The Daily is back after a short break (even FI obsessives have to take holidays sometimes! 🙂 ).
Let’s catch up with what’s been happening on the market and look at what’s next.
We had a bit of a rocky week after the sudden positional changes for some big name players. Lots of people were pretty angry about that and are quick to kick up a storm on Twitter.
And it’s understandable if you have lost money.
I do think we have to be a bit more aware that FI can and do “change the terms of the bet” pretty frequently. Whether that is giving us a bonus, increasing dividends, changing a players position for good or ill or amending the scoring system over time. It’s going to happen and it is in the terms that they can.
More importantly, it has to happen if the platform is going to grow and improve. This isn’t the same as taking a punt on a goalscorer on Friday and the EPL deciding the goals are now 2ft narrower the following day. It’s a long term platform and change has to come.
It’s a lot more akin to investing in a company who change strategies, make decisions, or else just have circumstances change around them. And investors vote with their feet accordingly.
I think of predicting such changes as just another part of the game. There are no “fire and forget” options on FI anymore and we just have to accept it. Getting wound up and angry then making rash decisions only burns ourselves.Â
There a ton of very good reasons why FI don’t want to be involved in deciding positions and should leave it to OPTA. But FI can probably think about how they communicate any such changes and they have said they will. But I can’t think of an option that doesn’t result in the exact same market moves.Â
Maybe suspending the market for a time (without warning so people can’t pre-panic/speculate) to let people mentally adjust and give people at work a fair chance at reacting at the same time as everyone else is the way.
Anyway, that has mostly been forgotten about since FI soothed the anger with an apology bonus increase.Â
FI social media can be very fickle and now we are back to a very positive feel.
Bonuses and positive sentiment has a way of coaxing money back out of balances, so that will explain the increase we have had in the last few days. But, most traders are quite short term thinkers (even though most would say they aren’t!) so I don’t think many will worry too much about turning over their full bonus requirements until shortly before the bonus window shuts.Â
In the mean time we are heading into the thick of transfer trading season and that will be pretty wild. We have already seen the prices flying up and down for the same players based on really soft news stories.Â
My advice on this is generally that if you are going to make the bet, stick to your bet. Unless something real changes or there is concrete news from a credible source.
Otherwise, if you buy and sell based on any news rag like Don Balon you are literally throwing money around based on the say so of a paper that is known to cook up nonsense stories just for click bait. It’s losing trading.
If whoever shared this on FI twitter can let me know I’ll credit them I can’t remember who it was, but it’s a nice guide to credible sources. I haven’t verified it myself but from reading the list it looks solid to me.Â
In site news, I am also going to make a couple of changes to the public area of the site.Â
Starting next week, instead of 3 “Daily” market analysis posts I am going to do 2 market analysis posts +1 special feature article per week. Topics I have queued up in my head:
- Potential Performance Scoring Changes – discussion and community response.
- Setting up a portfolio for when you are away on holiday
- New Trader Guides
- Managing a bank roll
- Managing risk in trades
- Knowing when to take profits
I’ll do a different one each week. I want to write about a wider range of stuff to keep things varied and build up a bank of content for the site that has more of a shelf life than a few days like the Daily does. Then, new visitors will have more to read and people can share guides on various topics more easily.
Risers
Pedro Guilherme
I’ve been tracking Guilherme since he was first IPO’d at 70p back in March.
Regardless of whether he would be performance suitable (he could be) he would probably be a Real Madrid and Brazil player already if not for a big injury last year.
Given the young age and the forward position as well, that was always going to be enough to get traders throwing their wallets at the screen if any credible link picked up.
Due to that injury, he has left it late to put himself in the shop window. But after making a return in April he has scored 2 with limited minutes (nice header and a penalty) and looked decent.
Real Madrid links have cooled but he is getting long shot Manchester United links now and has also been linked to Inter.Â
He probably will come to Europe but it may be a window too early. Could be a price drop if so but if the longshot EPL link did come in there is a big potential upside.
Samuel Chukwueze
Chukwueze has put in some strong displays in the final third of the season.Â
He has some very poor scores on his record but with the rotation he has had that is normal. He has good potential to be an FI suitable player, particularly if he can get a big club move and I think eventually he will.Â
Big clubs are going to be noticing his strong goal threat and overall involvement and work rate. And that helps us on FI too so I like him as a prospect.
Only issue is he is no longer a big secret. I liked him much more at £1 3 months ago. At £1.90 it is more of a risk although with these Liverpool links there is significant upside.
I could see him dropping back to £1.50 if faced with another season at Villarreal. But he could easily push £2.50 or more with an EPL move so there may be life in this yet depending on how much you believe the rumours.
Fallers
Julian Brandt
After signing for Dortmund (a pretty good move for the long term) he still took a fall and that is what we should be expecting throughout the Summer.
With only a few exceptions, players in the £1.75 and up range who have risen sharply will only hold their price after a move if they are incoming to the EPL.
Particularly when a lot of the buying is in hope of an EPL move, it’s always going to take a dive if such hopes are dashed.
So, it’s often a good idea to take your profit before things actually conclude. You can miss a good transfer or two that way but I believe that overall you do a lot better by playing the percentages. Most hoped for transfer links don’t happen and I lock in profits accordingly.
It does create lots of opportunities though as good players can become available at a cut price relative to their prospects at their new club.
Brandt, being a very good player who could do very well at Dortmund would fit that bill. There is however some building nervousness around Dortmund assets right now.Â
With Thorgan now there as well, they are looking stacked with talent and it is hard to see how everyone will get the pitch time they want at the moment.