A few questions...

[Blondie]

hi all
I would be interested in hearing some opinions on a few things:

1. Moving Averages - I know the significance of these in stock trading but do they have any real significance with horse racing? I am struggling to see how, as the market is so much more erratic and governed by a lot more real world stuff than just data. Am i right in thinking MAs have limited value (or none), or is it something the regular traders use all the time?

2. Price 'envelope' - I saw this in some videos, but not sure I see what the benefit would be. Does it just show how volatile a horse's price has been, maybe suggesting which ones to trade or not to?

3. In BA charts I see there is always the option of 'back price' or 'lay price' or last traded price (LTP). Why is that? I am really confused on this, excuse me if i am just ignorant here, but surely a back price can only be a back price if someone laid it there too, in which case how can you get a back price and lay price that are different? Seems to me the LTP is probably the only data I'd be interested in knowing about, am I missing something?

4. Finally, I am guessing at time periods to monitor, choosing between 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes. Does anyone have any pointers as to which might be the best period to use for spotting trends?

Look forward to reading any comments on these points

[ShaunWhite]

1 and 2. Financial technical indicators are of limit use. The markets are such that not all prices can rise or fall simultaneously so the market constituents are more closely related. A trend or run on a selection can easily be affected by action on another. They're also markets with a short duration, with horses eventually priced at 0 or 100%, and no intrinsic value to determine the extent of the price envelope. It's quite different.

3. It's the available to back and available to lay prices. Same as the buy/sell spread. LTP will probably flipflop between the two.

4. Big question. Imo the most reliable trends occur once the horses are in the ring and serious money has eye on. But others may disagree.

[Euler]

Price envelope is a measure of volatility. So in pre-off horse racing markets for example, it will measure how rapidly a price is moving and it's useful for seeing when a move has run out of steam.

[Blondie]

Thanks to both of you.
Euler - I dont like that messy envelope, but maybe I should try and get used to it!! That sounds quite useful.

[ShaunWhite]

, maybe suggesting which ones to trade or not to?

Just on this, volatility isn't inherently bad, you need movement to make money, but knowing whether it might move 5 ticks or 50 in the next minute might affect how you choose to stake it.

[Blondie]

Thanks, yes. So if i was looking to pinch a tick i might want a narrow envelope, but if i was looking for bigger moves, wider bands wouldn't be bad at all. think I get it, thanks

[Euler]

Thanks to both of you.
Euler - I dont like that messy envelope, but maybe I should try and get used to it!! That sounds quite useful.

Watch these two videos: -

https://youtu.be/tZ1zzjoPyVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFg7hO3q8nM

[Blondie]

Thank you. I didn't realise the price envelope was a type of bollinger band (or inspired by it at least).

Probably not the best day to ask questions (it is for me, sadly ) so I will not expect any replies soon, but I have a couple of questions from those two videos:

1. Something you said in that first link confused me a bit:

"If you want to be an effective trader, when volatility is high you're selling it, when volatility is low you're buying it.

I know this was a piece to camera (apparently unscripted, kudos ) so maybe you didn't mean exactly that, but if you did could you please explain a bit? Are you saying when volatility is high a good trader will always be doing one thing (not sure if that's backing or laying but either way!)


2. You say that the envelope lines show the price 2 standard deviations away from the current price. Dumb question alert..... How come the price (red line) actually leaves the envelope sometimes? That shouldn't be possible should it? Does it signify anything useful for entries when it leaves the envelope?

[ShaunWhite]

Have you typing "In relation to manual Betfair trading, what would someone mean if they said......." into ChatGPT?

It can lead to some interesting conversations while you're waiting for replies.

[Euler]

Have you typing "In relation to manual Betfair trading, what would someone mean if they said......." into ChatGPT?

It can lead to some interesting conversations while you're waiting for replies.

I don't trust AI when it comes to Betfair trading. I think a lot of it's training data is complete wrong, so it tends to output very errant advice.

[sionascaig]

Have you typing "In relation to manual Betfair trading, what would someone mean if they said......." into ChatGPT?

It can lead to some interesting conversations while you're waiting for replies.

I don't trust AI when it comes to Betfair trading. I think a lot of it's training data is complete wrong, so it tends to output very errant advice.

Was reading an interesting article the other day about how some websites are designed to spoof AI (LLM) through hidden text and other embedded objects... Its mainly to do with products / product reviews with the objective of fooling Ai into giving a higher weight to certain items...

In the arms race, LLM are way behind the spoofing technology apparently..

[Euler]

Thank you. I didn't realise the price envelope was a type of bollinger band (or inspired by it at least).

Probably not the best day to ask questions (it is for me, sadly ) so I will not expect any replies soon, but I have a couple of questions from those two videos:

1. Something you said in that first link confused me a bit:

"If you want to be an effective trader, when volatility is high you're selling it, when volatility is low you're buying it.

I know this was a piece to camera (apparently unscripted, kudos ) so maybe you didn't mean exactly that, but if you did could you please explain a bit? Are you saying when volatility is high a good trader will always be doing one thing (not sure if that's backing or laying but either way!)


2. You say that the envelope lines show the price 2 standard deviations away from the current price. Dumb question alert..... How come the price (red line) actually leaves the envelope sometimes? That shouldn't be possible should it? Does it signify anything useful for entries when it leaves the envelope?

"If you want to be an effective trader, when volatility is high you're selling it, when volatility is low you're buying it.


When the market is quiet it makes sense to put a position the market that will benefit from a move in price. When the market is all over the place, expect it revert to a more normal state.

Normal caveats apply

2. You say that the envelope lines show the price 2 standard deviations away from the current price. Dumb question alert..... How come the price (red line) actually leaves the envelope sometimes? That shouldn't be possible should it? Does it signify anything useful for entries when it leaves the envelope?

The red line is just a moving average. So it's plot how the market is generally moving. I.e. there is pressure on it to get more, or less, volatile.

The reason I like this tool is that it tells me how the generally volatility in the market is behaving.

Again, Caveats apply as, for example, it all goes out the window at 2 mins on a horse racing. But comes back into the mix about 30 seconds later.

[Euler]

Was reading an interesting article the other day about how some websites are designed to spoof AI (LLM) through hidden text and other embedded objects... Its mainly to do with products / product reviews with the objective of fooling Ai into giving a higher weight to certain items...

In the arms race, LLM are way behind the spoofing technology apparently..

I think in a niche like Betfair trading there are a lot of me too type sites. These have copied content from other me too sites and we end up a long way from real advice.

The only reason I notice it, is I'm so heavily involved in this market. But I'd imagine it will happen in other subjects as well.

[Blondie]

Appreciate the replies.

AI - I don't trust it other than for historical and undisputable stuff like 'when was Queen Elizabeth born'? for trading, i'll do my own AI, read everything I can find and sort the obvious trash (which so far seems like 99% of stuff online!)

"The red line is just a moving average." - So the price envelope lines are moving averages? I didn't realise that. thanks. Was just curious how a price could go the 'wrong' side of it.

[Blondie]

PS. I asked about using moving average and said I dont see much value in them. I watched some people trading pre race markets over last few days (ignoring their 'strategy' just watching the market with their annoying voice muted, they were not BA videos I should note, I don't mute those!) Oddly, one person was using them on candlestick charts beneath ladders and it seemed quite useful. The price seemed to hug the line quite nicely and when it crossed it was usually a nice little move. I dont know what settings he was using for the MA line but if anyone here uses that at all and can suggest a starting point for the MA period, I'd be interested in a tip to try them on my own charts and watch some markets. Wondering if I was wrong to think they are useless.