How would you like to trade a market where you get large regular price swings every 10 minutes in the afternoon, seven days a week. A
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Thanks for your advice and patience Script. Still having a buzz from this. One winner on 9am and green already on 10am. Mental arithmetic and reciprocals improving rapidly as well :-))

The average movement over an hour is no doubt zero and an attempt to predict at all times the future movement might well be futile. However, the skill is in cherry-picking the times within the hour at which the movement is predictable through TA or whatever other means, and trading them. The mechanism for predicting and trading will be different depending on the market. For instance, in the 9-10 hour just ended the FTSE was stuck in a close range near the line. TA would have been useless and instead I made use of the exaggerated swings in odds one way and the other as people tried to guess which way it was going to go.

kernow, that question is as old as the intradays on Betfair. I think the answer is that there must be some significance to the hour interval in the city, not with respect to Betfair but with respect to charts with an hourly tick or the programming of certain automatic trading. Certainly I doubt very much whether people are moving the FTSE to capitalise on Betfair.

"the skill is in cherry-picking the times within the hour at which the movement is predictable"

And there in lies the problem. Because everybody else was quicker than I and using similar techniques I quickly dropped this tactic in favour of others.

Scrip

You mention using VIX to decide whether to back or lay. I probably should know but could you explain what VIX is? Thanks

I think the following may be pertinent but it would not be for me to get involved with.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange calculates a market volatility index (symbol: VIX) that is the average implied volatility of eight put and call options.

This index is usually between 20 and 30 (i.e. an implied volatility of 20 to 30%), but can move sharply upwards if large market swings are anticipated. A very high implied volatility is usually an invitation to write options, not buy them.

Thus an observation of the CBOE VIX could be used to determine market direction.

IMO if you are into options then you will have a much better understanding of the Betfair financials because basically they are the same thing.

I worked out the way that IG price their binaries and they use an option model to do it. My model is right on the money and thats how I figured unless I was faster than them it was going to be difficult to beat over the long term and thats what I am in it for.

All winners today - up 32% :-) Not rushing out to the merc showroom yet though as pot is only just over 300! Patience is a virtue etc.

Just been studying binary bets again, the weekly stock ones up or down on the week , waste of time,unless youve got it right early on in the week, spreads on those still with a chance of going either way are a joke, 10 points on some, on those that look like they are beyond coming back into the range , they are marked right down to 0-3,or 97-100, looks like theyve got this well sown up binary bets, still great for the intraday stuff though, or if you place a weekly stock bet and its gone very right before Friday,lost on my aal up bet, but already closed my azn one for +64, could have waited till close and got +69 if it finished up, but im happy to take 5 points less now and not worry about it coming back off throughout the day.

Well I'm still on a conspiracy theory on the FTSE intradays. Haven't looked at binary bets but certainly Betfair @ 11am - FTSE leapt north in 2 mins to finish up - by 0.6. 50:1 or more had been available earlier in the hour and I was on it but greened up in the last 30 secs through fear. Still a useful few quid won with no drama. Interesting that the CMC ftse doesn't leap about - calculated differently I believe.

100:1 was available. You could have laid the 'down' bet at 1.01 between 10 and 6 minutes before the close of the hour.

I was so sure that 'down' was a dead cert that I didn't even bother to extinguish my risk by laying off at 1.01, never mind adding a bit for luck. There's a word for that - oh yes, discipline!!

I see no one's taking a chance this hour - with 2.5 minutes to go 1.01 is still not available!

edit - laid off at 1.01 with 2 mins to go.

Well I had layed 1000 at 1.01 and thought myself very clever when I had closed (not greened up) at 1.16. Sadly the very last tick took it over. Grrrr!

I'll post up a chart later on.

kernow, I've been watching betfair FTSE intraday for a week and also notice the betfair FTSE levels seems to be different from other sources which sometimes do not always agree between themselvs. Might be worth a call to betfair.

If there is any conspiracies, then, IMHO, it is likely to be an insider job
(profiting the insider directly or their mates/relatives who bet on a good odd
sure to come true).

If not a conspiracy, it is worthwhile for betfair to make available historical
data (say, one years data) for subsequent checking. Thus removing any suspicisions.

p.s. comments based on sampling from less than 5-days of observations.

The Betfair FTSE levels are correct. The conspiracy being talked about is whether the FTSE itself is manipulated as each hour nears (probably) and whether that is done in order to win money on Betfair (possibly). Who knows.

Kayak, OK, that's reassuring :-)
To which other sources should the FTSE lelvel be compared?
I need to check my sources to make sure I was comparing like-with-like.

axdpc - quote from Betfair's rules for this hour: "This market will be settled on the first 13:00 price stamp taken from Bloomberg."

It seems to me that it would be fairer for the settlement to be the last price of the hour, not the first of the new one. Many news reports come out on the hour, and could influence the next ftse update.

Piptrader; I think they use the 1 minute price, the price is used to close out the previous hour and to open the next one

Piptrader, thanks.
Wonder whether the Bloomberg has the same timestamp as the LSE for the same trade?

In our house, no two clocks and watches show the same hour, minutes and seconds.
Often they don't even show the same minute!

Mike !!!! You should be drinking, making merry and enjoying the turkey now ??

p.s. what do your mean by '1 minute prices'? Examples? Thanks.

Bullshare - thanks, that's a relief.

edit - that's what I thought too, axdpc. Such devotion to duty :-)

Betfair ping Bloomberg for the 13:00 price which is delivered to them at 13:01, hence it takes about 3 mins for the new hourly 13:00 to 14:00 intraday to be opened.