Snowdon Summer Solstice Update

As mentioned in the previous post, this month has been one of parties and holiday, spending money and gaining weight rather than one for investing and dropping pounds. During my trip to Snowdonia, I went on (what is billed as) the fasted zip line in the world, and was quite pleased at the number displayed as I weighed in.

Unfortunately, it turned out the number was kilograms and not pounds and at the current exchange rate this means I'm looking at another negative month in this area. My wife and I did hike to the top of Snowdon and back again on the first day of Summer which would have burned a few calories, but this positive was more than offset by almost three weeks of enjoying life. And no broken leg on this hike which was a positive! 

The NBA playoffs wrapped up while I was away, with the Golden State Warriors winning their fourth title in eight seasons. Followers of the NBA Overs System will know that the traditional strategy ran into the problem of having very few selections with the rules changes made in the summer. The usual approach meant backing Overs in games where the line was set above 234 points, and while this strategy would have been profitable, there were only 80 selections all season.

After monitoring the impact of the rule change, in January I advised backing Overs when the total was set above 223 points and in 2022 the ROI on these has been 2.9% from 371 games.

After a rare losing mid-season month in May, backing Hot MLB Favourites looks to have returned to profitability this month, although we still have a few days to go. July will be interrupted by the annual All-Star game on the 19th, but other than the outlier of 2016, it's usually a strong month.

With the universal adoption of the Designated Hitter rule for this season, and likely for every season moving forward, (baseball purists will not be happy), I've not been investing in the Totals yet in matches involving National League teams. For the Overs system, this has saved me 8.8 units, while on the Unders it has saved me a whopping 31.7 units. Following the Totals system in American League matches only would have resulted in a very small profit of 1.8 units from 108 bets. With not much else going on these days for sports investing, I may take a look at the numbers so far this season over the next few days. 

May Not The Best

Backing Hot MLB Favourites in mid-season has been a long term success story as regular readers will know. Excluding the delayed and abbreviated COVID season of 2020, only twice (June 2015 and July 2016) has this strategy failed to return a profit in a single month, yet this month looks like being the third. 

Mid-season means the months from May to August, but backing these favourites at the start and end of the season is also generally profitable. 

Unfortunately after the Los Angeles Dodgers loss on Monday night, we're looking at the worst mid-season month since July of 2016:

Unfortunately, April also saw a loss, so including Sep/Oct 2021 we are on an unprecedented (since 2013) run of three losing months, and more than 10 units down on the season to date. Time to panic? Probably not. The loss is small, and the system remains profitable where selections are coming off a loss, so I'd say hang in there. Besides, the 'official' prices I use from Killer Sports are to illustrate the efficacy of a strategy and can almost always be bettered if you shop around.

Most of the big football matches for the 2021-22 season are now in the books, although the National League Playoff Final is to come this weekend. Only five of the last 18 have ended as Draws, and there have been two or more goals every year since 2011, so don't bet the house on a Draw. 

In the EPL, the Draws faded somewhat in the second half of the year as is usually the case. The "Toss-Up" selections finished with an ROI of 14.6%, which was in line with the long-term returns from these bets, and still just the one losing season since 2009-10:  

The "Close" selections finished with an ROI of 2.4% from 73 selections. 

Real Madrid's victory in the Champions League Final over Liverpool meant that just one of the three UEFA club finals ended as a Draw, but that's enough for a small profit. 

And in less than two months time, it'll be the FA Community Shield and we do it all again, with the bonus of a mid-season World Cup.

May was a bad month in the financial markets, although a loss of 1.16% almost feels like a win after a good finish and a recovery from 8.12% down on May 12th. Overall I'm now down 5.35% from my high, and down 1.57% year-to-date. 

Unless June sees a six figure gain, the quarter will be the first negative one since COVID hit in Q1 2020. 

Elon Musk hasn't been doing Tesla investors any favours with his plans to purchase Twitter and removing any doubt about the type of person he is by aligning himself with the US Republican party. 

I'm still up 1,106% on this investment which sounds great, but the stock has fallen 39% from its high which isn't so great. 

Overall I'm where I was in December 2021 so things are not terrible, although I shan't dwell too much on the fact that I've been working for five months and basically stood still.  

May was also a bad month for calories, the month ranking 19th out of 20 since I started tracking these, and with the expected weight gain. Poor excuses include two work trips during the month, some big football matches and a couple of birthdays which interfered with my usual routine. The alcohol consumed during these activities has its own calories of course, but worse seems to be the additional calories from eating bad food when my ability to make smart decisions is impaired. I never seem to crave a healthy salad after beers; it's always fried chicken and chips or equivalent! There seems to be no way to cheat the scales unfortunately. 

June is unlikely to see much improvement either. After a trip to Los Angeles for an 80th birthday party this weekend, I return for an even bigger 95th birthday celebration (for my Dad) in Kent the following weekend, after which I'll be spending a few days in Snowdonia with my lucky wife. The thought did cross my mind to attend the funeral for Graeme Dand on Monday 13th and show my respects but as it's on the morning after Dad's birthday party, there's unfortunately no way I can get up to Dundee in time. 

Given the activities already planned, it's highly unlikely that my caloric intake will be anywhere near the under 2,000 a day needed to shed a few pounds. Oh well, there's always July!