It has been a while since we had some Initial Player Offering’s and with not much else going on at the moment they got a lot of attention on the market.
I think it is fair to say it was something of a disaster, though.
I said this on Twitter yesterday and a lot of readers seemed to have similar feelings to me on this:
First thing to say is I definitely made decent money out of this madness for full disclosure. And yet, I still found it really annoying and unsatisfying.
I run an FI site. It’s safe to say I dedicate more hours to FI than most. I can happily spend hours trawling statistics, watching clips, looking at the market prices. And if I get an advantage that way that makes a profit great. That’s what the game is about. My time and judgement is rewarded or punished depending on how I do. All good.
But making money because I sat there refreshing the screen and clicked buy first? That’s not the way I wanted to spend my morning.
Nor is it fair for the many traders, and this has to be the vast majority of existing and potential traders, who are not in a position to sit at their pc/phone all day clicking refresh to take part in this madness.
This system has got to change and I think FI know it from the sheepish way they announced the IPO system was continuing as it was. I’m generally not one to complain. Readers will know I tend to just get on with things and trade in the world we live in not the one I want. But I think it’s right in this case to put some pressure on FI to get this fixed.
Given they also stuffed up the technical implementation of this and paid out incorrect sales prices in some cases, it’s made this an easy target to throw shade on.
Please fix this FI!
Ok enough grumbling. Let’s look at the effect on the market. Predictably, it has severely overheated some of these player prices and it is cause for concern.
The way the market is running anyway this month has been flat out crazy. I have a positive outlook for FI but I think this bubble for kids whilst fun at the time does make it look like a ponzi scheme.
Anyone sensible looking into FI right now will be raising eyebrows at some of the silly price tags and possibly steering well clear.
This bubble will burst and there is no doubt about that. Just nobody knows when. A few young players will succeed but the majority will flop. The “I can only ever see this going up!” crowd will be out to troll my Twitter post for saying it but I don’t mind that.
A good trader will keep their feet on the ground here and not take on more risk than they can really stomach.
Risers
Troy Parrott
Parrott is in the Spurs squad for the Asia tour and looks set to get minutes.
Good or not, it was obvious he was going to get pumped based on that alone. The “next Kane!” squad have been out in force already (just don’t tell them he’s Irish!).
If he gets a goal in pre-season it could get even better for holders! With the market as it is people will not be shy of pushing the price even further given an excuse.
I only have limited under 18 stats to go on but he does look decent enough and has potential performance suitability.
So he is one, to be fair, where the optimism is justified.
The problem as usual with an over pumped kid though is that at a certain point that early optimism falls over under the weight of the price.
To start to justify it so much needs to happen and it becomes a bet that is almost impossible to win.
This one may have a bit further to go if he has a great pre-season but as ever, we are playing with high risk assets here.
Everton Soares
Soares is one I have been flagging up for an IPO buy for a while.
He is rumoured to be transfering possibly to Arsenal soon. Starting for Brazil regularly already and has some solid potential for FI purposes.
So, no secret that this one was going to get pumped.
It started at £1.10 which is expensive but not unjustified.
Chasing late into this at £1.60+ however is a dangerous game though especially because there is still some transfer risk involved.
Starting at Arsenal, he’d definitely get a lot of early attention. We’d have to watch him very closely though. Despite some promising stats for Gremio and Brazil, it is not guaranteed to translate to the EPL, especially not instantly, and people could get bored easily.
And to add to that, Arsenal have got some convincing to do as a credible performance scoring outfit.
Fallers
Take your pick...
With traders desperate to free up cash to take part in IPO madness, a wide variety of players both quality and garbage have seen a drop back in recent days.
Should this concern you? Yes if you buy garbage hyped players. No if you hold good players you are confident in for the season start.
This can actually be quite a good opportunity to pick up players that have just improved in value slightly.
Things like IPO’s can be a distraction, and many traders are very short term minded and only see what is right in front of them.
But fast forward a month and the market is going to be driven by very different things. It is big scores that will drive prices in early season so there is no better time to be holding players who might actually get one.