Inevitable Profits

It was not the best of weeks for followers of the NFL Small Road Dogs system with the three selections all losing. I'm beginning to regret making my comment last week regarding the remaining selections that:

Even if all seven lost, we'd still have a healthy ROI.

The ROI drops to 16.15% with one week, and probably three selections, remaining in the season.

If you're following the Small Road Dogs in the NBA as I suggested last week, you're probably thanking me, in spirit at least, given the start to the season they have made - i.e. six winners from seven selections, with four more over the next couple of days.

In the Premier League we had plenty of Draws, which isn't unusual in the December part of the holiday season. Blindly backing the Draw gives a return of 3.78%, while limiting yourself to "Close" matches increases the ROI to 30% since 2000.  

I'll update the Draw numbers in a couple of days once Wednesdays games are complete.

A few days ago, I was kindly sent a copy of a book called "Inevitable Profits" written by Dave Holdsworth which he says: 

was inspired by David Sumpter's book [Soccermatics] and your blog 

Dave's approach is to: 

"look for systematic bias in the odds. We can do this by modelling the betting market rather than the underlying sport. Instead of trying to predict which team will win we can try to understand under what circumstances the bookmakers’ odds are skewed away from true, showing us where to bet."

Readers of this blog will understand why such an approach is music to my ears. 

Dave outlines a strategy based on the stage of the season, comparing results from different stages of the season, and finds some interesting trends.

I've looked at results by month before, and noticed some interesting trends, but Dave inspired me to drill down still further, and while my interest remains primarily on the Draw, I'll share some findings in the next few days.

With the US markets open today, no doubt many of you are happy with adding another 1.92% to your balances as Tesla climbed again. Just three days remain in 2020 and I'm pretty sure this will be another category ending the year with a healthy ROI!  

Tampa Raptors

I mentioned yesterday that paying attention to Time Zones in the NBA can make a difference to your bottom line. By way of example, backing Small Road 'Dogs ATS travelling across two or three time zones since 2015 have an ROI of -4.39%, compared with an ROI of 6.27% when playing within one time zone of home. 

The NBA is a little complicated, given that some Western Conference teams are located two time zones apart, while some Eastern Conference teams are in the same time zone as Western Conference teams. Also this season, the Toronto Raptors are not playing their home games in Toronto, but at least for the start of the season, will be playing in Tampa due to complications crossing the US-Canada border during the pandemic.

Obviously this is an issue which will impact the NHL more seriously, with seven of the NHL's 31 teams based north of the border. The schedule for the 2020-21 season, although as there are no games scheduled in 2020, it's really just a 2021 season. Opening games begin on January 13th and the league will reorganise to reduce travel and to avoid the need for crossing the border, all seven Canadian teams will play in a new North Division, with the 24 US teams divided into three Divisions of eight - East, Central and West. Next season there will be 25 with the new Seattle Kraken franchise. All regular season games will be Divisional, with the top four in each Division making the playoffs. The first two rounds of the playoffs will also be Divisional, all of which means that this season will be unlike any previous one. Whether trends will continue remains to be seen, but Road Favourites have been good since the league re-aligned in 2013:

In Divisional games this ROI decreases slightly to 5.2%, but by taking into account the previous result for both teams, the ROI can be more than doubled to 11.6%, with the only losing season being the last one.

Merry Xmas.  

Zoning Out

After Sunday's shock win by the New York Jets in Los Angeles, we didn't have to wait long for another double digit upset with the Cincinnati Bengals win over the play-off bound Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night. The Bengals were getting 13 points, and won by 10.

It was opening night in the NBA last night with matches being played in the team's arenas rather than in the 'bubble' as at the end of last season, but with no fans.

Small Road 'Dogs have been profitable in the NBA for the past four seasons, and this is a trend I expect to see continue this season, based on the results in the NFL with reduced or eliminated crowds. I've written before about the effect of time zones on games in the NBA, and results can be significantly improved if you put in the time to differentiate between teams travelling from East to West versus teams playing within their own zone or travelling East.

Tesla's indexation slump continued yesterday, but the entire US market is ending the year with a whimper rather than a bang although today is trending higher.

Some of you may recall that a big reason why I invested in Tesla was because it was so heavily shorted. As I wrote in June 2018: 

However I do own some individual stocks, the most recent portfolio addition being that of Tesla last November.

The trigger was seeing articles about the company being the most shorted stock in the USA. Shorting stocks is a risky business, and the more I read, the more it seemed that there are several misconceptions about the company. I also happen to like CEO Elon Musk's sarcastic, flippant, sometimes rude, approach to those trying to spread a false narrative about him or his company.

So it was interesting to read on Teslarati.com that:

Tesla short-sellers are effectively admitting defeat after the company’s first trading days in the S&P 500 Index after new data from Ortex Analytics shows that short interest hit record lows.

At one time, TSLA stock was one the most-shorted stocks on Wall Street, but the company’s record year has had bears rethinking their strategy to put money on the downfall of the automaker, which has never really occurred.

Ortex Analytics has new research that shows that bets against Tesla have fallen to numbers that haven’t been seen since 2017. After an estimated $28.5 billion in losses, Tesla shorts are calling it quits on being bearish toward the stock. 

Toss-Ups and Teslanaires

After almost seven weeks stuck on just four selections for the season, we had not just one "Toss-Up" Draw selection but two this weekend, with Newcastle United v Fulham delivering for followers. 

The Away team was favourite in both matches, and since 2000 these selections have an ROI of 22.8% from 264 selections.

The NFL's Small Road 'Dogs also had two selections in Week 15, and both were winners, taking the season record to 33-20-1 (ROI 21.4%) currently the second best season since the league restructured.

2006's record is likely to survive given that we probably only have another seven selections this season and we'd need six winners, but we live in hope. Even if all seven lost, we'd still have a healthy ROI.

The biggest shock of the round was the New York Jets getting 17 points on the road against the Los Angeles Rams and winning straight up - their first win of the season. This was the biggest upset in the NFL since 1995.

Tesla made its debut in the S&P 500 today but it was an inauspicious start, although most markets were down across the board. A down day was to be expected after being purchased prior to indexation, as MarketWatch explains:

The reason Tesla stock is down Monday is probably because some index funds have already bought Tesla shares. With the buying done, there is a greater chance of some post-indexation dip might occur. It’s happened in the past when other stocks have been added to the S&P 500—although Tesla stock always seems to defy convention. Shares are, after all, up about 750% over the past year. 

A 6.49% drop wasn't what I was hoping though, but with with my gains at over 1,000% as of Friday's close, I think I can handle it.

The volatility of Tesla's stock price is likely to lead to the same in the S&P 500 Index, with an $11.11 change in stock price equating to a one point move for the Index. 

There was an article on Bloomberg at the end of last week, reporting on "Teslanaires", those people whose holdings are now, or were, worth over a million dollars.

Now Smith has joined the ranks of the “Teslanaires,” as some of the company’s investors call themselves, with a holding that he says has ballooned to over $1 million, fueled by a rally of nearly 731% this year as of Friday’s close.

If the company is to become a trillion dollar company, as many experts predict, the stock price will hit four figures, unless there is another split, and if it's to become a $2 trillion company as at least one investor predicts, the upside is even bigger. One to hold.  

Fools And Their Money

From Slate comes this article concerning the US Presidential Election: How Offshore Oddsmakers Made a Killing off Gullible Trump Supporters

The article focuses on the off-shore sportsbooks like Bovada and BetOnline but Betfair bettors will recognize much of the thrust of the article. And the nonsense continues. If you search Twitter for the words "Betfair" and "Trump", it's an experience in equal parts amusing and sad. 

“We’ve got people living in two different realities politically, and we’ve got people betting in two different realities,” Sherwin says.

One would think that after their theories and expectations are shot down one after the other...

...that at some point they would realise that they are swallowing arrant nonsense, but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of excuses and new justifications for why Trump will prevail and their putting their money where their loud mouths are:

“Trump supporters are loud,” Morrow says. “They love Trump in a way that most candidates are not beloved, but they also represent the demographic of a lot of sports bettors. These are people that are 18 to 45, generally white male.”

Also, consider that Trump maintained that he could not lose this election, at least not legally. If he lost, he signaled, he would lean on Republican underlings and judges to flip the result. (He then did the leaning, if not the flipping.) Only a quarter of Republicans, even by December, believed Biden’s win was legitimate. On Tuesday, a day after the Electoral College voted for Biden, people were still backing Trump on PredictIt, a predictions market, meaning anyone who wanted to could make free money betting on Biden.

What is very clear is that the "Wisdom of the Crowd" theory doesn't apply with this crowd. In conclusion, the article has this to say:

Trump supporters were doing it to themselves. It’s not the sportsbooks’ fault if someone doesn’t realize that businesspeople aspire to separate customers from their money.

The sportsbooks won untold millions off a political movement’s refusal to accept reality. It wasn’t the oddsmakers’ plan to win by such large margins, and doing so despite making Trump a relative favorite was largely good fortune.

The 2020 election had many losers: Trump, his supporters, and American democracy chief among them. But almost by accident, the race created huge winners beyond Joe Biden. The biggest, arguably, were based not in Washington but in places like Panama City, and entirely unregulated by the government Biden was elected to lead.

Close Draws and College COVID Caution

While the Fulham v Brighton and Hove Albion game did stay outside the "Toss-Up" range, it was a qualifier in the "Close" category and finishing as a perfect Draw stopped the losing sequence for "Close" bets at 17. 

With only 27 Draws in the EPL so far, the strike rate is one of the lowest (fourth lowest in the EPL era), due to the highest rate of goal scoring in the top tier since the swinging '60s. 

There's a long way to go this season, but the Away wins are on course for a record season, currently over 40%, far higher than the previous record of 33.68% set a couple of years ago. First goal-line technology and VAR, and now no home crowds, and Home advantage seems to have vanished entirely.

The median fair price of 4.07 on Draws this season is much higher than pre-COVID's 3.67, so even when there have been Draws, they have tended to be longer priced. The second longest priced winner was the 12.6 for the Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion game at the weekend where Manchester City were the 13th team to be sub 1.10 and the third to fail to win at that short a price. 

With all the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 at the start of the College Football season, I decided not to spend the time on this sport this season. 

With a lower profile than the professional major sports outside the US, it's often not always the easiest sport to get a bet on, even if you focus on the 'bigger' Division 1A matches, but the challenges of COVID seemed to me to make this 'amateur' sport even more likely than the pro sports to be seriously impacted. 

The players are technically students, and it seemed to me that even if games went ahead, there was a decent chance that key players would be missing and without crowds, it would all be a bit of a lottery, and I don't like betting in such circumstances. College Football, unlike the NFL, has no requirements on teams to produce injury reports. 

Over the years, as in the NFL, Small Road 'Dogs have performed very well, until this season as seen in the chart above. Winners have exceeded losers for 19 consecutive seasons, although three seasons would have resulted in a loss backing at 1.952, but this season so far, it's a different story. 

The five-thirty-eight web site has an interesting article on the 2020 College Football season which is worth a read. The title is Losing Money Betting On College Football This Year? You’re Not Alone.

It was a quintessential 2020 college football betting story. During a season that we weren’t sure should have been played, things have been rendered even more complicated for people outside the game, whether they’re just betting for fun or rely on it to make a living. Results like this go beyond tough beats and into a realization that, in yet another way, this year is not normal. The sport has been uniquely difficult to predict for those trying to find a reliable edge.

Sometimes, the decision not to get involved is a good one.

Silly Rules

The big news is that Betfair's US Election markets have finally been settled. The Electoral College (EC) met yesterday, and as soon as California had cast its 55 EC votes and took Biden's total over 270 around 10:15pm, the markets were suspended and settled surprisingly quickly afterwards. I thought it might take a few hours to run the settlement program for a market that had been open for a few years and had almost £1.7 billion traded, but the winnings were in the account and the statement within minutes, although it did take a little longer to show up in the P and L page. 

I was keeping an eye on the six states that Betfair had yet to settle, as I had open bets in those markets, and after seeing that they had all cast their votes as expected, with not a single 'faithless elector' this year, I saw a Tweet misleadingly saying that electors in Nevada had voted for Trump. The account was a right wing site, which a discerning person would soon dismiss out of hand, but incredibly many people not only believe this stuff without question, but were prepared to put their money down.

Only six EC votes were at stake, so there was no danger to Biden's win, but it was potentially serious for Nevada Democrat backers, even though settlement should have been based on the 'projected' EC votes rather than actual. When I looked at the market on Betfair, 1.04 was available, but I asked for 1.05 and 1.06 and both were matched, literally three minutes before the markets suspended.

Twitter, after settlement, was an interesting place. Not just a few, but many people seemed genuinely shocked that Biden was the winner. Many had clearly not read the market rules. i.e. 

"This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election. Any subsequent events such as a ‘faithless elector’ will have no effect on the settlement of this market."

Many also had no idea how a betting exchange works, and the number of people who still think Trump has a path to victory and will thus be the Next President is both astonishing and disturbing. 

No one was able to explain why, amidst what would have needed to be a multi-state coordinated conspiracy involving hundreds of people, no evidence had been found and presented in court in the six weeks since the election. 

Neither common sense nor Occam's Razor were anywhere to be found. Just lunatic after lunatic spouting nonsense about January 6th when the Congress meets, or that Trump would soon be announcing another election (he doesn't have the authority), declaring martial law, or "fraud is covered under the twelfth amendment" (it isn't). Crazy stuff, and you almost feel bad taking their money. At least I can see now where the money backing Trump was coming from.

As Biden will be inaugurated in January anyway, all this protesting is moot, but they really do seem to believe that Trump can stay in office, coming up with all kinds of bizarre theories that just have no basis in reality. 

There was soon a Facebook page for Australian / New Zealand punters who backed Trump on Betfair, and likely a UK one will follow shortly, if not already.

Plenty of screenshots of conversations with entry level help desk employees trying to end the help chat as fast as possible, which would seem unlikely to take precedence over the rules for settlement which have been present since day one of the market. If anyone has experience of dealing with any Help Desk, not just Betfair, you'll know that these aren't the sharpest and brightest of people. 

Some people appear to have literally been physically affected by this, for example::

I have a feeling this topic will provide entertainment for a while yet. There is always the USA - Trump Specials - Trump Exit Date 2 market which currently has 2021 priced at 1.04/1.05. Come on Trump fans, if you're sure he'll overturn this election result, then a lay at those odds will make you incredibly rich, but do check those silly rules this time. Use a magnifying glass if necessary. It could save you some money.

Who bets or enters any financial transaction without reading the rules? Caveat emptor as we say in Rome. 

Oh Come All Ye Faithful Electors

Another winning week in the NFL with the Small Road Dogs. A win in the early slate of games for the Denver Broncos, while in the afternoon games the Washington Football Team were the second winners of the day. Both teams were getting three points. In the Sunday night game, the Pittsburgh Steelers were getting 2.5 points and lost miserably but a 2-1 record is more than acceptable, taking the season record to 31-20-1.

There is a Thursday Night game this week which is currently looking like being a qualifier - San Diego Chargers +3.5 in a Division game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

While technically it was a Home game for the San Francisco 49ers, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Washington game was actually played in Arizona, in the Arizona Cardinals home stadium. Teams playing "Home" games in another team's home NFL stadium are now 1-6 since the AFL / NFL merger in 1970. Probably not surprising that such a move is more impactful to the nominal Home team than to the Away.

The Washington Football Team was previously known as the Redskins, an offensive term which was belatedly done away with in the Summer, and it was reported last night that the Cleveland Indians are about to announce that they too will finally be renaming.

No "Toss-Up" matches in the EPL this weekend (again) but there were two "Close" matches that ended up 'close' but no Draw. A full round of midweek matches ahead, with Fulham v Brighton and Hove Albion currently just outside the "Toss-Up" range.

With the Electoral College meeting today in the US, and the rules stating that "subsequent events such as a ‘faithless elector’ will have no effect on the settlement of this market", Betfair should be settling in the next few hours. Biden can no longer be backed at 1.03, with the price shortening over the weekend to 1.02 after the remaining legal case in Wisconsin was thrown out, as have about 56 other cases. It's hard to keep track.

The confusion Betfair caused by naming the market "Next President" is clear, with several Twitter users convinced, based on 'information' garnered from conspiracy web sites, that Trump has a real chance of winning and that they would be paid out. I almost felt bad taking their money, but I got over it. The market has now traded over £1.67 billion although according to Jon, Biden backers are up against "God", although he curiously doesn't specify which one. Presumably the one his Mummy and Daddy told him about and he fell for it:

Other, absolutely delusional, comments from the thread above (cosmetic changes to spelling and grammar):

I got 28/1 but have never placed a bet before so not a clue what I’m doing

Just got my salary 1k for Trump, convinced my gf for £500 for Trump. Tried to get a loan but the bank will not let me

Bet on Trump. Won't regret cuz he already won

I had it at 30-1 with them last week. A month or more back I had 11-8 and the 4-1 so this new price is still very good. He won't lose will he? I've got nearly £5k potential winnings. C'mon Trumpy

I’ve got a few bets on at different prices, £5,500 when trump wins

Better 18:1 than nothing. Look at what you can gain not what you missed out on.

I had an argument with Coral because they have put out that Biden won so I said when Trump wins I want double my winnings

Do you think when the election result is confirmed as fraudulent that all bets will be classed as null and void and we’ll only get our stakes back? I’m hoping not as my bets on Betfair are for the ‘next president’ so technically they should pay out when Trump enters a second term.

I put £100 on 23/1 a couple of days ago. A Trump win is looking more and more likely.

Went all in when odds were lower but still got 17/1 ish!

Hopefully by Tuesday morning, all this nonsense will be behind us. I guess we should be happy there are such people happy to divest their money like this, but it's terrible for the future of democracy which requires an informed electorate to work, and clearly these people are not well informed whether it's about Trump or the realities of Brexit for that matter.

$TSLA had another positive week, closing at $609.99 (+10.90) after reaching a new high on Wednesday at $654.32. Tesla now has a higher valuation than Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, and there are suggestions Mr. Buffett might be the 'mystery investor' buying up millions of shares, but while he does like the premium brands such as Apple, Coca Cola and American Express, and Tesla certainly fits that bill, he's also a value buyer, and Tesla could hardly be considered a value buy. On the other hand, with Buffett's long standing philosophy of not investing in companies whose business he doesn't fully understand contrasting with Apple now being $BRK-B's biggest holding, perhaps at 90 years old, Buffett isn't doing so much stock picking himself these days, but starting to hand over control to his successors. 

The Lost Notes of 1937

The Junction, fka The Wheatsheaf

Working on one of the side projects I mentioned last Sunday, I came across this reference on the topic of home advantage, or more specifically of crowd impact, from October 1937 when it was announced in the Surrey Mirror that:

Mr. F Judd, of Watford, is coming to speak at the next meeting of the Branch [Surrey Society of Association Referees] at the Wheatsheaf Hotel on Friday next, October 8th. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, sharp. as Mr. Judd has a long journey to make. it should be a highly interesting meeting, for Mr. Judd is just entering upon his 26th year of active refereeing in various classes of football. He is the retiring chairman of the West Herts Referees' Association. His subject is particularly interesting, "the effects of the crowd on the game".

Indeed, and I was rather excited to find out the details of this talk, but sadly three weeks later, the same correspondent reported that:

Some notes which I understand were sent me regarding the referees' meeting at which Mr. F Judd spoke on the effect of the crowd on the game, appear to have gone astray, so I must just record that it was a satisfactory meeting and proved very edifying, not only to the referees themselves but also to a number of visitors. Incidentally, the referees are still waiting for a spectator to speak to their January meeting on the effect of a referee on the game, and if one does not materialise soon, Mr. Bish. the Hon. Secretary of the branch, tells me he will have to fill the date with some other subject.

The attempt at humour did little to ease my disappointment at missing out on Mr. F Judd's insights. It may have been a satisfactory meeting, but the loss of notes from it is anything but satisfactory when you're prepared to go to these lengths to find an edge. 

The NFL continued to be lucrative this weekend with the two Small Road 'Dog selections - Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns - not only covering the spread, but winning outright. Officially the Browns were a +4 selection, but I had them at +5.5 before they shortened, which is always a good sign. 

The 2.08 on the Lions was also a nice bonus. The season record for this system is now 29-19-1 and as of today, we look to have ten more selections this season before the expanded play-offs begin.

No "Toss-up" EPL Draw selections again, and although this system doesn't generate too many selections at the best of times, with only four so far, it's certainly behind schedule. 

In the meantime that 65.7% ROI looks impressive even if it will ultimately drop, although usually this system ends the season in positive double figures as shown left. 

The NBA is back, with pre-season games starting this week, which will make the weekdays a little more interesting. The 2019-20 season saw the rate of increase in points per game slow down, increasing by just 0.5% from 222.4 to 223.6. Up just 0.3%, the number of possessions also remained about the same as the previous season, but the number of 3-point attempts increased by 6.6%. Of course, the regular season wasn't completed, but 86% of matches were played so using these numbers isn't too much of a stretch. Backing Overs in games where the total is greater than 224 points looks like a good place to start the season. 

The Lazy Way to Grow Wealth

One of the trading accounts I follow on Twitter is Joseph Burns, and he recently posed the question:

What's the worst trading advice you've ever received?

One reply suggested index funds, because:

it is not an 'advice'. For a finance person, it is nothing but a lazy way to protect their skin and escape accountability.

I have a few issues with that response. First, the idea that this is not advice. 

Advice is defined as "guidance or recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action" so what else suggesting index funds could be isn't clear. 

There could be a language issue here, so I'll move on to the more important piece of the response, and the idea that passive investing in index funds is "lazy" and a way to "escape accountability".

Passive investing takes up far less time than active investing, but that's a key part of why passive investing is best for most people. Does that mean it is "lazy"? I wouldn't say so. It's certainly "easier" and "cheaper" but there's an opportunity cost for the time spent trying to beat the indexes, and very few people can do this in the long run anyway. And it's not only the time that costs money, it's the higher fees, transactions costs and expenses that also reduce the viability of active investing.

Is betting-and-forgetting a lazy way of making money on the betting exchanges? It's certainly a better use of your time than wasting hours watching a sport for a value opportunity that a) may rarely present itself, and even if it does, then b) you would need to react fastest to benefit from it anyway. 

As for escaping accountability, I'm not sure this applies to most of us since we are accountable to no one but ourselves.

As readers will know, as much as I recommend index funds, I'm also not averse to playing with some individual stocks such as Tesla, which I may have mentioned here once or twice, plus other mentions earlier this year such as Lloyds Bank, Boeing and Pfeizer, all of which since they were bought, are currently up by more than my index funds at +21.6%, +47.6% and +18% respectively. At 9.65%, my active stock trading account is just under 10% of my net worth, which seems about right, but for most of us, investing in index funds is good advice.

After Hours

Week 12 in the NFL was already off to a winning start with the Washington Football Team's win in Dallas on Thanksgiving, and Sunday saw two more wins and one loss for the Small Road 'Dogs taking the season record to 27-19-1, an ROI of 14.3%.

As a bonus, we also had the New Orleans Saints comfortably defeating the Quarterback-less Denver Broncos, recommended at -14.5 although the line did move to -15.5 by kick-off. 

Although overall these big (two converted touchdowns) favourites aren't anything to get excited about, as is often the case, when you drill down a little, you find market inefficiencies.

Overall their record since 1991 is 72-74-2 ATS, but they have a 72.2% record when the Road team is favoured, and an 88.9% record when it is a Divisional game. 

We have a rare Wednesday NFL game this week with the re-arranged Pittsburgh Steelers v Baltimore Steelers game now scheduled for tomorrow. The opening day of the 2012 season was moved to a Wednesday for political reasons (President Obama was speaking) and since at least 1991 that is the only other instance of a Wednesday game. The Steelers play on a Monday afternoon in Week 13, and the Ravens move to Tuesday, only the third time that a Tuesday has seen an NFL game.  

Another big move for $TESLA stock last night after the markets closed, with the announcement that: 

“S&P Dow Jones Indices (“S&P DJI”) has determined it will add Tesla to the S&P 500 at its full float-adjusted market capitalization weight effective prior to the open of trading on Monday, December 21, 2020”

It had been expected that Tesla would be added in two tranches, but the decision is to do it all in one. 

Something I don't think I've written about before, I may have in which case it won't hurt to repeat it, is how much difference there is in stock returns when investing during the trading day, and when investing after hours.

Basically two strategies were compared. The Regular Trading strategy was to buy at the open and sell at the close; the After Hours strategy was to buy at the close and sell at the open. The Index used was the S&P 500, and with the market only open for 6.5 hours a day (32.5 hours a week), leaving 135.5 hours a week for After Hours, you probably wouldn't be surprised to find more than 80% of the gains happening when the markets are closed. In fact:

Had you only invested in the After Hours strategy by buying the close and selling the next open, you'd be sitting on a solid gain of 722%. Had you done the opposite, however, and only invested in the Regular Trading strategy by buying at the open and selling at the close, you'd actually be down 8.5%.

Of course it is impractical to keep selling and buying each day, so buy and hold is the best strategy.  

With November now behind us, although the month finished with a five figure loss, the month overall was a record one both in percentage (9.41%) terms and actual money. The previous monthly record of 9.3% was set in April as markets bounced off their COVID-19 lows, and the YTD number is at 19.23%, a little shy of 2019's 21.87% with one month to go. 

As mentioned previously, with some of the US Election markets not yet settled, November's numbers are in fact a little lower than they should be, but December will get the boost instead - assuming Betfair don't keep dragging settlement out until inauguration day on January 20th.