July 2021 Review

July is now in the books, and another profitable month in the MLB for 'hot favourites' although for left handed starters, some regression to the mean has not unexpectedly taken place this month.

Overall the system was up another 23.55 units taking the season total so far to 82.95 units, recovering nicely after a shaky start in April. 

The return for left handed starters is now at 22.5% on the Money Line, and 26.7% on the Run Line after a small loss in July. 

The T-Bone System had a losing July, dropping 1.87 units from 64 bets, and is now currently down 6.05 units (ROI -2.8%) on the season. 

The Totals Systems are now both in profit for the season although Unders is contributing 85% and for reasons previously discussed, this percentage will likely continue to drop.  

I've already covered the Euros, the Stanley Cup Finals and the NBA Finals which reached their conclusion last month, and advised that the Gold Cup was not a place to try the knockout Draw system. 

With all six knockout matches so far being won by the favourite, anyone looking for Draws would have been out of luck, but all competitions are not created equal as I cautioned.

The final, for the seventh time, is between Mexico and the United States with Mexico shortening from around 2.71 when the finalists were known, to a current price of ~2.32. Across all international tournaments, when the fair probability of the favourite is less than 0.5, backing the Draw has an ROI of 27% which initially makes this a tempting proposition, but in Final matches the ROI is only 6%, and in Gold Cup matches is negative, which makes it far less tempting.

As previously mentioned, sports investments now make up a very small percentage of my income, and as would be expected for someone of my age, my monthly spreadsheet update is far more about pension and property investments than the outcome of a few football or baseball games. 

Some of the individual stocks I've mentioned in this blog are included (left) but in real terms, 1.18% of my pension is far more than 2.36% of sports profits. 

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. 

Only five companies in the S&P 500 have higher share prices but no split has yet been forthcoming. 

While stock splits don't, in themselves, create any value, "a stock split can influence share price and valuation in a number of ways. The action signals management's confidence in the company's growth outlook and it can be viewed as an indication that they believe the business is in position to expand in a way that will push the stock back up to its pre-split levels." This benefited my holding in Telsa last year, and similarly Apple although I don't directly hold any of that company's stock.

Given that the stock is up 55.75% since I invested, I'm happy to wait this one out.

Tesla had a flat month, while my Bitcoin investment remains in the red despite a decent July.

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

Overall July was the ninth consecutive positive month, but wasn't quite up to the numbers from March to June. 

As Morgan Housel puts it in his excellent book The Psychology of Money "Two topics impact everyone , whether you are interested in them or not: health and money", and on that theme what wasn't so great in July was a 10.6lb gain in weight. After breaking my leg, I dropped 27lbs in the first quarter of the year, but since then 14.5lbs has been regained. Walking again is great, but perhaps my destination shouldn't be the pub so often! 

Making money is great, but without good health it's all rather pointless, so a new month and some new health and exercise goals.

Good luck to you all in August.