My imagination?

[Innertube]

Is it my imagination or have the racing markets taken a dive since PC2 was shoved in our faces?

[SpikeyBob]

I feel the same way. I've not been able to successfully trade the afternoon meetings for a week now. It's definitely changed for me since last Wednesday. My normal pattern at the moment is lose during the day and get back to scratch in the evenings, very frustrating.

I'm feel like massive moves are happening at the moment and I'm always on the wrong side of them. My confidence is shot at the moment.

[hgodden]

I don't want to sound patronising but I think to be honest it might be more of a mental thing - there's a lot of negativity in peoples minds about trading now. The markets aren't exactly amazing (today has disappointed me a bit) but I don't think they're fundamentally any different from before.

[Talkbet]

Interesting. I only get a chance to get involved in the evening races (some of them anyway) and have struggled every evening this week, I've just put it down to one of those patches.
I record all the movements for the evening races (really must start doing the afternoon ones as well) and then spend half hour or so the next day plotting price movements. I have noticed this week a real change in the way prices have been moving, breaking out of one resistance point but then flying back the other way after 2 or 3 ticks. Obviously this does happen but this week it seems to be almost the norm from what I've seen.

[SpikeyBob]

@hgodden, maybe you are right. I know that I can go through spells where I'm struggling and the spells where sometimes every trade I make is right. I probably am just going through a bad phase at the moment and maybe the PC news is the catalyst.

So on that note can everyone stop moaning about the PC & migrating to Betdaq, it's affecting my bloomin' trading over here.

[hgodden]

We're all a bit like that SpikeyBob, I remember the day the news broke I posted here about me having to be super careful that afternoon, its quite easy to let negative stuff like that seep into your trading

[JollyGreen]

I think there is some merit in what you say about the markets but as you have already agreed there is also a mental block.

I've found it incredibly tough at times which is a mixture of mental belief and poor markets. IMHO I think some traders have already cut down on their activity and I do know a couple of large punters are already curbing their activity. It also appears that some people are having a last hurrah as there are some markets where the price goes up and down faster than Jordan's knickers and it just seems to be traders batting the price backwards and forwards.

I have also noticed a lot more horses shortening up at the head of the market. In fact there are some markets where the front three or four runners are shortening up which seems crazy at times! I just wonder if some of the layers (Bookies and big players) and traders are not around to offer resistance? I have no data for this but that is the feeling I am getting when I look at some of them.

[lewismbet]

One of my bots has had the worst week for a long time, it has no mental block - I feel that there may be merit in saying something is different this week.

[hgodden]

Well I only did yesterday and today so can't really comment on the whole week. Yesterday I found surprisingly good, today pretty lame considering the big races. Folkestone was dire

[Euler]

It increasingly feels to me that there is something odd about the markets this week. Will have to run some tests to get some exact metrics.

[hgodden]

I've definately noticed some strange behaviour today with some big bets flying in.

[Iron]

Some people mentioned the other day that orders were being matched more quickly than was previously the case.

Is that still happening?

Jeff

I've definately noticed some strange behaviour today with some big bets flying in.

[hgodden]

I think half the trouble here is defining what to expect 'normally' as, at least to my mind, the markets change so much day to day week to week month to month etc anyway. The fill rate isn't better if thats what you mean

[Iron]

The fill rate isn't better if thats what you mean

Yes, that's what I meant.

I was wondering whether it was better the other day because of PC2.

I suspect the reason it deteriorated with the introduction of XM was because Betfair may have said to certain big hitters 'Place your bets and lays with us rather than the exchange, and we'll give you a better commission rate.'

And I thought it could have been the case that those big hitters decided, in light of PC2, to revert to dealing directly with the exchange.

Jeff

[xitian]

I've noticed a change in the markets for around a week or so as well. In fact my pnl has been down pretty consistently since 29th (day after PC announcement). Again, this could be jumping to conclusions, but there's definitely something changing whether PC related or not.

Euler, do you have easy access to data on matched amounts per race compared with the past? I store data from the races on a daily basis, but am abroad on a laptop right now so can't access it easily. Otherwise I'll take a look once I'm back in the UK. I did one comparison of the last two Saturdays (25th and 2nd) and matched amounts seem to be down 12% or so.

Yesterday and today has picked up slightly, but I'm still very wary.

Cheers,
James