18:54 – Unlike previous epic live blogs that have run into the late evening, I’m going to close this up now because there really isn’t much more to say!

The only disappointing thing is that it was built up with all the usual rocket emojis, but ended up just being super low key.

It will cause some shorter term fluctation for the bargain bucket end of the market.

It may take a fair few people a while to work out what it means and that could lead to a bit of odd behaviour in the next day or two. 

But I set my Key Strategy out only yesterday and there is nothing in this announcement that changes any of that.

Have a good Friday night all.

18:43 – All this said, some extra cash is some extra cash. If we’re adding 0.5% value to our usual trading indirectly through it, it’s all good. 

But I see no reason at all to do anything different from what I normally would. 

If anything, it could just distract the market and mean that people have longer to purchase the Key Strategy “full season fit” players at better value.

If it pushes people into selling such players because they are following social media pumps for the bonus… they’ll end up disappointed and have to come back to these players most likely.

I am a bit amazed FI did not just say “For February, we’ll reduce commission to 1.5%”. Probably a similar result financially for them, with 1,000 times less confusion and less sleazy trading encouraged.

18:38 – There is only really one way I see of making a reliable profit directly from this bonus.

You’d have to find a high baseline player at the most rock bottom price possible that hasn’t risen yet, buy them to start the rise, then hope that some mugs follows you in so that you can dump on them.

That’s not hard to do, it’s fairly easy to sort a spreadsheet by high baseline/price and get yourself a list of suitable players, so not many really have an advantage here. You’d have to do it fast, and be out fast too. 

If you have a price rise in this player, there is no logical reason to wait and hold the player to get the actual dividend, it’s actively against your interest to do so because you know you will be dumped on if you don’t dump on someone else first.

I don’t like this kind of trading, and will be staying well out of it.

18:28 – In my opinion, this is the worst promotion FI have ever done. They are usually pretty good at this stuff, this feels like a desperate effort to push the market forward again for the least cost to them possible.

18:25 – Assuming that Thiago was bought now at 49p… it obviously costs you £49 for your 100 shares now giving you a 4.7% profit from the promotion.

Minus your commission, and assuming you have to pay the spread because who the hell would buy it near the end of the month… you are in a small loss, and that’s assuming nobody dumps shares on you because you bought after someone else. Which they almost definitely will.

18:19: – I’ve been looking at some examples of players that might turn a decent profit due to this. To do that, we need rock bottom prices. Therefore, they are mostly players that are very undesirable otherwise.

Obvious example to go for was Thiago Silva, a high baseline nearly man if ever there was, priced at just 39p, or he was until about 20 minutes ago when he was bought to 49p.

Assuming it was 39p, he’d have cost you £38 for 100 shares and have earned 579 match day points in December. That translates to a Super Match Day dividend of £2.31, or just under 6% profit.

That’s enought to cover your commission, and a bit more, assuming, and this is a big assumption, that you are going to find any mug to take him off you after the initial pump.

His spread is currently 4p, so your end result is… 0p. A massive waste of time.

17:56 – If there is any value in this at all, I think it will be in digging out some high baseliners at absolute bargain bucket prices. I’ll have a look into some examples and see if there is anyone who might give a decent return.

But overall, this is hugely underwhelming me. I think if people rushed out to buy any big hitters beforehand or straight away because they hadn’t digested the announcement yet they will now be disappointed.

It is likely this sparks a wave of buying of random, usually valueless players for the purposes of the promotion window which could be a temporary distraction and lead to a lot of flipping. 

I’d be very wary of that and if we start seeing “buy 29p Basey McBaseline from the Valladolid reserves” on social media we’ll want to look into that very carefully before doing anything about it.

Lots of people are confused right now and pump and dumpers / flippers will try to exploit that. 

If in doubt, do nothing you wouldn’t be doing anyway is my advice.

As for Key Strategy from yesterday, I don’t see this new promotion having a serious impact on it, certainly not beyond the 20 day promotion window.

17:37 – Some back of the envelope calculations. 

Taking Neymar in December, who totalled 1,188 performance points, and buying 100 shares equals 118,800 Super Match Day points the new bonus would net you an additional… £4.72!

The cost of 100 Neymar shares at current price = £882.

Assuming you make full use of Perk 1, you get a whopping 0.40p maximum for buying 1 share every day for 20 days during the promotion.

Assuming you make full use of Perk 2, you get £8 for spending £20 on all 20 days during the promotion.

Put that champagne on ice, Mrs FIT!

I suspect there may be a reason there are no “you could win £X!” claims on the advertising here.

So unless my quick math is wildly wrong, this does not seem like it is good for the premium end of the market, or even the middling end on first impression, my quick calculation on Kroos was similarly underwhelming.

It will just not be worth making trades you wouldn’t make anyway at these prices.

17:29 – First thought, I think it will take people a while to unravel this! I’ve read it 5 times and it’s still a puzzle, so thoughts go out to newer traders trying to understand this one.