Wednesday 14 March 2007

I Don't Like Cricket - I Love It!

Daily P/L: £78.59
Monthly P/L: £212.69

Today saw the start of the Cricket World Cup and what will hopefully be a cracking couple of months. The opening match gave us a mouthwatering taste of what lies ahead but it's not until the Super 8 phase starts at the end of March that the tournament gets really exciting.

West Indies v Pakistan
What can I say? It's been an absolute dream start to the World Cup for me. As I was in work all day I missed the West Indies innings but I had been keeping track on how they were going via the Cricinfo live scorecards. When I saw they'd posted a score of 241 my initial reaction was that it was good enough to win. I'd done my research beforehand and had made a mental note that 230 should be a par score. On the way home I had to pop in to visit the future in-laws so I didn't get to sit in front of the box until Pakistan had knocked up 33 runs for the loss of 2 wickets. At this point the West Indies were trading at 1.93 and for me this price was too big. I backed them for £235 knowing that if another wicket fell soon their price would drop significantly. I couldn't have scripted it better - 2 balls later Hafeez was caught and the price hurtled to 1.57. I got out immediately and secured an all green position of around £53. A few smaller trades followed and a couple of hours later I'd settled for a nice profit.

It's been a good start to March. With the Darts on Thursday and the Six Nations climax on the weekend it should only get better.



2 comments:

Clive said...

Hi Mark,
Good start to the world cup for you! Unfortunately I screwed it up a bit on this match but managed to recover losses the next day on the football and cricket. I was just after a bit of advice - suppose you'd've put on the £235 and WI had then messed up and allowed Pakistan back in the game a bit and the odds had shot up - what would you do then? Stay in and hope WI pulled it back or cut your losses and trade out for a definate loss but then try to make it back? Just wondering as I don't have much (any!) experience trading cricket so any advice would be useful. I've managed to make small profits over the past two days but I'm very wary of making the same mistakes as I did in this game again. Hope you didn't get let down by the Irish draw today! It certainly cut my profits down a bit!

Thanks

Clive
(email me if you'd rather than posting comments - clivechester at hotmail.com)

Mark Iverson said...

Hi Clive,

A good question.

With cricket I think it's important to set checkpoints as prices and scores can swing quickly.

In the example you give I'd given myself a 5 over window - at the end of this period, if a wicket hadn't fallen I'd have re-evaluated the situation - has the run rate increased? If so, by how much? How does this compare to my par score of 230? With these answers how would I now price the chances of the West Indies?

All these questions would need to answered for me to decide what action to take.

The important point to make is that all of these questions I'd try to answer/predict before making my first trade. The more what-if's I cover the less surprises I find.

I hope this helps.

Mark

www.stanjames.com