Review And Preview

While logically it makes no more sense to look back on 365 days with an arbitrary starting date of January 1st than it does to look back on any consecutive 365 days, the end of a calendar year does mark an end and a beginning. January is named after Janus, the two-faced Roman god who looks to the future and the past, and since everyone else will be reviewing and renewing, I don’t see why I should miss out on the fun, even if I am well aware that rather like the dreaded P&L blogs out there, this post is only really of interest to the writer.

Review: 2011 wasn’t my best year, up 124% on 2010, but falling 4.5% short of the best yet net profit of 2009. 124% up sounds good, but it's a bit like being awarded the trophy for "Most Improved Player" - it says more about the quality of the baseline, than how good you are today! If I exclude the Copa America, and every sport was profitable. Biggest lesson learned – the idea that a big football tournament represents a big opportunity. It doesn’t, in fact, quite the opposite. Biggest earning sport was the NBA, and if the current season had started on time, it is almost certain that 2011 would have surpassed 2009. With the Super Premium Charge just a few weeks away, 2009 will likely remain in the record books as my zenith year, although you never know.

I had just the one losing month in 2011, March, which was an improvement on 2010 (3 losing months), 2009 (1) but in the final analysis, almost completely meaningless, since it’s about the size of the winners and the losers, not the number of them. Having said that, and stating the obvious, no one likes losing months. I keep a rolling 30-day moving average (MA) on my spreadsheet, and while losing days or weeks happen, and are not a concern, if the 30-day MA dips into the red, it can be discouraging. There’s the concern that the markets have changed, that the edge has evaporated, and accompanying those concerns is a loss, or at least a dent, in that all-important ingredient of confidence. Mark Iverson mentioned his aversion to losing months in a recent post, and for a full-timer such as himself, I can only imagine how stressful such an event might be. I think one can be too averse to risk, and negatively impact overall profits, but for some people, the peace of mind that makes this worthwhile.

The XX Draw Selections have finished their first full year with the prices being recorded, and finish with a record of 141 selections, 46 winners, a level stakes profit of 18.8 points representing an ROI of 13.3%. Overall, an impressive set of results, but there have been a couple of long losing runs in that set which can be a little unnerving.

The Bundeslayga was again a steady earner with 95 selections and 22.08 points profit when excluding any team at 1.3x or less.

Green All Over closes the year having surpassed one-third of a million hits, which is quite a lot really. The daily average hit count for 2011 was 410, (up from 262 in 2010), and over the last quarter has risen to 452. Half a million is possible by the end of 2012 – if only I was talking about winnings!

Preview: As already mentioned, 2012 is likely to fall well short of 2011 in financial terms, with the Super PC imminent. As Peter Webb pointed out in his interview over at Sports Trading Life, it will now take two years to make what one used to make in one year, (assuming a Super PC rate of 50%), and with BETDAQ still slow to take advantage of Betfair’s misstep(s), failing for example to turn NBA games in-play, it’s a situation that there is little I can do about, which is of course what Betfair are banking on. But since trading is not my real job, and the profits are all a bonus, I just have to settle for a lower bonus than I would like. After all, it is tax-free and when the gross median full-time salary in the UK for the year ending April 2011 was £26,244, I don't have too much to complain about.

Readers will know that my opinion of trading goals as such is that they are not only pointless, but actually dangerous and expensive. You bet when it is value to do so, not because you have a goal to reach. Some days there are just no opportunities, other days there may be several. The idea that you stop on a day when you reach ‘your goal’ is nonsensical. My ‘goal’ for 2012 is to simply take advantage of opportunities when they are there, and to look for additional steady earners such as the Bundeslayga or XX Draws (and Under) selections. Copying from Mark Iverson's idea, here's a chart of the past six years showing my profits and losses by quarter.
You can see there are some down times mixed in with the up times, and while at times sports investing can be extremely frustrating, (usually in the 87th minute of a football match), it is also extremely rewarding at times, and while the money is a nice way to keep score, the intellectual challenge is a not insignificant motivator. Good luck to all of you in 2012, unless any of your bets are matched with mine, in which case you'll need more than luck :)