Missing the best days....

For those of you who may be familar with the mechanics of the stock exchange you'll probably be familiar with the title of this post and how missing individual days has a huge effect on performance - a study I read the other day showed that investors who remained fully invested in the UK market over a particular five year period would have received returns in excess of 60%. In contrast, investors who missed out on the ten best days would have seen their returns cut to just 40%, while those who missed the best 40 days would have made just 4%.

What's my point? I suppose that missing what I now know to have been good winning days while I was on holiday has impacted significantly on how things have performed so far for me this year. Admittedly it's completely different to investing in the stock market but the point in my head is the same - miss a few good bets and it makes a massive difference.

Reviewing the latest SBC that's just come out and update spreadsheet from Equine confirmed I'd missed winning bets all over the place that would more than likely put me in profit for February. 16/1 Equine winner was a particular sore one!!

I still swear by taking a break but you have to accept that you may miss good days and it will impact your ROI on the year. Now presume there can an be option to use a bet placement service but I wouldn't touch them - I'm sure a big one collapsed last year - losing punters a lot of money.

Anyway one good bit of news that came out of reading the SBC update was I spotted that Recession Proof had done the business for 4PA on the 18th - happy days and there was the cash sitting in my Paddy Power account!! I've added that to my February statement although the bet was placed in Jan as an AP bet. Very welcome. Didn't push February into profit for me though but close to it.

Graph here;

So what do I think of things so far - probably feels like I've turned a corner this month. Confident the majority of tipsters are the right ones for me - maybe just need to think about my weighting.

One last thing - decided to stick with Steve Lewis Hamilton until 1 June so have renewed for 3 months. Lets see how it goes.

So March - lets hope onwards and upwards - time is key to success!

Saturday Success

After floating around the doldrums for what feels like forever (excluding my holiday of course!!) I had the biggest winning day of the year for me so far yesterday.

Systematic Betting on storming form again with three good winning days in a row putting them in positive territory for me now this month. Steve Lewis Hamilton had a welcome winner today - Reindeer Dippen doing the business at Newcastle. Timely winner for SLH as I need to renew my subscription tomorrow which I think I will. Think the business end of the NH season we shall hopefully see some results.

Equine had two account losers, much tempered by a "mention" winning at 14/1. Be interested to see end of month results when the spreadsheet comes out as been a flat month in the time I've bet. Suspect that service will finish for the season in March as well so unlikely to have been a successful subscription period.

Newcomer Northern Monkey had 4 losers but I like this service already - detailed explanations of why placing the bet always makes me feel better.

Roger Green had another stinker and dropped 18 points since my return. Probably wouldn't be complaining if I'd got that 5 point win of course!!

Back and Refreshed

Just back from holidays and feeling refreshed after 2 weeks in the far east visiting friends and enjoying some time on the beach. Just what the doctor ordered for February! I didn't bet at all while I was away although the time zone difference certainly made it possible to do so - bets would come through late afternoon / early evening! Something to consider if we ever move out there!!

Haven't paid too much attention to what happened while I was away although I did see that the day after I left Roger Green managed a 5 point 12/1 winner and appears to have had a decent run since then. Incredibly frustrating when that happens but I think you've got to make some choices and stick to them - certainly when you are on holiday you are on holiday in my mind. Don't want to dwell on the missed bets but sometimes its hard not to especially considering the year to date position. Although being away from work and bets has certainly refreshed me and feel back up for it.

Been betting since my return on Wednesday and unfortunately a couple of losing days so feels a wee bit like groundhog day - but c'est la vie and surely the only way is up!

I've made a couple of changes to my betting - reduced my Neural bets to £5 per point and I've signed up to Northern Monkey so will see how that goes. Will keep you posted on how things progress.

Pre-Holiday Update

Hi all - a bit better today with Equine Investments finally delivering the goods - first winner since 14 Jan (approx 22 bets). There have been some places but nothing to write home about. Day in profit though which is what its all about!

I may not get to post tomorrow night so I will leave you with where I am year to date - graph below tells the picture.

One thing I haven't done as yet is tell you who I follow and how much I stake on each service this year;

* Steve Lewis Hamilton - £25 per point

* Equine Investments - £25 per point

* Roger Green Racing - £5 per point (testing this service hence low stakes)

* The Nagman - £5 per point (testing as above)

* Each Way Value - £20 per point (usually £10 e/w)

* Football Elite - £25 per point

* 4PA - £20 per point

* Systematic Betting - £10 per point

* Mr Gekko Bets - £25 per point

* Neural Bets - £10 per point (testing service - staking probably too high).

Here's the graph;

Doesn't look great so far this year but I'm not overly worried. If I'm not on tomorrow I'll be back on at the end of the month. Hope your betting goes well for the rest of the month!

Tipster Update - Steve Lewis Hamilton

Thought I'd cover off one of my big guns in this update.

Steve Lewis Hamilton

If you google Steve Lewis Hamilton my reviews of him come up on the first page. I was quite surprised but pleased they are there because at the time I did them I wanted to do an honest evaluation of a service that gets bad press and to be fair doesn't really help itself sometimes.

At the time SLH was having a steady start to 2010 and my stats showed that. Since then things haven't gone so well - I suppose they couldn't keep going on how they were - in the previous 18 months I'd made £9,000 with relatively small stakes (between £25-£35 a pt). Certainly from June onwards I've only experienced one profitable month - which is dreadful for a premium service charging premium fees. Now you could argue that in the grand scheme of things that it's not too bad to be down £1k+ after making £9k and that's part of the game. But consistency is important, as is "the here and now" - you pay a year sub you expect a return on that year sub.

There are some green shoots to make me think positively though - Steve has finally admitted himself that things haven't gone well and is desperately trying to address them. A step forward as there wasn't much acknowledgement of the poor run previously. Additionally his "mentions" provide decent profit. I haven't followed them consistently until recently but Jan I managed to make 22 points profit. There's also the option of trading in-running - you'll see from comments in my "Back from holiday" post that one of the guys reading this blog has managed to make some money out of it - certainly the picks do well in-running.

I'll post some stats once I'm back from my holiday.

I think alot needed to turn things around but SLH has been here before and I've an open mind due to the success I've had with this service - my subs are up soon and by the end of March as we work through the NH season I'll make a decision then what to do.

Was just a blip!

I mean the upswing in February of course. The drawdown from 12th January now stands at just under £1,100. Thank goodness for betting banks!! I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks from Wednesday and had hoped I'd leave in a decent place but I suppose it's not how it works all the time. Hopefully next couple of days goes well. Won't be betting on holiday - important to take a break!

Beginning to wonder about a few of the services in my portfolio - but will cover these in my Tipster summaries.

Since the turn of the year i've been getting better at updating my records and now running a daily tracker as you could see from my graph posted at end of Jan. Interesting to note that in 2011 I've had 20 losing days vs. 17 winning days but I'm over £600 down in the year. Not sure what that tells me but I'm a big fan of stats!

Also tracking days of the week and these look like;

Monday £-3

Tuesday £-155

Wednesday £93

Thursday £-233

Friday £-187

Saturday £89

Sunday £-212

Be interesting to see how it pans out. Maybe take some days off and make some money!!

Tipster Update

February has started better than January ended which is refreshing. Steve Lewis Hamilton even managed a couple of winning bets! Something I've not seen for a long long time. Equine Investments poor run continues with only one winning bet since the turn of the year. A couple of place returns but nothing to write home about.

Thought I'd give you a brief overview of some of the tipsters I'm following. Just the one overview tonight.

Systematic Betting

Currently the jewel in the crown of my portfolio. I joined in June last year after much deliberation due to the volume of bets - but while the workload is heavy the returns have been magnificent. I got off to a slow start with the service as really didn't know what my staking should look like and was on the verge of giving up. Once I got there in September, the profits have kept on coming and certainly has helped start to turn my portfolio around. Initially I thought it was difficult to get on at recommended prices but once I expanded my suite of bookies and limited betfair use its became easier and occasionally you can get better than recommended with BOG bookies. You do still have to move relatively quickly but thankfully Mark who runs the service limits numbers so it's not as bad on pricing as with other services.

Happy New Year...

Hi all
Back in business for 2011. Truth be told i've never been away but personal circumstances meant for most of the last year i didn't have time to blog.

Things have changed a bit since my last posts. Will summarise the services over next day or so and my thoughts on these.

Been a tough start to the year with a significant loss posted for January. Really extremes on service performance. Shocking monthly performance from Equine Investments, Steve Lewis Hamilton, Football Elite and Roger Green. Excellent from Mr Gekko, Systematic Betting and The Nagman.

Reached a high of £490 on 12th only to experience a drawdown of £985 for the rest of the month - so overall loss of £496. Only one month but disappointing nonetheless.

Here's the graph;