On Day 1 of the new season I started fresh with a £1k balance. Let’s see how I get on when facing the same challenges that a new trader would.
I didn’t get any help from the Summer bonus, I can’t profit from long term holds and could not work months ahead of the market. We’ll get there eventually, but we all have to start somewhere.

I’ll be trying to show not just the trades but my thought process and reasons behind decisions I make. The specific players I pick are less important.
For new readers, you can check out the original post where I introduce my overall strategy and explain the opening selections.

As I obviously have an existing portfolio, I will not make these exact trades but they will be tracked realistically. I will also own every player on this list for real so the selections will get my full attention.

I always say though, don’t blindly follow any picks you see from others including mine. Do your own research and if you see what I see, great, but you have to know why you have bought the player and be happy with it.

The 1K Challenge Portfolio

• Portfolio Value: £1,259.55

• In the bank: £10.1

• Value Increase from £1k: 26.96%

• Value Change from last update: 0.4%

Portfolio Performance

Our first challenging week.

We last took stock of the portfolio just a day after the bonus when many prices were inflated, particularly for what are now some of the more expensive picks like Aguero and Alcantara.

Since then, those prices have corrected to what I think are more sensible levels. So, we’ve taken a bit of a kicking on 4-5 players.

On the upside, some of our our cheaper picks have picked up the slack.
Ramsey, despite underwhelming on pitch performances, has risen significantly because of his contract situation. He is well worth holding into the January transfer window, and possibly beyond, depending on where he ends up.

Kamano had another good score, but fell short of a dividend. People noticed though and he got a nice bump.

Traders are also starting to realise the potential of Anton, and we’ve done well here. I picked him out in my first Bundesliga Technical Area well under £1. For the challenge, I couldn’t get him until 99p, but he’s £1.34 now and I think he will grow further, he’s a great prospect.

Even Dubois, who has had a rough start due to rotation, is looking better. He’s started the last two and got the crucial equaliser for Lyon vs Shakhtar on Tuesday. This combination of involvement plus goal threat is what made me stick with him.

This is a good example of patience and self confidence when many around are losing faith, and I think it will pay off.

Overall, it’s as we were. I’m very happy with that in what has been a rocky week.It’s easy to make money when everything is going up. Being able to hold on to it in more difficult times is a better test of our trading skills.

Decisions

Sells and Holds

Payet is the only one that has been under the spotlight and questioned by some. His scores haven’t been great, but he’s not doing much wrong. His playing position, possession and threat are good.

He’s scored 2 in the last 3 and remains on penalties. I’m prepared for others to go shaky on this, but I’m fine to hold for a good while yet.

I have made one sale in the last week, offloading Laporte. He remains a good prospect. We were unlucky that City had an off day when he scored. Goal threat was the reason I signed him up. On another day, he could have won a dividend and risen, but it didn’t happen.

In hindsight, he is an expensive luxury when I am working with a relatively tight budget. I have managed to cash him in and lost less than £1 after commission, so no real harm done.

Buys

The Laporte sale left us £134.03 in the bank.

We head to Germany for a raid on Monchengladbach, picking up two attackers who impressed in this weeks Bundesliga Technical Area.

In swaggers Thorgan Hazard. All season, he has demonstrated superb stats. He has an advanced playing position, great distribution stats and strong goal threat. That’s a solid performance buzz combination. It’s a lesser factor, but the famous brother isn’t going to hurt when it comes to getting noticed, either.

For the challenge portfolio I couldn’t pick him up as cheaply as I did in reality. Again, that shows another difficulty of working on a tight budget. I need most of my money on the pitch and I can’t always afford the luxury of keeping 10% or so on the side for quick buys as I normally would.
On the back of 16 shots and 3 goals in the last 3, Alassane Pléa heads straight into our starting lineup. He doesn’t quite have the all round game of T. Hazard, but he makes up for it in goal threat.

He’s a good age at 25 to enter his prime, and his move to Monchengladbach has shown a notable improvement in his goals per game ratio. It’s still too early to call that a pattern, but it’s encouraging and I am happy to take a risk on him.

Next Week

Overall, I’m happy with the portfolio. We’ve hit a speed bump as our continuous gains have slowed down. But we have made a small gain in a tough week, and that’s always good.

We need to make sure we don’t panic about the losses to our star men. These are players of substance who have earned their price tags. It will not be the last time these players are in high demand.

If however we had gone for hype players with not much behind them, we’d need to be very worried about any price falls.

This is one reason I go for the picks I do. Not only are they profitable, they are relatively stable and better suit a trader who has a real life and can’t watch everything 24/7, which is another goal of the Challenge.

FIT