The standout book of 2016 is Squares & Sharps, Suckers & Sharks by Joseph Buchdahl. The book should be read by many more than who appear to be reading it. Maybe people don't like to be told how much hard work is required to be successful and prefer their own delusions to the harsh reality. Too many beginner traders enter the exchanges following a viewing of Wall Street or The Wolf of Wall Street and imagine a lifestyle they wish to emulate. Jordan Belfort, really?
Having missed the chance to work in the financial markets (usually through a lack of ability and/or qualifications) some beginners imagine that sports trading will provide them with riches without the hard work. Buchdahl shows in S&S, S&S that whilst most don't make a profit, those that do, put in a lot of hard work and are unlikely to hand their edge on a plate to others. I recommend that you read the book before going any further.
Betfair unveiled streaming this year, whereby their data is pushed to client software rather than being requested. Streaming is a two-edged sword. For manual traders it is more noise and chaos with which to confound and confuse. The only traders who will make best use of streaming will be the algo-bots, able to process and act upon those millisecond updates. Algorithmic trading is the future of sports trading as it is already in financial trading.
If Trader247 was a quant in the financial markets, his manager would be throwing a huge bonus at him, such is Trader247's skill at picking up pennies in front of a steamroller as effectively as any high-frequency trading firm. Only the paucity of volume and market capacity prevents Trader247 from earning more. He has found his technical trading niche and I applaud him for that. I doubt his detractors make a single penny.
I can't remember when I first discovered Trader247 but his output is worth reading. His articles are not detailed but he has mentioned to me that he may increase his content following a career change. We shall see. (keywords - pull, finger and out.) Trader247 is the kind of slow and steady algo-bot trader that I want to see more of. Some have poked fun at his small returns and don't appreciate the fact that he is consistently profitable.
If Trader247 was a quant in the financial markets, his manager would be throwing a huge bonus at him, such is Trader247's skill at picking up pennies in front of a steamroller as effectively as any high-frequency trading firm. Only the paucity of volume and market capacity prevents Trader247 from earning more. He has found his technical trading niche and I applaud him for that. I doubt his detractors make a single penny.
Advanced Cymatic Trader is still my software recommendation to those manual traders who have yet to make the jump to algo-trading. The software is as good as any other on the market and far
cheaper. Created by Gavin Porter - a fellow computer scientist with a financial market background - the software gives sports
traders exactly what they need. ACT was first to offer Position in Queue. Gavin leads where others
follow.
For myself, the year has been a good one, with profitable algorithms developed. My new book, Betfair Trading Techniques, has proved popular. You will not find any of my strategies in the book. All I give is a solid foundation on which to research your own algorithmic trading strategies, pointing out the well-worn tracks and showing new avenues that may prove more profitable. I also provide a few tools to aid you in the search for edge.
Some manual traders and their fan boys castigate me for writing as many as 174 articles in the space of 6 years. How does an algo-trader find the time to write an article in 10 minutes, once every 12 days? Many of my detractors write many more articles in a single year and appear unable to leave off Twitter for as much as five minutes with their incessant babble. How do manual traders make any profit at all if they are glued to a screen writing guff on Twitter all day long?
This website gets more page views per day than most of its ilk so I must be doing something right. Curiously, outside of the UK the majority of my readers are from Russia and the United States, which are not countries I would immediately associate with the exchange trading of sports. Thanks to Google Translate I can read what my Russian cousins are saying. All good, I am happy to say. I have always thought that the Russians are a highly educated and intellectual people. Contact me for speaking engagements. I hear Saint Petersberg is nice.
The year 2017 will see me releasing more research. Again, no edge given, just tools for readers to do with as they please. My desire is to flood the exchanges with a new breed of algorithmic bot trader, who may have new ideas and new ways of looking at the trading problem and will take trading to the logical conclusion that I, Buchdahl and others have come to. Fuddy-duddies pushing tired old manual trading techniques can expect to be hounded again, throughout the year.
Predictions? Andy Murray to retain his number one position in the rankings and to win the French Open. With cycling's Grand Tours reducing team sizes to eight riders and Nairo Quintana still improving I think he could well win the Tour de France in 2017. And, more manual traders will turn to algorithmic trading in 2017 to avoid emotional, tired, loss-chasing, miss-timed trades and to take advantage of speed of data acquisition, processing and trading thus freeing up more time to enjoy life away from their monitor screens.
"Where could you get money that you don't give back? Let's go on with the show!"
(Ethel Merman - and in photo)
