“I have to say the end of February has been a testing few days…”
Welcome to the seventh instalment of the ‘Can I make a living from Football Index’ series.
We are moving into the business end of the season now as the UEFA Champions League and Europa League knockout stages begin and we start to take stock of which players can go all the way and maximise their playing time as well as bring in healthy returns.
First off I am pleased to announce I have teamed up with FreeSuperTips.com to spread the good word of the Index to create a weekly journal type feature of some buys and sales I have made as well as a few potential tips.
This is in addition to the good lads at FootballCritic.com who I have been creating content for several weeks now. Check out their sites and my latest articles on the above links and keep an eye out for more on your Twitter timeline and spread the good word.
February has been a tricky period for traders from what I am picking up on around chat channels and Twitter. Some may not have felt the pinch that much but others may be feeling like Deontay Wilder after going a few rounds of getting beat to **** by Tyson Fury. It all depends on who you hold and what strategy you have.
The Footie itself is up over 4,500 I have been informed since the end of January so the market as a whole hasn’t had any official dip. What we are seeing is more volatility as players are, at times, brutally sold off for small reasons like short suspensions, slight injuries or even for just being substituted.
Short-termism is an expression that gets banded around and you could say this is a solid way of describing it. As a fella who is well known to be short-term with players in my time, I wouldn’t fully describe it as just this, although it is a factor. I would be more inclined to call it irrational.
Emotional or Merciless?
“In-play trading takes a certain level of skill. It took a lot of hard work and experience from myself to make it viable…”
When I have been on a player for a short amount of time there was a method behind it and risk evaluated. Always. I don’t like to part with my money easily.
Not including in-play flips, the only time I buy a player and instant sell them off within several days or hours is a cheeky low share amount, low cost, low-risk punt on a cheap player with a small spread. My general trading on the Index is always to market sell.
Yet we are seeing this type of “dumping” behaviour with more expensive players with wide spreads and it’s a bit frightening tbh. The cost of these trades must be a killer. We have all been there feeling we need to IS off a player for whatever reason and it’s painful, yet these lot are seemingly doing it at will.
The instinct is to call it emotional and irrational behaviour. Some of what we are seeing in terms of dismissing a player so willfully and quickly is beyond any logic. But that is with the thought process of a trader. Maybe this behaviour isn’t completely irrational, maybe it’s just blatant high-risk gambling.
We have seen people out there put a £20k bet on Arsenal to win a one-off game. High risk, high reward. So maybe the Index has attracted these types of gamblers who think they can make decent money with a similar attitude here?
If that is true, it would be interesting to see how well (or poorly) they are doing. Maybe one of these high-risk gamblers will share their profit and losses from this type of behaviour one day. That is assuming they actually exist, I am still just speculating at this stage in an attempt to explain what we are seeing.
There is nothing wrong with short-term trading. It has been around before I joined the platform. I was inspired by certain parts of it like fixture trading by experienced traders and I still do this today.
In-play trading takes a certain level of skill. It took a lot of hard work and experience from myself to make it viable and isn’t for the faint-hearted based on testimonies from those who tried and will never try again.
It can be a bit bizarre to see players rise 10-15p in a short space of time and then crash back down again if they didn’t actually do a lot wrong. Small rises and/or falls around game days are natural but these seem to be getting bigger. This may purely be down to more traders equals more volatility and just something we all need to get used to.
Or like I have gone into, it could be due to your typically instant high risk, high reward gamblers who may get bored after a while and go back to regular bookmakers or exchanges if they decide it isn’t working on the Index. Who knows really? Let’s see how this behaviour pans out.
How’s the 200 club?
If you have read earlier episodes you will know that early in the season I started a ‘200 club’ which was made up of quality PB performers who should be fighting it out for those star man divs on any given day.
I made this club as the new dividend structure that was announced was generous and I felt I had enough money in the Index to add some high-end players into my port, as well as carry out my active trading.
As of today, I can say that this has pretty much been disbanded. Reason being the drop in the value of these PB monsters we all know and love was just too annoying to bear. I didn’t mind at first but after a while my thoughts of the opportunity cost got the better of me.
I loved holding Messi and seeing him bend one in the top corner to take star man, it was a brilliant feeling but the financials just weren’t stacking up. I held him throughout his massive drop and it was sad to see him leave.
I have no idea if he will continue to drop or will stay around the price he is now for another season or two but I decided I just don’t need the hassle of it. It was the same with Toni Kroos. I love Toni, many do, but his price has gone from over £5 to less than £4 in a short period of time.
I sold him to the market for £4.70 even though I didn’t really want to but I could see his drop coming. He is now £3.82 and if I had held on, then all of the divs he has won me would have been wiped out, as well as the cap app. It’s sad but I felt it was necessary.
Neymar was one I should have sold when he had that big rise lately to £8.83 but with his star-man power, I held onto him. I sold him recently for £8.20ish and he is now dipped back under £8. Brutal.
I only held 200 shares of these players but there are others with thousands who are feeling the dip right now. Financially that is. They may still very much enjoy holding them and believe they will rise again so don’t stress about it, but for me, I have sold them and will only get back on if the Index presents another opportunity I think is worth it.
Only one man has remained and that is Trent Alexander-Arnold. Reason being he is a lot younger than the others and with his powers getting stronger rather than weaker, I see no real reason to get rid of him just yet.
Hits and misses
“…I had too much faith in them to repeat their impressive performances”
I haven’t done a Hits and Misses segment for a while so let’s do one, shall we? The following were some trades that went well and some not so well for one reason or another. Enjoy.
Hits
Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich)
I love this kid. I have owned him for a while (in my world) and I am not planning on letting him go anytime soon. His performance against Chelsea in the Champions League was of no surprise to me. I am surprised, however, in how well he is turning himself into a left-back, as I only really judged him on going forward. This kid is a real talent.
I first saw him when he was 16 playing for Vancouver Whitecaps when I was given one of their games to randomly analyse in my football performance role I used to have and he stood out to me. He was head and shoulders above the rest.
It was only after I did the game and looked him up that I saw his age. It blew my mind. I knew right there and then he would be at a big club soon. Bayern were the smart ones and took him. I have heard Man Utd had the chance and turned it down, what has been going on over there?!
He is up almost 90p per share for the month and my only gripe is I didn’t top up even more on him!
Bukayo Saka (Arsenal)
Forward players slotting in at left-back is a bit of a theme it seems, as another young player I have liked for a while is doing a similar job at Arsenal, albeit more temporary. Saka came to my attention in the Europa League last season and stood out to me as the best of the Arsenal youngsters.
He has been tasked with slotting in at left-back this season and he has took advantage to show off his attacking skills and grabbed plenty of assists. His defensive skills are obviously in need of improvement but he has done a cracking job and the market has noticed.
I got on a bit late in terms of this month’s whopping 50% rise but when a player rises over a £1 per share in value, you have some room to still make a decent amount whenever you got on. Let’s hope he keeps on smashing it.
Bruno Fernandes (Man Utd)
We all saw it right? A Gold day Star Man win and then boom! So I couldn’t do this episode without mentioning him. I grabbed a cheeky 300 when he slotted in his penalty vs Watford, as it was pre-deadline and he had a shout at some divs if he held onto GWG, and it worked out well.
Plus, I had a very strong feeling he would win media for the day no matter what else went on, so was a pretty safe bet. With some luck from other games, he managed to hold onto his Golden Shower of maximum divs for the day and the next day the market reacted.
From when I bought him, he is up well over a £1 per share in price and I actually missed the initial FOMO buying of him the day after the night before. I shall keep my 300 for a while though and see how it goes.
*Update – he got another GWG pen last night and rocketed again! I just sat and watched without topping up, d’oh!
Misses
Erling Braut Haaland (Dortmund)
Here is one I have missed out on a lot. When he scored that hat trick on his debut I was working so didn’t make a single penny from a monumental rise. Since then he has had an up and down month.
His graph for February is some rollercoaster. It’s perfect symmetry. £5.50 to £6.24 back down to £5.50 and now he is up to £6.13. Throughout all of this, I have pretty much been on the sidelines. I attempted some in-play action in THAT Champions League brace vs PSG but I only made a small amount after commission.
Jude Bellingham (Birmingham City)
The most anticipated IPO went without a hitch (unbelievably) and I made some money on him. I ironically had my own technical issues that went tits up, so I didn’t make a killing like I hoped. I sold him near £3 and moved on.
So, when he had his near 90p per share rise recently I was nowhere to be seen. I actually saw some buys going into him the night before this epic pump but I left it. You can imagine my reaction to seeing him jacked up to his eyeballs the next morning. Such joy when this happens without you! Grrr
Hits then misses
There were a few players I did well to get on early and with a decent amount of shares invested, but I didn’t take full advantage of it by selling near their peak.
I nailed Musa Barrow & Adam Ounas early into a big PB performance that got attention from the market and I went relatively big. I sold some shares at a decent amount but with minor injuries, suspensions or poor follow up PB scores, they were sold off by traders for fun.
I had too much faith in them to repeat their impressive performances with the favourable fixtures they had to come and should have hedged my bets more by taking the profit and keeping a smaller amount.
I touched on it early in this episode, but I underestimated how much of a tanking they could get so quickly with the extreme trading we are seeing…or gambling. They aren’t the only ones who have received this treatment this month.
These two are good players and I don’t see the need to be sold off so badly in mass and they may have their day in the sun again soon. But being on players that receive this kind of up and down extremes isn’t really for me.
Some numbers
“I certainly didn’t maximise potential profits this month…”
After the madness of January, this month has been a bit flat for most traders and I was no different. However, as long as the all-time profit keeps ticking up at a reasonable rate I am relatively satisfied.
My all-time profit currently sits at £53,967 which is up £8,711 from last months figure of £45,256. This is an increase of 19.25% over the course of 30 days.
The average taking of over £2k a week this time around is above the average for the season so far, which is now up to £1,464 a week since August.
As for this season specifically since starting the blog, the original £6.7k I started with is now up to £49,167 which is an ROI of 633% over the course of almost 29 weeks (six and a half months or so).
My all-time dividends total has gone above the £7k mark which was helped by over £1k gathered this month. For someone who wasn’t even that bothered about dividends for most of my time on the Index, that isn’t bad. They count for around 13% of my all-time profit.
I will give a shout out to the Super Match Day points as well, however, in order for me to get the final figure of the below, I will need to make my net shares bought or net buys a positive figure. I have more chance of doing so via the positive net shares angle so I will try and sort this out come the deadline.
In summary, I certainly didn’t maximise potential profits this month. Some players I did get on early before a solid rise, saw a sharp drop afterwards before I had sold. Plus add in those players I completely missed out on (as per usual) it’s another example of what can really be done on this platform.
This month could have been an absolute stonker with a few minor moments going differently.
Testing few days
“I want the platfrom to grow from strength to strength, we all do”
I have to say the end of February has been a testing few days for the platform.
Firstly, a few players positions changed which caused some to be sold off and some to get pumped. It was quickly speculated that these changes were a glitch in the Opta feed, which caused a dip on those players that had a rise.
A couple of days have past now and they have all reverted back to their original positions! This is beyond annoying. If you IS’d the players who’s positionnal changes didn’t seem to favour them and jumped on the players that were seemingly beneficial, you needed have bothered.
Worse yet, you are very likely to be out of pocket now and may own players you don’t want. Not to mention getting rid of players you do actually like. Shambles. This isn’t the first time it’s happened and it can’t go on like this.
FI need to take ownership of the positions of players within their own platform. It has a major impact on prices and can’t be left in third party hands who may suffer glitches. I don’t know the ins and outs of how this can be achieved but this has to be sorted out.
The issues didn’t stop there.
Thursday night saw an unprecedented event that I didn’t think was even possible, market sell wasn’t working. No, they didn’t turn off Instant sell, traders with shares on the market were not being sold to traders that were buying! Crazy.
I can speak first hand and say this kicked me square in the bollocks. In-play trading is a key part of my life on the Index and for my shares to not sell, only to later go down in value and be less appealing in the market, is unacceptable.
I mean, what the hell?? Being unable to sell shares on a stock market platform, despite them being bought? Ridiculous. Talk about amateur hour but this is arguably the worst thing I have ever seen.
I have no idea how it happened and I have no idea if it can happen again. I can’t lie and say my confidence in the platform isn’t at the same levels as it was before this. Even if it’s down only 1% lower, it’s still a gremlin I could really do without. All of us could, including FI.
I want the platfrom to grow from strength to strength, we all do, so I hope they learn the lessons needed very quickly.
That’ll do for this month. I hope February was decent for you and that March is even better. You can find me on Twitter @GingerPirlo_FI
(If you somehow haven’t signed up to Football Index yet, you can do so by clicking this link you won’t regret it!)
The Ginger Pirlo 