ago, but he wrote:

Hey Cassini,

Thank you for your work and your blog. I really appreciate everything you do. I have been messing around with killer sports since you introduced me to it and I have a lot of fun thinking about things that may matter for the sports I enjoy.

I think I may have found an intriguing one for NHL.

I won't reveal the find, which does look very interesting, but the most pleasing part of it is that this blog apparently does sometimes achieve one of its objectives, i.e. encouraging readers to explore ideas of their own.

I haven't talked about NHL much this season - the systems in the Sacred Manuscript are both boringly in small profit territory, the Basic by just 0.2% and the Premium by 2.5% - but Anonymous fan's discovery blows these numbers away with an ROI of 17.8% this season, and all time of 8.7% since 2006 and a total of more than 1,000 selections. 

Anonymous Fan explained his rationale and concluded his email with:

It seems to be steadily profitable year after year, present a solid number of plays, and the games that meet the criteria are typically quite enjoyable to watch. I am not very good at math or statistics though so maybe it is too small a sample? Either way I was curious to get your thoughts.

I ran the numbers through Joseph Buchdahl's "Testing Your Betting Model" spreadsheet:

and the 1-in-x probability came out to 8032. Very impressive, and with a selection last night I dipped my toes in the water and was rewarded with a winner. 

Second Legs and Big 6 Cup Ties

I mentioned on Tuesday that:

The Champions League Round of 16 closes this week with four second leg matches remaining, and to date, fewer than 17% of these matches end as draws, an implied price of 6.07. In matches where both clubs are from one of the Big 5 Leagues, the numbers are fewer than 15% and 6.69.

The strategy for the Round of 16 matches in the sacred manuscript made a profit of 2.01 units and while Laying The Draw isn't one of my usual strategies, in certain Second Leg matches in European competitions, it's a profitable way to play. 

Here are the numbers for backing the Draw in the Second Leg of the the early rounds of the knockout stage for the three tournaments:

Things change as the tournaments progress however, and Laying The Draw is not a strategy to follow in the next rounds. 

The markets for Second Leg matches also appear to offer value when the First Leg finished 0:0. We only have 84 such matches in our European sample from 2004, but backing the Draw has a negative ROI of -43%. This is also a trend that is seen in the English domestic game with the 19 games here showing an ROI of -47%. 

I also took a further look at how Big 6 matchups played out when the teams meet in the late stages of domestic cups (FA Cup Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Finals, League Cup Semi-Finals and Finals, and Community Shield games) and the Draw over 76 matches has an ROI of 39%. Manchester United host Liverpool in the FA Cup Quarter-Final this weekend, with the visitors currently odds-on favourites.

In earlier rounds of the FA Cup, there have been 20 Big 6 ties since 2004-05 and not a single Draw which is quite surprising. I've not looked at the League Cup earlier rounds, but I suspect the big clubs don't take this competition too seriously until they get close to the Final, but I'd have thought the FA Cup would be given a little more respect!  

There have also been 27 all-Big 6 matches in Europe, and the ROI on the Draw here is 11%.    

I plan to expand the European Club Competition section of the Sacred Manuscript with my Second Leg findings, and anyone subscribing at this late stage of the 2023-24 season will automatically get the updated document for the 2024-25 season for free. 

Big Draws, Second Leg Draws, and Bitcoin

As I mentioned last week, backing the Draw in "Big 6" matches this season has been rather rewarding, and the Liverpool v Manchester City game on Sunday boosted the bank even further, with the biggest surprise perhaps that the starting price was around 4.0 on Betfair, although I could 'only' get matched at 3.95. Pinnacle's Closing Odds had the Draw at 3.9. 

In the "Big 4/6" era, the league matches between these two clubs are the best of the 15 combinations for the Draw historically with an ROI of 50% from the 30 games played. Chelsea against Manchester United is second at 43% with Arsenal - Liverpool games next at 27%. With an ROI of -51%, the Manchester Derby is the worst bet. 

Of the 30 Home / Away combinations, the single best fixture is Manchester City v Liverpool at 58%, closely followed by Chelsea v Manchester United at 56%.

As most readers will be aware, the European Club tournaments next season will use a Swiss system format in place of the traditional Group stage. In a cosmetic change, the UEFA Europa Conference League will drop the 'Europa' from its name, but the knockout stages will remain in place almost unchanged. I say almost, because the Champions League will have an extra knockout round for a place in the Round of 16.

All this is good news as my data goes back to the 2003-04 season, and as I only get interested once the knockout rounds begin, the changes should mean that the data should continue to be valid. It would be a shame if 21 years of data (1,968 matches) were to become worthless due to a format change, but this shouldn't be the case.

The Champions League Round of 16 closes this week with four second leg matches remaining, and to date, fewer than 17% of these matches end as draws, an implied price of 6.07. In matches where both clubs are from one of the Big 5 Leagues, the numbers are fewer than 15% and 6.69.

It's been a good year for Bitcoin and this month it's up another ~15% so far and setting new highs. Unfortunately my purchase timing - almost two years ago -  wasn't great, but my patience has been rewarded and I have no plans to sell. 

The approval of the Bitcoin spot ETFs appears to be the main driver of this current run up, but there's a second event coming up that is also likely having an impact.

Inflows to the ETFs hit an all-time high last week, seeing nearly $680 million of inflows in one day. This means that the funds are buying more Bitcoin every day, which is eating away at the liquidity provided by sellers.

The second event is the imminent 4th Bitcoin halving (expected date is April 19th) which doesn't refer to a halving of the amount of Bitcoin in circulation and therefore has no effect on the balance on any wallet but refers to the reduction of mining rewards for adding a new block to the blockchain.

At this point in time, there are about 19.5 million Bitcoins that have already been mined, while the maximum supply is fixed at 21 million Bitcoins. Considering all upcoming halvings every 210,000 blocks (~ 4 years), the last Bitcoins will be mined around the year 2140. Consequently, in the next 16 years only 1.5 million Bitcoins will be created, which underlines that the remaining inflation is very marginal from a technical standpoint.

Hopefully I'll still be around in 2140. although this blog likely won't be! 

Shadow Chasing and Mindset Shifting

I'm a little bit late with this update, but February was an interesting month. It had the extra Leap Day this year, which to salaried employees like myself is a slight irritation as it's a day we don't get paid for, but that wasn't what made it interesting.

As I mentioned before, I started the ball rolling on one of life's big decisions, i.e. retirement, and March could be an even more interesting month, although I'm not sure how quickly such a ball gathers momentum, nor which slot on the wheel of life it will ultimately land in. 

Given a few recent issues with the company - there are significant "cost pressures" and "financial headwinds" and the share price, which had its first annual loss in 15 years in 2023 is already down almost 10% year-to-date - as well as contractors being let go later this month, it doesn't seem too far-fetched to believe the rumours that some full-time employees are also likely to be made redundant in the not too distant future. Best case scenario is that I can negotiate an enhanced individual severance deal sooner rather than be one of many lumped together in a layoff deal later in which the terms are unlikely to be open to negotiation. 

I first entered the workforce on 11th August 1975, which I don't need to add was a very long time ago. One of the places my work has taken me over the years was the state of Arkansas where I spent a few years in the 1990s, and I shall be returning there later this month for a five week visit. 

The primary reason is to be in the path of totality for the total solar eclipse on the 8th April, but I shall also be meeting up with my son who has a work trip in Wisconsin which overlaps, and he's keen to visit the area where he spent a few of his early years before moving back to the UK. 

In addition, I still have a few good friends in the area and it will be fun to catch up with them again, and I also plan to rent a bike while I'm there as cycling trails are now plentiful there. This blog will therefore have its longest sequence of silence since its debut in 2008, also a long time ago, at least as far as sports investment / betting blogs go.  Whether the trip ends up being a workation or a vacation remains to be seen but having heard today that there has been a significant number of resignations follow the annual reviews, though none (yet) from my team, I rather suspect that I shall not be receiving an offer.

As for February, well in sports investing it was rather a quiet month. The NBA season had its usual interruption at this time of year for its All-Star Break but when there were games, it was a good month overall with a 41-28-1 record ATS for the basic system, which is a 59.4% strike rate and for the season to date the percentage is 52.2%. The Overs had a small loss, but at 53% overall for the season, we're still in good shape here too, with the number to beat 51.2%.

Disappointingly, after a strong January, the NHL system dipped into the red after their All-Star Break and is now down 3.43 units, an ROI of -0.9%. February is usually a strong month but this year was the worst since 2007. It happens.

The "All-Big 6" League Cup Final was a winner of course and for those of you backing the Draw in "All-Big 6" League matches also this season, at the two-thirds point of the season there are worse things you could be doing since this is now +28.87 units (144%) and the strategy is guaranteed to finish the season in profit. 

Note that the Pinnacle overround is creeping back up again as it did in the COVID affected 2019-20 season, a number that is higher in matches involving a Big 6 club than in those "Little 14" games. 

The small number of matches each season means there will be some big winning and losing ROI percentages, but overall a 12% ROI over the last ten seasons (with ten matches to go) is very good.

Meanwhile over in Italy the Serie A System is performing well and while the ROI is "only" 8.4% from 720 games, it's worth paying attention to.

We're getting close to some more big games. The European Knockout rounds are here, and the end of season Finals and playoff games aren't too far off either with the Euros the icing on the cake.

Overall February was a good month for the main spreadsheet, with a new end-of-month high ending the 23 month wait. March hasn't started particularly well, but it's early days and a drawdown of 0.4% is nothing compared to the 23.4% from March two years ago. Bitcoin set a new all-time high this week, and is currently up 72% this year.  Tesla isn't. 

As for health and fitness, without which there is no point being concerned about money, it's mostly good news. I joined a gym at the start of February (good news) and have been there just three times since (not so good news). I much prefer being outdoors and have been out on my bike a few times and my walking / running still exceeds six miles a day on average. Dry January was followed by an almost Dry February with just one drinking day, and the pounds have been falling off - hopefully fat rather than muscle - and I am now down by more than five and a half stone (78.4 lbs to be precise) from my high in 2019. 

Similar to the financial mindset change needed to adjust for a move from earning and accumulation to retirement and decumulation, so I need to figure out how to adjust to the idea of maintaining a healthy weight rather trying to attain it. Nice problems to have though. In another commonality with building wealth, losing weight (by which I mean fat) isn't hard, but it's slow and it's boring. The simple chart above shows where I got bored! The longer downward slopes are where I was more focused, and the instance starting around 380 days was when I was laid up in bed with a broken leg - zero alcohol and my wife had total control over my caloric intake - and I couldn't weigh myself daily for 11 weeks.  

Another Perfect Final

Betfair's official Starting Price for the League Cup Final between Liverpool and Chelsea yesterday was 3.8, while the 'official' odds I record using the Odds Portal average price was 3.73.

For the Under 2.5 markets, an alternative - lower volatility - way of investing in these selections, the most traded price on Betfair was 2.52 with 2.4 the average on Odds Portal.

A winning result for both investments, with another 'perfect' draw, and the ROI on the last 20 League Cup Finals increases to 56%, and that from the Under 2.5 (only 16 Finals available) to 19% using my conservative numbers which should be easily beatable in practice.  

In the seven Finals without a fair-priced team at odds-on, the Draw has come in five times, an ROI of 148%, and in the 11 "Big 6" Finals, the Draw has won 7 times with an ROI of 133%.

I've updated the Sacred Manuscript and hopefully as well as subscribers, some (if not many) of you followed my advice from last week regarding this match. 

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter 2024

The 2024 annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders was published this morning, and as some readers will know, I both own shares in this company and often comment on the newsletter's contents.

For a traditionally rather boring stock, it's been on something of a tear this year, up 17% already, second only behind my less boring Bitcoin "investment" (+31.7% YTD) in my individual holdings. 

As for the newsletter, unsurprising Warren Buffett opens with a tribute to his longtime partner Charlie Munger who passed away last November just shy of his century, crediting him with being the “architect” of the present Berkshire, while "I acted as the 'general contractor' to carry out the day-by-day construction of his vision."

Buffett introduces a sister, Bertie, and makes an observation about her that many sports bettors would be well advised to heed:

She is sensible – very sensible – instinctively knowing that pundits should always be ignored. After all, if she could reliably predict tomorrow’s winners, would she freely share her valuable insights and thereby increase competitive buying? That would be like finding gold and then handing a map to the neighbors showing its location. 

As he often does, and again readers will know that I have long followed this strategy, he extols the virtue of owning US stocks writing:

I can’t remember a period since March 11, 1942 – the date of my first stock purchase – that I have not had a majority of my net worth in equities, U.S.-based equities. And so far, so good. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 100 on that fateful day in 1942 when I “pulled the trigger.” I was down about $5 by the time school was out. Soon, things turned around and now that index hovers around 38,000. America has been a terrific country for investors. All they have needed to do is sit quietly, listening to no one. 

The index is actually above 39,000 right now, and while I prefer to track the broader S&P 500 Index, I'm sure there will be a lot of articles written when the 40,000 level is reached Started in 1896, it's not quite the OG of indexes, but it's second behind the Dow Jones Transportation Average which started in 1884. 

Buffett is very much a proponent of leaving things alone when they are going well, and talks about the holdings in Coke and American Express that Berkshire Hathaway have held for many years:

During 2023, we did not buy or sell a share of either AMEX or Coke – extending our own Rip Van Winkle slumber that has now lasted well over two decades. Both companies again rewarded our inaction last year by increasing their earnings and dividends. Indeed, our share of AMEX earnings in 2023 considerably exceeded the $1.3 billion cost of our long-ago purchase. 

And of interest to me with my new focus on dividends, Buffett adds:

Both AMEX and Coke will almost certainly increase their dividends in 2024 – about 16% in the case of AMEX – and we will most certainly leave our holdings untouched throughout the year.

The newsletter touches on a variety of topics including climate change, mental health and the challenges of hiring employees in the rail industry and as always, the 17 pages are worth a read in full - it can be found here. 

The annual review I mentioned yesterday went about as expected given the "financial headwinds" that have been mentioned, presumably to dampen expectations. It was no secret that senior grade levels would not be receiving any merit increases this year, and the bonus was down about £20k from last year with the options and RSUs set the same as 2023.

The tone of the conversation was all rather negative regarding the future and when job cuts were hinted at, I took the opportunity to express an interest in negotiating a voluntary severance package which he will be taking to HR. 

Exciting times. I went out for my daily walk immediately afterwards, always good for processing thoughts and clearing your head, and I felt very positive about everything. With the US S&P 500 later closing at new high and my Royal London pension statement also up, it was a new high again for the personal spreadsheet so it's all good. 

If no agreement on severance can be reached, or no offer is made, it's not a big deal. Given my tenure, I'll get at least six months pay if / when they involuntarily sever me and by the time that date comes around I'll have worked a few more months anyway, and as I've mentioned before, it's very comfortable working from home so that wouldn't be a big deal anyway. 

Cups, Major Leagues and 673 Days

weirimdi followed up on his teaser of a comment regarding Cup competitions with some more data and some additional observations.

He wrote: 

Hello again, thank you for responding to my comment in your recent post.

As you suggested I looked at the ROIs of the respective leagues.
Here is a link the screenshot. https://prnt.sc/wAmY8WxJd54D

In addition to that you might want to look up the performance of major leagues in the Champions League when they play as an Away Team.
https://prnt.sc/u5y1fIA954AO

Another interesting angle here is that most of the Home Teams are underperforming. I included Group Stages/Qualifier/Knock Out Stages for CL and for the Cup selections too.

It has the data onwards based on maximum odds from betexplorer.com.
Thanks for the interest!

I might have mention this before, but I happen to love this stuff so thank YOU for the comment. The Cup data shows some interesting returns - Turkey's Cup with an ROI of 15.7% from 2000+ matches for example. 

As for the comment about teams from the major leagues when playing Away in the Champions League, yes I do track this although my idea about the 'major leagues' may differ since the highlighted ones are England, France, Portugal and Spain. 

Here are my numbers for the Big Five Leagues of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain showing that opposing these teams (back the Home team if they are a Big Five club / back the Draw if not) is generally a good idea: 

More on this topic to come, possibly after the Round of 16 is complete and we have a little more data but - spoiler alert - backing an Away team from Germany, Italy or Spain is generally not a good idea with an ROI of -14%. 

Japan's Nikkei 225 index made a new high yesterday after 34 years, which is almost as long as the Israelites were wandering about in the wilderness, eating quail and manna. The S&P 500 index also closed at a new high yesterday, after recovering from a two year slump last month, and my own personal drawdown came to an end just shy of two years, (673 days to be precise) since a last high was reached on April 20th, 2022. 

The longest drawdown for my sports investing accounts was a mere 227 days back in 2007 but the mind is a funny thing and in many ways that felt a lot worse. I made a stupid mistake on New Year's Day and lost £5,000, what at the time seemed like a lot of money. As I've written before, it took me until August to recover, but I learned a valuable lesson from my error.

The new high comes at a good time psychologically. I have my annual review later today, and while any merit increase at my age is of little interest to me, I am much more interested in the size of my annual bonus and stock options. Perhaps not as interested as my wife, who has plans for new flooring, showers, cabinets and kitchen...  

With February extended by a day this year, there are still five trading days where it could all go horribly wrong, but I'm hopeful of ending the month at, or close to, a new high.