Factors of Seventeen

While it may seem counter-intuitive, one side effect of retirement has been a reduction in the amount of time available for blogging. In my 'working' from home days, it was easy to find time between meetings for some research or blogging, but with no such constraints these days I'm spending more of my time out of the house.

However, the blog did mark its 17th anniversary a few days ago, and has recently been selected "as one of the Top 100 Sports Betting Blogs on the web".  

While I claim on Twitter to be the "Author of the world's number one sports trading blog Green All Over", the assertion is made with "tongue-firmly-in-cheek" and while I should perhaps be disappointed that I only rank at number 34 in this list, in all seriousness it's quite inspiring to be noticed, and with the added bonus that 34 is a Fibonacci number.

The blog is accurately described as:

an independent look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me.

I'm a little concerned that Daily Betting Blog from my old friend Steve makes the list at number 59 despite not having posted since 2021, but who am I to question the criteria used to determine the list? 

As others have noted, it's not easy coming up with content after this long, and while I have no plans to stop blogging, it's clear that as life is changing for me, it's perhaps not the priority it once was. 

Later this week I'm off to New Orleans for a ten day road trip across the United States with my son, a final father / son road trip before he becomes a married man in May, a month that will not be focused on betting but on family and trying to keep up with a younger generation on the stag weekend. My ability to drink and recover is not what it used to be. Actually, the drinking part is fine, but at 68 it's the recovery that now takes so much longer. 

I just now realised that I have been blogging for 25% of my life!

To sports and the 2025 MLB season started for the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers a little earlier than most teams with two games in Tokyo, both won by the Dodgers, but for most teams the season started last Thursday.

The College Basketball season is reaching its conclusion with the NCAA tournament to decide the National Champions down to its last four teams. It's rather more boring than usual with few surprises, and a Final Four of all number one seeds (each of the four regions is seeded).  

Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, this has only happened once before, in 2008.

The Sacred Manuscript system for this tournament currently has an impressive 22-12 record ATS, although in the Conference Tournaments, the system was only slightly profitable with a 71-66 record. 

The NBA regular season is also winding down with the playoffs starting in mid-April. Overall it hasn't been the best of seasons with Road Favourites having their worst season since 1998. 

It's better news in the NHL which is also in the final stage of its regular season, with the core system having an official ROI of 4.3%, and the Embarrassed and Rested system up 13.6% - numbers that are easily beatable. The "Tough Guys" system hasn't fared so well, with a 28-29 record so far and an ROI of -8.5%.

February Flops

February wasn't the best of months. Sports betting saw a miniscule 0.7% return, which at least was positive, but overall the month ranked as the 194th best in nominal terms out of the 197 since I started tracking, and the 184th best in percentage terms, which is a more positive way of saying that the month was one of the worst ever. 

Tesla lost 27.6% in the month, and is currently down 33% YTD, while Bitcoin lost 17.6% in February and is down 2.8% YTD. 

I did mention in the January summary that: 

As a new retiree, I'm still getting used to the new world of no salary, but if returns on investments could be like January all the time, I'll be a happy man.

Along with being a retiree comes the experience of having gone through a few roller-coaster rides in my investment career, and I'm well aware that it can be a bumpy road. Tesla will be interesting. The CEO has closely (to put it mildly) aligned himself with the current administration, which is not usually a great idea for a CEO, and leading the DOGE effort can't be anything but a distraction from running Tesla. 

With Tesla importing around 25% of their components including some from China, a tariffs war is not going to be helpful. Then there is the issue of the Elon Musk "brand" hurting demand for Teslas in Europe (a 26% drop in sales in February and likely a bigger drop when March's numbers are released) plus the competition in China and Asia from BYD and Tesla is looking like a sell. 

I reduced my position slightly at $433.63 on 17th January which was a good move, but then I bought the shares back on the 23rd at $411.75 which wasn't a good move, given that I could buy them back today at around $263.  

As I've mentioned before, most of my money is invested in low cost broad index funds with these individual share holdings just me playing with money I can afford to lose, although I'd prefer it didn't come to that. I'm planning to continue holding Tesla for now, given that I'm playing with house money after getting in back in 2017.

In the Premier League last season, backing the draw in Big 6 matches was a profitable strategy with an ROI of 104% from the 30 matches, but so far this season hasn't been as profitable with a loss of 10% after the 22 matches played so far. 

The broader strategy of simply opposing Home teams in Big 6 matches rather than target the unpredictable Draw does continue to be lucrative though, with last season's 24% ROI up slightly to 30% this season. Sunday sees Manchester United play Arsenal.