It’s been a week since the last market analysis article and we have a lot to cover!
Public posts usually come Tuesday’s and Friday’s but occasionally in busy weeks I have to prioritise the members content and skip a post or two.
So much has happened in the last 7 days. Looking back at that last public post, I was talking about the end of the 10% deposit bonus period as people feared a crash.
We did see a bit come out initially which is as expected. Fortunately, the majority of the players that dropped were very foreseeable and with the right strategy it was possible to avoid the vast majority of them, and even make some progress.
A big drop did come in the week caused chiefly by “media gate”. It was announced a long time ago that media was being opened up to the squad, and when it actually happened, and in a week where players outside of the top 200 were winning, it caused uproar.
And then the bounceback came following an unexpected announcement of a dividend “review” with a heavy hint of an increase.
My main theme for today’s post is personal responsibility for our trading and the importance of having a solid strategy that anticipates uncertainty.
With my early season Key Strategy, shared with members in the members area, in order to profit handsomely, I have not had to stress about any of these events, and in fact, have been making profit throughout.
Overall, if traders want to stay profitable, they have to get over this idea that FI cannot make changes that change the odds of a bet. They can. And they will. They will do it frequently. Directly and indirectly.
For example, performance scoring changes were broadly welcomed. That created all kinds of winners and losers and yes changed the terms of the bet. But not many complained, they knew it was needed. There are so many examples of such changes that alter the chances of winning of various players.
In a long term platform it could not be any other way. This isn’t traditional betting. The platform has to grow and evolve, it’s 100% neccessary for long term success.
To sit there stuck in our ways whilst the market is changing around us is bankroll suicide.
What worked in 2018 is not working in 2019. What is working now will probably not work in 2020.
These changes are often forseeable, particularly in the case of media which was announced six months ago. You can argue that FI should not have given an estimated “only 7% of wins come outside the top 200” figure anyway.
That was pretty much destined to not be true by time of the change itself so they have created a rod for their own back there.
But overall, we shouldn’t be relying on FI to do our analysis for us. We are the captain’s of our ship and it is possible to set yourself up in such a way that you aren’t overexposed to events like this.
Whether anyone agrees with me or not, getting into a victim mentality where things are done to you and your losses are not your fault does nothing good for your trading.
You make your own luck on FI.
If you stick to buying quality and potential rather than over priced hype and speculation, and steer clear of players who are well beyond any kind of rational value, you can trade with confidence and have little reason to fear changes.
Events will tend to work in your favour time and time again.
Risers
Aleksandr Golovin
Golovin is a solid FI player, and is particularly strong for Russia. He struggles a little at Monaco. And it shows the importance of the team to a players scores.
After the last round of qualifiers in September, I did a 4 part series reviewing the best players across the tournament. Here is what I said of Golovin on September 19:
Golovin is a well known player and quite likely to carry optimism into the tournament. Monaco are struggling but he looked much better for Russia with strong involvement, goal threat and assist potential across both games. Could come good for the club too potentially but he is nowhere near as strong there at the moment. Was bought heavily in anticipation of the qualifiers and sold off afterwards. I think this could be exploited.
At the time of that review he could be picked up for just 80p. Since, he has more than doubled in price to £1.62 now with a dividend win into the bargain.
His big score for Monaco was nice but 2 goals and an assist in one game for Golovin is probably a bit of a freak. There are signs that further wins from Monaco are possible, but it would be for Russia where I would be most optimistic.
In a Euros year, a player like this can be hugely profitable but really, you wanted to be buying in September not now after this spike.
This is the power of early analysis that means you can buy before the big performance scores reveal their strength to everyone and the price soars.
Eljif Elmas
Elmas appeared in my Real FI Wonderkids Series in Part 2 last week.
He’s been looking good for Napoli if lacking a bit of threat. But for his country he bagged a brace last night to see off Slovenia.
That did not deliver a great score at 219. But for a young player, that can be enough to get them noticed. Here’s what I said about him in my Wonderkids article last week:
Elmas is getting plenty of minutes for Napoli lately as covered in Scouting. A Macedonian youngster at just 19. He’s looked high baseline with good overall involvement in play but for Napoli has had inconsistent goal threat. If that improved he could be excellent because the rest of his game looks solid for FI purposes. When mentioned in Scouting a couple of weeks back he was just 95p. He’s £1.23 now and people are noticing but I think he has further to go.
The detailed stats for last nights game are not yet available for me but I would suspect that had he been in a Napoli shirt, 2 goals would have delivered a better score.
He’s now £1.41 and as long as he keeps getting minutes, he is capable of big scores for club and country.
Fallers
Not many!
There aren’t any notable fallers in the last few days, at least any that are worth discussing. Which is interesting in itself.
This probably reflects an optimistic outlook for October in general in the lead up to a Dividend Review announcement.
Equally, it’s interesting that, whilst stable, the market is not flying either.
There was clearly a mass unlisting of for sale players after the Dividend Review announcement was made, and that was a boost in itself.
But it’s also possible that after the 10% bonus ended, traders are dry and anyone who had money to deposit already did.
And, there will be many who want to wait and see what the announcement itself brings before committing.