“Weeks are dragging already and this thing has only just started.”
Welcome to the eighth instalment of the ‘Can I make a living from Football Index?’ series.
First off, I hope you and your families are all well and are coping with what the world is going through at the minute. Football doesn’t seem that important atm but naturally, we will all miss it and hope it comes back as soon as it’s deemed safe to do so.
Index wise, talk about drama. I had a quick look at last months episode and it feels like it was written months ago. I was talking about heading into the business end of the season and having a little moment to talk about the irrational instant selling we were seeing.
Now, the business end has been put on ice and maybe even cancelled off completely at some point. I don’t think that will happen if you asked me now, however, seeing the FA cancel the non-league spectrum there is a chance this drastic action could creep its way up the footballing pyramid.
The Premier League hold the cards over the FA of course so like I say, I don’t personally think they will cancel the league and start fresh with unfinished business to attend to as it won’t sit well with millions of people and will never ever be forgotten. Do we really want an asterisk against season 2019-20*?
Even if it means sandwiching in next season to a tight schedule or moving consecutive seasons slowly until it reaches the normal schedule again, leagues around the world must look at every option to get this one done. Football will be a lot better for it.
March-ing on
March 2019 was the time of the share-split which changed the Index and was huge news for us all to get used to and to work with going forward. March 2020 will also live long in the memory as the time of the Coronavirus, or Covid-19 to be more specific which put football on hold.
Seeing football just stop with games to play is bizarre. Seeing the world around you go into lockdown can also be scary. Uncertainty occurs and people start to panic. The stock market crashed and given our platform, some traders reacted in a similar fashion and we witnessed an instant sell fest.
FI reacted by sticking on monumental spreads and having rolling blackouts for the IS button to try and stem the tide. Some can argue this was the right thing to do, others will say it was sh*thousery.
I personally can’t see how they should have just left spreads as they were given the panic. Not just to protect FI but traders as well by basically putting people well and truly off even thinking of dumping players at that massive cost and forcing them to take time to settle down and think.
That being said, I can also see the argument of sticking them up as much as 40% may have been a step too far for those that were hell-bent that they needed their money out immediately. As we don’t know everyone’s individual circumstances. So I am somewhere in the middle on that issue.
What is truly amazing about March 2020 is literally days previous to this mass panic and football being postponed until further notice, is that Football Index announced a huge offer of double dividends and a £1500 trading bonus.
This offer resulted in huge amounts of money being ploughed into the platform, particularly in Bruno, and seeing people’s all-time profits sore (if you owned the right players). It must be said that this offer was created amongst the early days of the coronavirus so FI did have this Footie boost in mind when offering it.
Looking back at my February update just four weeks ago, the header of that episode said this, “I have to say the end of February has been a testing few days…”. I seriously feel like I was writing that episode in a different time zone. 😀
Weeks are dragging already and this thing has only just started. I wrote a tweet saying “I wish I had tracked my media wins since the last game of football was played”. It’s only been over a week! If someone told me it was a few weeks ago I would have believed them.
So…how we gonna make money now?
“I have repeated a phrase consistently in my time on the Index which is “when a door closes, it opens a window”
A short answer is media dividends. No football matches remove one element of Football Index in the shape of Match Days divs along with IPDs as a side dish but it leaves Media as the forefront of the platform.
In a time long long ago, before I had even heard of the Index, the platform used to only be only about media anyway. Winning Match Day dividends and trading around performance was just an idea that hadn’t come into practice yet and the platform grew from there.
So, as painful as it is to have PB taken away, the beauty of the Index is that it is still open for business. I saw a tweet the other day of William Hill promoting offers on a game in Belarus or something on Twitter which is hilarious to look at compared to FI.
When the season ends normally in May what do we do as traders and what happens to the platform? It focusses on media days and traders work around that. This moment in time isn’t quite the same as that as it’s unprecedented and completely unique, however, one thing that is the same is Treble media days.
No football matches equal Treble media days on the Index and that will never change. Whether its an International Break, summer transfer window or the postponement of football matches around Europes top 5 leagues. Journalists will still write about players and the most written about will win Media Dividends.
We have had a lovely bonus at the moment of Double Dividends which has turned the winning player payout 10p of divs for gathering the most article points which have been brilliant. I myself have picked up winners in the top two almost every day as well the odd full house.
One of the themes I have around the winners since the pandemic is certain players have seen lots of attention for a couple of days and then that wave moves onto another player and then moves on again.
For e.g. Bruno was still in the medias mind last week, then Pogba got his fill and most recently Jadon Sancho’s potential transfer (as well as how good he is) articles have taken over. For holders of those players, in particular, it has been a solid period of picking up some money in spite of the huge drops overall on the market most of us have suffered from.
The other way of making money atm is good old fashioned capital appreciation. I mentioned the suffering overall in the market after the mass sell-offs and listing of players, but some players have been strong amongst this period of uncertainty and that’s players who could potentially feature heavily in the media.
So, as well as picking up your 10p per share of media dividends on Sancho lately, if you have held throughout the past week or so, or even if you have only just bought in recently, you have seen your shares rocket in price and seen you all-time profit figure go up.
I have repeated a phrase consistently in my time on the Index which is “when a door closes, it opens a window”. If performance-based players look to be out of action for Lord knows how long for, don’t ignore the potential of players that may feature heavily in the media.
The Index has a remarkable ability to show traders both sides of the story and it’s just a case of seeing it. For e.g. if a player goes down with an ACL he will get sold off/listed, however, his replacement(s) may get bought up so if you are quick to recognise this you can make money from it.
Now, the money you make may only be enough to cover the losses you are receiving from the “bad news” but that’s a lot better than only taking the loss. There are moments where if your all-time profit is still at a similar figure you have done well.
What about me?
“…I expect them all to have their fair share of battles for those media spots and could be a nice regular income via media wins.”
For myself across the past month, I have had a mixture of instant selling, listing and buying before, during and after this ‘crisis’ as it were. When the announcement of Double Divs happened, for example, I ploughed into Bruno and grabbed some Kimmich and Neymar.
Since then I have reduced my Bruno holding, sold Neymar on without any damage but have Kimmich on the sell queue at a loss. I actually had Kimmich at a 30p profit for a few days, as I was one of the first people to recognise buying him with Double Divs on offer and Bayern having a couple of easy looking matches.
Typically he has now changed to a Midfielder so I may have him on the queue for a long time, I don’t have any plans to take him off and keep him. I feel my money is better off elsewhere, even if it’s just sat in my account ready to go or even to be withdrawn.
My all-time profit has been a bit of see-saw. I made a couple of grand from the big announcement. That went down a grand on ‘Black Thursday’ where people seemed to be listing or instant selling on mass. It went up and down a bit consistently since but I am now, thanks to some of my buys, sat at an all-time high.
Trading
When the coronavirus situation was building my initial reaction was to not really do anything. I wanted to take stock and think about the situation and what might happen. Once I had a think, I did instant sell some players but only those of smaller spreads who I couldn’t see being bought anytime soon.
I felt the money was best out of those and in my control and didn’t mind the smallish hit given I was up a couple of grand from the big announcement. I also listed a lot of players who did have a larger spread who I was not prepared to take the larger hit.
Some of those in hindsight may have been worth just dumping before the HUGE spread came on but some of those players have sold at a loss (some big losses) and some are still in the queue.
You could argue that I should have just kept the players for when/if the market fully recovers but tbh we may be facing 6 months of no football and I don’t like such large amounts of money being tied up like that. My own choice. That’s if they even sell anyway.
Another reason I am willing to take the losses on those is I can use the money elsewhere if needed. Some buys I have made over the past couple of weeks are Sancho, Pogba, Coutinho, Bellingham and Gnabry.
Most of those are because I expect them all to have their fair share of battles for those media spots and could be a nice regular income via media wins. I also could smell the market looking to buy into them at different times and got in early.
The exception to a media buy is Gnabry who had a positional change to a forward which makes him a lot more worthwhile in holding a slightly more ‘valuable’ to hold. I can see the market placing him as a £5 player (or near enough) once football comes back so I took the opportunity to buy in now for fear of missing a big rise.
This means that as far as ‘holds’ are concerned, these are the following players I consider to be ‘in my portfolio’ although I don’t actually believe in such behaviour but that issue is for another time:
Bruno Fernandes – the all-rounder. His price will go up and down but I can’t be bothered trying to time exits and re-entries. I have kept a certain amount through the odd buy and sell and that will stick now.
Alphonso Davies – held for a while and defender change will defo help his appeal. I love this kid.
Memphis Depay – I may top him up at some point as the Euro delay helps him a lot.
Phil Foden – I sold half my stake to the market but he has recovered a bit lately. Could have a huge year next season.
Kai Havertz – He was my rock-solid hold before the corona stuff which proves anything can happen that we have zero control over. I can’t see any huge return coming up in the short term and he may be blunt in the long term given the crisis but I don’t wanna get rid of him completely. Currently have half my stake on the market but I may unlist if he starts getting real media attention.
Jude Bellingham – I could smell the market wanting to get on him so did so myself. He is getting some media without actually winning any. He has been rising slowly though, so see how this transfer pans out.
Philippe Coutinho – Very similar to Jude I could sense he was going to get some action as he was hanging around the media spots without really smashing them and times my entry pretty well as he was 23p the next time I opened the app. A move back to the Prem would be sweet. My tip has always been Leicester given he worked with Brendan Rodgers but see what happens.
Serge Gnabry – Positional change is key. He is a peak performance player rather than high averages but peaks win you divs. If he can win as a midfielder he has lots of potential as a forward. Happy to pick up at around £4 in the current market.
Paul Pogba* – I have had my moments with PP, hence the asterisk. I had bought very well for under £7 with a decent top up later on with a decent sale of some shares (price-wise) at one stage. However, I also got over-excited and bought in further near his peak which he may never reach again.
I’m not sure what I want to do with my remaining shares at the moment and given his up and down price, I can see I am not the only one. Double divs for media are nice but they are ending soon and he has to maintain his relevance to prevent further listing. Given I bought the ones I have at near his peak price it’s a tricky one.
Jadon Sancho – If I have had my slight moments with Pogba over the past couple of weeks, that’s nothing compared to my history with Sancho. If ever there was a player I royally screwed up on a consistent basis he is the one. The Golden Boy of the index is my dark stain.
I have owned Sancho before but through a loss of belief, misguided opportunity cost or just sheer stupidity I have sold them way too early and not got back on the horse anywhere near quickly enough. Looking back at his graph and my lack of ownership for the majority of that time is just embarrassing tbh 😀
Even now I bought a decent chunk of him but then watched him drop to below £10. Part of me was cursing my actions once again and almost declared ‘you know what, he and I are just never gonna work’ but I avoided the temptation to market sell.
Reason being there was no way I was a) taking a loss but more importantly b) selling him at this moment in time. Use your brain Pirlo and forget the past. He could take over the summer media-wise all being well and I can see him pushing £13+ if not reaching £15 if all the dots line up.
I must admit to the following, even though I didn’t make another total f*ck up on the boy I still made a mistake. I didn’t buy more when he dipped under £10 which is fine. But I also didn’t buy more when he was around £10.60ish whilst winning media with my finger hovering over the buy button.
I managed to sleep through (physically and mentally) a good 80p rise before finally going bigger on him which can be added to the highlight reel of Sancho moments of brain farts but at least I did it eventually eh?
Now, even saying that we still don’t know what will happen in the future but fingers crossed he gets all the media he deserves and this transfer stuff drags on for months on end.
Numbers
“The aim of this blog was to show the potential of the Index…”
Strange month ongoing profits wise but only going to get tougher to maintain given my trading style is mainly around matches and matchdays. In fact, I can’t see how they will stay at a similar level for the foreseeable in the current climate.
However, I have already made steps towards potential media solid players and as quickly as you can’t see something one week on the Index, something else happens the week after to guide you in another direction. Who knows where we will be in a months time.
As I speak we are already seeing a bit of money being put into the Index again which is really positive but I am cautious that this could be just temporary, given the current net spend trading bonus being reset for those with negative spends, we shall have to wait and see.
I am going to take this month’s profits up to the all-time profit email we received on the 27th March:
For this season specifically, when I started this blog, the total profit now sits at £49,480. The blog had a start date of 11th Aug with £6,700 in the Index with no further investment during this process.
So, over the course of those seven and a half months or 33 weeks, if you prefer, the rate of return is now at 738.51%. For some perspective. without any withdrawals, the amount I would have in the Index today would be £56,180.
The aim of this blog was to show the potential of the Index and I hope the above goes some way of showing that. I started with a moderate amount, no further investments, just compounding the profits made over and over again to keep the rate going up. Profits making profits. 😀
As you can see. the all-time profit is now just shy of £60k at £59,812 which means this month’s ongoing profits have gone up £5,845. That is an increase of 9.23%.
It was a day shy of 4 weeks since the last episode so taking in £1,461.25 a week in the month we have just had, I shall take that. That figure was pretty close to my average weekly “income” for this season.
My all-time dividends have gone up over a thousand pounds and beats last months haul. This was helped by the media based players I invested in for when the football matches came to a stop winning regularly.
Interestingly (as far as I am aware) the double dividend “extra” payments don’t actually count towards the dividends figure on the app so my dividend based payouts have been a bit more than what that is showing me. Not that I am complaining.
Going forward
In the short term, my focus will be on those media dividend rankings and seeing which players are looking like dominating at any given moment in time. I have had regular winners over the double dividend period which obviously has been satisfying.
All we can do overall is keep monitoring the situation of when football may be back. My own view it will be several months so I will be relying on those media players for the foreseeable. With an eye on adding some to my ‘port’ if they look to be a potential consistent presence.
Some traders are already looking into buying players for when football does come back, basically “PB players”, so monitoring the market is also worth keeping an eye on, even if its just a casual one.
Personally, I am not looking that far ahead yet as we have no idea how long this virus will keep football players off the pitch. It could be three months, six months or even a year. Just imagine that scenario. It may seem way off the mark but we just don’t know.
I heard Mike Bohan dropping a hint that we may see some old fashioned IPOs drop soon so I shall be keeping an eye out for those…as always!
Happy trading and take care.
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 