Thursday 12th April 2007

The Sports Trader has continued the recovery and has had a decent day of trading. I have been without my Au Pair again due to family problems that she is having which meant I still had a pretty interrupted day as I had to make sure the children were happy and being looked after. I ended up trading in just 5 horse races, 1 football match and 1 Premier League Darts match, with no losing trades.

My first trade was in the 14:35 at Aintree where I started with a lay of Exotic Dancer for £26 @ 3.20 and backed back £21 @ 3.60. I then laid him for £9 @ 3.20 before backing him for £8 @ 3.80 and when well clear of the field I backed him again for £96 @ 1.10 to result in a profit of £10.

  My next trade was in the 14:45 @ Leicester where I laid Slipasearcher for £114 @ 8.00 before backing back £5 @ 9.70 and a further £19 @ 4.60 to result in a profit of £91. I followed this with 2 small winning trades.

My final race trade of the day was in the 17: at Aintree where I laid Shatabdi for £18 @ 2.88 to give me another profit of £18.

My race trading day had finished with a profit of £128.

In the early evening we were again spoilt for choice with a World Cup cricket match, Premier League darts and a UEFA cup quarter final all on at the same time. I decided to watch the darts but also had the football match on my second screen.

Although I watched all 4 of the darts matches I only traded on the Scholten v Lloyd match. I started with a lay of the draw for £200 @ 4.00 with Lloyd in control of the match and backed back £28 @ 7.00. Later I laid Scholten for £8 @ 50.00 to result in a profit of £180.

With one eye on my second screen I noticed an early goal had been scored in the football match and I then backed the under 2.5 goals for £41 @ 3.50. Within a few minutes a second goal had been scored and I put up some backs of the unders @ 10.00 and 11.00. I was matched for £40 @ 10.00 and £18 @ 11.00. The price was all over the place with wild swings that were very unusual. I then laid off £100 @ 7.70 before backing back another £40 @ 10.00. This was a traders dream as within seconds I had laid off £40 @ 8.10. Next I backed the unders for £100 @ 8.60 and £130 @ 9.30. The price now stabilised a little and I gradually laid off at 8.14 for £105, 7.40 for £124, 7.30 for £10 and then started to green up with lays @ 7.00, 6.60, 6.2, and 4.20 to leave me with a profit of £50 on the overs and £80 on the unders. I then turned my attention back to the darts and ended up with a £50 profit on the football.

My day had finished with a profit of £358.

Comments

[Paul]

Well done a very nice day for you Ray.

A pathetic start to Aintree for me. I actually lost money on the Liverpool races but managed a stunning £16 profit when including the other two meets. Another whopping £20 from the soccer gave me £36 for the day. I think the next two days could be a struggle as well. My wife is away this weekend while my Mother, Brother, sister-in-law and 4 nephews/nieces are coming to visit. This means I have to entertain and feed 3 adults and 6 children while trying to trade one of the biggest days of the year.
"Welcome to my World" I hear you say.

Have a good day.

Paul

[Ray]

Hi Paul,

Good Luck for the next two days. Your last sentence took the words right out of my mouth:)

Ray

[Poker Chiq]

Hi Paul,

I stumbled across your blog a few weeks ago, and I have been reading and learning so much from your trading. Thanks! :)

Actually, as I was reading through todays entry, I became a little bit confused by the following:

"With one eye on my second screen I noticed an early goal had been scored in the football match and I then backed the under 2.5 goals for £41 @ 3.50. Within a few minutes a second goal had been scored and I put up some backs of the unders @ 10.00 and 11.00..."

Just a quick question; why would you add more money to this 'back under 2.5' trade after a second goal has been scored?

I am currently wetting my feet in the under/over goals market; but in this situation I assumed that it would be best to simply hedge for a loss, since the prices have swung the wrong way from you... yet you have added more money to the position. Why is that?

Thanks once again...

[Poker Chiq]

Sorry... my previous comment was for Ray, not Paul! :p

[Ray]

Hi Poker Chiq,

The reason I trade that particular market the way I do is because most people will have the same reaction as you did.

When most people have one view they tend to gazump each other to lay their positions, it happens in all sorts of trading including the stock market where you will often see an over-reaction to a piece of good/bad news etc.

I will have in mind what I think is fair value when a goal has been scored and if I can back at a better price than my evaluation I will take the bet.

Last night's game was a real classic case of this over-reaction happening. For a period of around 4/5 minutes the price Gyrated between 7.00 and 11.00. I would take the money on offer and straight away more would be offered, whilst at the same time I was laying off at much lower prices

If only all matches had such volatile trading we would make plenty of profits.

By the way, after the second goal had been scored, I didn't for a fleeting second believe that there would be no more goals in the match. I just wanted to take advantage of a great trading opportunity.

I hope that helps you to see why I traded in the way that I did.

Good Luck

Ray

[Jen]

Has anyone had a refresh problem at the end of several races at Aintree? The race is suspended but the bets tab only appears after a huge delay?

[Ray]

Hi Jen,

I didn't have a problem, but I did miss some races today.

Ray