Outlook
Optimistic
State of the Market
A second fairly quiet and this update is mainly about staying the course and having a bit of patience. I’ll also talk about the up coming Christmas promotion from FI.
To see some of the social media chatter you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a “downturn” or a “stagnant” market. It’s just been a couple of weeks! It’s really important as a trader to be able to see the big picture. We aren’t working for a daily wage here where we have to make X amount per day or we’ve failed. It’s trading and sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, particularly if you have set yourself up nicely.
Generally, a good portfolio themed broadly on the Key Strategy won’t be having too many problems and is probably about neutral, maybe making a little progress, maybe from rises in a Kroos, Pavard, Fernandes, Moreno and that ilk.
There may also be drops for some good players too like di Maria, Depay (injured), Alcantara (dropped to bench). Not generally too much to worry about as long as you are happy with the individual.
If you are taking any significant losses in the week (and I do see a few traders on social media complaining of drops although probably not members!) then we may want to review portfolios to make sure we are happy with what we have and if unsure, double check it is lined up with Key Strategy and what the outlook on them has been in the site Scouting.
In the absence of any exciting new trend to chase, the best thing to do is avoid chasing our tails and doing anything rash out of boredom in a quiet week. I’ve even seen people saying things like “I’m going to sell up my portfolio because it will be quiet before Christmas!”. Pure madness.
This was never a good idea even you think a mild and temporary dip is on the way. It’s even less of a good idea now after spreads are now massively increased.
If we want to make money in the next few weeks there is probably no substitute for doing it the hard way and actually winning some performance dividends!
Fortunately, it often comes back to this and this is why having a portfolio (almost always) geared towards real performance strength pays off. We’ll be holding the best cards with the best chance of winning and their wins will likely keep driving the prices up, as well as collecting some dividends.
That aside, the wildcard is whatever announcement FI look to be making for Christmas:
Notoriously, Mike (FI’s Marketing Chief) is not to be let near Twitter during office Friday night drinks – he has been known to drop a clanger or two. But he does tend to have a good feel for what’s going to get the market going and he knows what he is doing here.
Various conspiracy theories will abound but my guess would be some kind of 12 days of Christmas theme (12 rockets) which may feature dividend boosts on certain days, cash drops, prizes. That kind of thing. A deposit bonus might be possible but it really is close to the last one so they’d have to be really keen to get hype going. Maybe.
Can we do anything useful to prepare for this? A bit!
Presumably, if anything is required from us as part of whatever promotion this is we’ll basically be asked to do two things:
1) Win dividends. i.e in the event of a boost to dividends (Platinum Boxing day?!).
2) Deposit and buy players. i.e in the event of a deposit bonus, or a cash drop where you’ll need to buy (usually a small) number of shares in a player to enter.
So, given Mike says “December and January”, if we are going with the 12 days of Christmas theory, that’s traditionally the 25th – 5th January. That lines up with the very busy EPL Christmas period nicely, and since the other Leagues are absent, EPL players are going to be very desirable during that time.
That might be a bit turkey foil-hat. However, if that’s wrong, it’s not a terrible mistake to make – holding EPL players for that period is not going to be a bad idea anyway.
So we could find some decent performance teams with some tasty fixtures in that time (Tottenham, Man City, Chelsea stand out to me). We can even punt on some more mediocre players who can win with a high average or less than spectacular score here because with the other leagues out average winning scores will likely be lower.
Rotation is likely too so more bit part players with strong performance strength like Mahrez or Barkley could be good punts if you don’t fancy some of the more expensive/popular EPL players which I will often avoid.
The second part of this could be “have a bit of cash ready” just in case you need to deposit for a bonus or spend money on players to enter a prize draw. I wouldn’t go crazy here but if there are players you want to move on anyway (Bundesliga or Ligue 1 winter break?) it might be a good idea to keep some on the sidelines.
In an ideal world, you’d be in a position to do that with new money that you take back later rather than raiding your portfolio, but not all of us are in an ideal world.
I tend not to use this tactic personally because I am someone who wants to position where the money is going rather than “wait and see”. That usually proves the correct decision (provided you get it right!), so my inclination would be to prepare by moving for more EPL players than I usually do for this period.
But if you are going to do that, do it now, not after any announcement or any closer to the time.