The Hunt For Green October

Volatile days on the trading recently, with four days out of five resulting in a profit or loss of four figures. Good for the Premium Charge. Not so good for the ticker. Thankfully the latest swing was positive, but I am still in negative territory for this month, and to paraphrase Sir Edmund Blackadder, "we're not at home to Red October." Still a long way to go though, and plenty of play-off baseball for which the liquidity has been a pleasant surprise, especially for the early games. Sunday will be a busy day, with games in all four baseball play-off series, plus a full schedule of NFL. With no Premier League this weekend, that will be my focus. The international games hold no interest for me, and I don't keep such detailed ratings for the lower leagues.

I did enhance the Elo ratings this week, and the margin of victory is now taken into consideration. With the NHL recently under way, I am planning to keep ratings for that league too. They worked well in the recently ended NRL too, and I would like to expand these to other sports, but I'm not sure the NBA or NFL is a suitable candidate given the importance that certain individuals have. Baseball is also a non-starter given the importance of the pitcher. There's no reason why they shouldn't work in tennis either, but with so many matches, that would be quite an effort. The IPL in cricket could be a go though.

I made a rare visit to the horse-racing markets this afternoon, and of course, wished I hadn't, but at least I reminded myself why I don't trade this markets on a regular basis. I did make money trading pre-off in six of the seven markets I played, but in the one where I let the trade run, of course it won, and wiped out the profits from the other six and a little more. What a waste of time! I'm sure some people make money at this, though it's hard for me to see where the steady flow of losers comes from.

Finally on this something of a rambling post, a comment on a frequent source of annoyance on the Betfair forum which reared its ugly head again yesterday. The idea that backing at less than evens should always be avoided. I really think that anyone subscribing to this opinion should not be investing. The simple rule is that you back when you have value. That's it. Value can be at 1.01, it can be at 1000, or it can be anywhere in between. There is no arbitrary point where value stops. Rant over.