Financial Betting Articles

Keeping Your Head

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ... then you clearly haven't been watching the markets - it's carnage out there! I haven't seen this much blood on the floor since I tried shaving with my dad's Flymo. You'd think Hurricane Dean had passed right through the US financial system ...

Call me mad, call me crazy, call me at 3am and order a pizza - but I say that one thing you absatively posalutely must NOT do is start guessing where things will be at the end of the week – it's more dangerous than catching falling knives. I know seasoned traders who are calling the end of the hour the 'long term'. But they are still prepared to play the short term game. They want to be in and out as stealthily as a panther - 5 minute, hourly, daily bets are the limit for this cat.

And the market melee just got a lot more interesting with the central banks wading in to the fracas: splashing cash, cutting interest rates and shaking things up. The Fed's shock announcement Friday sent the FTSE to the moon in a few minutes. However, the Fed didn't act out of confidence – it acted out of fear. And if the Fed is jittery you had better believe the market is running scared. People are running – running for the hills, which means there's only one thing for it: time to point my laptop at the interweb and get ready to rake in some cash.

The killer cash-making combination is short term markets and binary bets – that way you can easily cut your losses and run your winnings. With a market shedding 30 points one minute and gaining it back the next, you need the options to close your positions fast and capitalise on a short term move. As my Ma used to say, "Son, either you play the markets or they'll play you." Strange woman.

The crisis has also opened the eyes of a bunch of our savvy punters to two great betting opportunities. Firstly, all the ChoiceOdds markets have 'wings' – by which I mean those bets that are 10, 20, 50 or 100 ticks away from the strike price. In volatile markets there is great money to be made out on the wings. Buy them, sell them – just don't try to flap them.

Second, these spiky markets are ideal for making money out of fixed odds bets. For the uninitiated, the fixed bet strike levels move with the market. In current conditions they are great for calling the top or bottom of a market for over five minute, an hour or a day. It's the way to make money out of sharp moves and rapid reversals.

But what about the outlook for the markets? I'd say the credit squeeze is a bit like Paula Radcliffe – it can run and run (ok, the Choice Cuts Comedy Index has reached an all time low - BUY! BUY!). When banks and hedge funds are selling their liquid assets (i.e. desirable) to prop up a bunch of junk then you know they're in a hole and still digging. The summer storm isn't over yet...

Broaden your horizons and learn to profit in uncertain times at www.ChoiceOdds.com

Thursday's FTSE fall of 4.1% was followed by a gain of 3.5% on Friday. The previous biggest moves were a loss of 4.8% on 12th March 2003 and a gain of 6.1% the following day.

The FTSE moved over 250 ticks in a little over an hour Friday, in the wake of the US Fed slashing is interbank lending rate to help the credit markets.

Friday say the Yen hit 14 month highs against the Dollar as the carry trade unwinds and the Yen is seen as a safe haven currency amid the current turmoil.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has written 17 shows and it is rumoured that people pay money to see them.

Back to "Articles"

Open Account