Saturday, 13 March 2010

Lorient, L'Orient and L. Orient - Vive La Difference


A quieter day than usual with football investments limited to those recommended by Football Elite.

 Borussia Moenchengladbach at 2.86 wasn't one of their finest ever picks, going down to a heavy 0-4 defeat at home to Wolfsburg, but in something of a coincidence, their second tip (Bolton Wanderers at 2.08 v Wigan Athletic) won by exactly the same score.

 The short-list gave two winners, Mainz at 2.32 and Lorient at 2.08 but the third selection Le Mans at 2.34 did not have a Nice day. The e-mail actually tipped L'Orient, but I finally figured out who was meant, although not before almost staking an enormous sum on L Orient v Walsall. Matt must be a lot older than me. L'Orient was the city's original name in the 1600s, but the football club has never had that name. L Orient, as in Leyton, won 2-0 anyway.

 I then spent some time trading the Hull City v Arsenal game for small stakes, and topped up the profits for the day. Arsenal's last few league games look easier than those of Chelsea or Manchester United and at 3.9 look value to me with a view to trading. Interestingly, all three teams still have to visit Blackburn Rovers.

 There were a couple of scorelines today that I am reasonably confident the Elo ratings would have missed. Burton Albion 5 Cheltenham 6? Who saw that one coming? Not me - I had it as 4-5... and Gateshead lost 0-8 at Rushden and Diamonds in a low scoring game. That one I had as 7-0.

 Finally, for today anyway, here's another quote on value from the world of financial investing that applies to the world of sports:
Like all other variations of value investing, it will almost certainly under-perform for a multi-year period or post significant losses in a given year, meaning that it's not magic in the sense many investors would like it to be. Indeed, Greenblatt's strategy lost a painful 36% in 2008, only beating the market by 1 percentage point. Still, the evidence is strong that even investors who know "what has worked in investing" simply can't or won't stay with simple formulas or will make investing more complicated than it needs to be. This bodes well for those who can stick with a simple value formula over the long haul.
For those that are interested in this stuff, and we all should be, the full article is here.
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5 comments:

  1. The Market Examiner13 March 2010 at 22:37

    Hi Cassini

    Crazy day of results today.

    Enjoy your blog, and have you on my blog list, wonder if you could do the same with mine?

    I follow horse racing market moves, up on the year although it's been a tough few months all in all.
    Hopeful of a good upcoming spell though

    http://winningafortune.blogspot.com

    Thanks
    CD

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  2. Edgehunters14 March 2010 at 08:41

    Hi Cassini

    Just a note of thanks for posting up information relating to wisdom that can be gleaned from the financial sector.

    I agree with you that there are lots of useful insights in that area that we can learn from and apply to our sports investing.

    Keep up the good work

    Mark

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  3. Anonymous14 March 2010 at 12:17

    "There were a couple of scorelines today that I am reasonably confident the Elo ratings would have missed."

    It's funny how when you can't use a certain system you pray that it will lose money, when really you should hope that it continues it's winning trend.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous14 March 2010 at 18:51

    Finding value in a gambling market and investing are not at all similar in any respect.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous15 March 2010 at 13:37

    "Finding value in a gambling market and investing are not at all similar in any respect."

    Have to disagree with that one!

    Many differences yes, but the basic strategies required to profit from either are pretty much the same

    ReplyDelete