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Monday, June 13, 2011

Oil and Ascot

Well, my oil trade hit its trailing stop and got me out for a profit of €27.40 in the end. This is somewhat disappointing considering the trade was showing an unrealised profit of over sixty quid at one stage - however, I did make a profit so I shouldn't complain as you can't expect to hit the top each time. As I mentioned before, if I can ride along taking some money out of the markets along the way, I don't care if I catch the highs and lows really.


Having re-read Mark Shipman's Big Money, Little Effort over the weekend, I'm going to set up some spreadsheets and put some of his strategies into action. That book gets mixed reviews on amazon but I thought it was decent enough although it could have been fitted into a few pages as its basically a strategy based on moving averages. It's a well known momentum type strategy - when a certain short term MA crosses over the long term MA, it's time to buy (or sell when the opposite happens).

I'm also going to spend some time today working on my momentum based trading  - this time on the non-sports markets - and I'm going to set up some spreadsheets etc later.


On the racing front, Royal Ascot starts tomorrow and it's one of my favourite festivals of the year. Pure, top-class flat racing is a joy to watch and the form stands up very well. Cheltenham and the likes are great fun but I much prefer punting on the flat and I'm thinking of having my biggest bet of the year on the awesome Frankel in the St James' Palace Stakes.

The going might be a bit soft after the rain but he's so good I don't think it will matter - besides, he's won on softer ground before.

If you get into the business of backing horses at 4/11, the old 'value' argument will crop up again. Short prices don't bother me though, and value can be found on both ends of the market. In fact, the market is far more efficient at the short end. I hate using the word cert as there's no such thing - but I find it very difficult to picture Frankel being beaten. If I were asked to lay, I'd have him at 1/4 so if I'm to put my money where my mouth is, there is no other option but to back at 4/11 as that's clearly over-priced in my opinion.

Fair enough, I'm not going to win any awards for originality for picking Frankel but there's nothing wrong with backing short prices in my view - especially with top class flat horses.

For example, since 2003 at Royal Ascot, there's been 11 horses odds-on with 7 of those winning:


An overall profit of 0.85pts was shown if you backed them all.

However, if you concentrate on the top class horses only, say, horses rated over 100, then we get 3 winners from 3 bets, and a profit of 2.1pts.

(data thanks to Horse Race Base)

I know it's way too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions but I'm just trying to emphasise to people who won't back odds-on that it's not as risky as it seems.

He could lose, of course, but I'm certainly excited about seeing this colt in action again- he's an absolute superstar.

2 comments:

  1. Any thoughts on 2/1 him winning by 4L+ with PP Wayne?

    Just looking through his distances there Roderic O'Connor is the only one to get within 4 since Frankels first run at two.

    He'd probably have to under preform to come in under 4L? Although jock easing an obvious worry.

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  2. I don't have a good record on distance bets Stephen so I'm probably not the man to give advice on that bet!

    I suppose the ground would have to be considered - Chris Stickels, the clerk, reckons it is drying out but we'll see.

    The other thing, as you say, is Tom Queally possibly going easy. A few people gave him stick after the Guineas for making all and said it took a lot out of the horse. I don't agree with that but he's bound to be aware of the criticism all the same.

    There's no money in the market right now, but Betfair have a handicap bet on Frankel -2.5 lengths which could be interesting. Might check back tomorrow to see if there's any money in there:

    http://sports.betfair.com/Index.do?mi=102969728&ex=1&origin=MRL

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