Most horse prices tend to drift up?

[Ancient]

Been trading pre-race for only a few weeks but I have already noticed that statistically, even for the favourite, pre-race trading almost always seems to have a strong price swing to the upside, whereas price swings to the downside tend to be much more infrequent.

Am I just imagining this or is there some more obvious secret going on im not aware of, like some highly popular horse laying system that people are using?

[travel&bet]

i am trading from a couple of weeks too and what comes to mind is that more often odds go up.probably a lot of people lay and then wait for higher price to back and make a profit..anybody who wants to share the secret with us?

[PeterLe]

Hi
I'm not letting any cat out of the bag by saying that prices do not always drift upwards.

I (like many others on here) have spent hundreds of hours writing spreadsheets to predict the move of a price. Given that it can only go one way or another, you would expect that to be relatively easy. I can promise you it isn't! If it was I would be writing this from my beachfront home in the caymans!

..but Good luck; it is fun trying to narrow it down!
Regards
Peter

[freddy]

Been trading pre-race for only a few weeks but I have already noticed that statistically, even for the favourite, pre-race trading almost always seems to have a strong price swing to the upside, whereas price swings to the downside tend to be much more infrequent.

Am I just imagining this or is there some more obvious secret going on im not aware of, like some highly popular horse laying system that people are using?

Depends on how you define a drift, most horses drift at least by a few ticks at some point as they do so in the opposite direction.

All that matters really is what is happening at the moment in time that you enter your trade.

Think it's a bit simplistic to say that most horse's drift as the 100% book ensures that if something is drifting then one or more horses will be going in the opposite direction by an equal book %.

Really you need to concentrate on why things are happening at the time, for example if the favorite is being very heavily backed, then at least one maybe even all of the other horse will be drifting and the same if the reverse happens.

But never can they all be doing the same thing at the same time

[rubysglory]

In expanding an earlier post, sample now 1000+ and results closer to 50% x 50%.

rg

I have however been keeping some stats on price movements on the favourite B4 the off. Over a sample of approx 800 races thus far, the favourite at the 5 minute warning call was shorter in price at the 1 minute warning 49% of the time. Over the longer term we could perhaps round this up to 50%. Although I perhaps should not be surprised, longterm market efficiency still amazes me.

[Ancient]

Some good points freddy, what I actually meant was that the price 15 mins before the off pretty much always is less than the starting price, hence the "drift up" bias.

if rubysglory statistics are on the money, then it seems I am just imagining it,

I would say it doesnt help that most of my loosing trades are when I back the horse expecting prices to steam down only for it to drift out. I'm finding it much harder to spot the drifting out trades.

[PeterLe]

In expanding an earlier post, sample now 1000+ and results closer to 50% x 50%.

rg

I have however been keeping some stats on price movements on the favourite B4 the off. Over a sample of approx 800 races thus far, the favourite at the 5 minute warning call was shorter in price at the 1 minute warning 49% of the time. Over the longer term we could perhaps round this up to 50%. Although I perhaps should not be surprised, longterm market efficiency still amazes me.

Hi RG

I would expect that the higher the sample rate the nearer you will get to 50:50.

Sometime ago i did an experiment :-

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2285&start=10

Which was actually to do more with stop losses, but still illustrates a point here. This fired in hundreds/thousands of bets either back or lay (based on the direction I 'Thought' it would go, fairly random), over time with a one tick stop loss it lost something like £1.50.
The markets really are incredibly efficient, but you only need a slight edge.

..and I've just remembered...betangel posted an entry on here that backed every favorite at midday (on auto - no human intervention) and then traded out just before the off. From memory that was fairly neutral as well. The point was raised that even this strategy could be profitable if an element of human intervention was present to monitor each bet along the way??

Regards
Peter

[rubysglory]

Thanks Peter. Just expanding, I have ran my stats through a couple of staking plans as well - level stakes, percentage of bank, odds percentage equivalent etc. From a purely ROI perspective results were near zero (excluding commission) across all tests. Your right though, "The markets really are incredibly efficient, but you only need a slight edge ".

rg

[Zenyatta]

I (like many others on here) have spent hundreds of hours writing spreadsheets to predict the move of a price. Given that it can only go one way or another, you would expect that to be relatively easy. I can promise you it isn't! If it was I would be writing this from my beachfront home in the caymans!

..but Good luck; it is fun trying to narrow it down!
Regards
Peter

Guys,

I strongly suspect all the final prices are determined by JollyGreen

[PeterLe]

When you think about it, it should be realatively easy..the price can only go in one of two directions and all you have to do it be right more times than you are wrong!!

Re JollyG: Expect you're right Z! Mind youI got my own back by sticking a Nail in his washer the other week..and that concrete down the drain slowed him down too!!

[Yoshiii]

If prices go up other ones go down, it's that simple. The question is which horse to back/lay and the right time.