Early movements on pre race odds

[jdbet]

Hi,

After using TGT for some time (and lurking in the forum) I decided to post a question.

I've noticed that some horses have some very early price drops (or rises). Unfortunately, since the graphs from TGT don't have an axis with some sort of timestamps of the transactions, I can't know at what time this happens.

example:
Leicester 14:40 - Saigon Kitty vs Toby Tyler
also in the same race - Jibrrya (recommended by ATR Hugh Grant at 11 am, @ 15 at that time, but a huge drop some time before that)

Is it the effect of some newspapers tips that people follow? Or just the work of some people with good knowledge of the horses? Or all of it and something else?

[Cran]

you need to be monitoring the market when the price changes happen as the betfair graphs don't have any indication of time.

[jdbet]

So there's no way to find out the exact (or aprox) time of those changes?
And what about the possible reasons for them?

[Cran]

Not without some way of monitoring the markets (either manual or automated)

The API vendors are not allowed to make historical data available unless they have a historical data licence (which I'm guessing is very expensive).

Fracsoft do historical prices, but only 20 mins pre race which doesn't help.

As for the reasons, there could be many...

Maybe you can come up with some reasons why you think a market might change and then spend some time watching the markets that meet your criteria and see if you are on to anything.

[jdbet]

Thanks for the reply. I guess that will be one more project for the incubator
I'm not quite sure if it's worth the effort, but as soon as I get some knowledge on databases and working with the BF API, I'll do something to get more info on these changes. I was just hoping that there would be a less laborious solution

[jdbet]

Is it possible to make a database that requests the odds for every horse on every event in each day, with the free API, without incurring in data charges?

[duffer1]

Howdoo all,

I've been vaguely studying early price movements over the last year or two - stuff from around 9.00 in the morning until the off.

I've also done a little 'long-term' trading, looking for movements over an hour or two rather than the frantic last ten minute frenzy!

It probably isn't rocket science in that if a horse is heavily tipped in the morning papers, punters will jump on and the price is likely to come in. (At least that's one theory!). But because there's not a lot of money in the markets early on, things can jump around a bit, so beware.

I've never really made much at it - partly because I'm a fairly useless low stakes trader, and partly because there isn't always that much money around. But this doesn't mean that you couldn't.

Getting true historical data out of Betfair seems a bit tricky, and the Betfair 'Market Information' graphs are next to useless for this because of the lack of a time frame.

BetDaq however, does have 'Trading History' graphs that will let you see how the price of any given horse has moved over time. Not exactly cutting edge, but it might let you do some back-of-a-fag-packet analysis.

The last trap to watch out for, that I fell headlong into, is that odds come in when there's been a significant withdrawal from one of the other runners. The reduction factor. When this happens your back bet is adjusted down automatically to suit.

So you stick your back bet on at 5.0 at 9.00am, look back at 11.00am to find it's come in to 3.0, and think you've made a few quid, only to find out that you back bet has been chopped down because of a non-runner and you're still under water!

Anyhow, hope this helps. As ever there are many better and brighter than me hereabouts, so you may hear some alternative opinions...

Good luck with it, and let us know how you get on if you decide to take it off the back-burner.

Cheers...

duffer.

[Ted]

Hi there, Duff, changes in the 'going' are often responsible for shifting odds, along with average Joe Soap jockey, replaced by 'Star' rider.

True, we do get a better 'feel' for a market, by monitoring it, over time. Would be nice to know concealed or late breaking info ie horse had bad journey to track, trod on a stone, didn't eat up, went to post badly etc etc.

If big money comes for fav, others drift, clearly if we spot something, that will alter the price, we can capitalise on it. Even if it's only negative comment from TV pundits.

[PC0845]

If big money comes for fav, others drift, clearly if we spot something, that will alter the price, we can capitalise on it. Even if it's only negative comment from TV pundits.

Agreed, CH4 racing on Saturday has Francome speaking. His comments when negative can cause significant moves, Tyical comment : "Horse carrying too much condition", he is especially astute in running. I have yet to see him being proved wrong and others obviously use his opinion, as horses immediately drift as soon as he speaks negatively.

[duffer1]

Hi there, Duff, changes in the 'going' are often responsible for shifting odds, along with average Joe Soap jockey, replaced by 'Star' rider.

True, we do get a better 'feel' for a market, by monitoring it, over time. Would be nice to know concealed or late breaking info ie horse had bad journey to track, trod on a stone, didn't eat up, went to post badly etc etc.

If big money comes for fav, others drift, clearly if we spot something, that will alter the price, we can capitalise on it. Even if it's only negative comment from TV pundits.

This is exactly what I meant by 'better and brighter than me' - ditto PC0845

I must confess I'd never really thought about the going changing, but of course that makes good sense along with all of the other stuff.

In a vaguely related way, I was on Twitter when Houghton got sacked at Newcastle, and idly wondered what the market was doing on Betfair. Over the course of a few hours it was surprising how quickly the market moved in reaction to the twitter rumours (Jol at the airport, Pardew seen talking, Maradona interested etc.)

I suspect racing punters and traders are very much more clued into this sort of stuff. And like you say - keeping the book level is also a factor in price movement.

Lord, so many things to keep track of, even in early-doors trading!

(And I really wanted Diego for Newcastle - a perfect fit!)

[McAuthor]

Yes, there can be significant, early morning price movements on napped horses; and yes, there is a way to view any runners' price history.

Between 6am - 7am use the "racingpost.com" Naps Table to establish the most napped horse(s). Do this by clicking on "Tipping" and then "Launch Naps Table." An easier place to look is "dailynaps.co.uk" - this site used to be free up until recently.

Once you've identified a well-fancied runner go to "oddschecker.com". Change the sites price display to "Decimal" (bottom left-hand menu). Click on the name of the horse and you will see the horses' Betfair price history from midnight onwards. It shows the time of each colour coded, price change - pink for drifting or light blue for steaming.

If the punters start backing this horse before leaving for work you should see a definite price drop from 7am to about 9.15am. For example, I've seen a well napped horse go from 2.26 down to 1.83. But here's the IMPORTANT bit: the price goes back up again after that time and stabilises after 10am when the bookies make the final adjustments to that day's prices. It's most likely that the price will end up close to where it started out at 7am.

Before trading on these early morning markets it's probably best to monitor the fluctuations for a week or so to get a feel for the pattern. I've also seen the price of fancied horses not move at all and ultimately start to drift after 10am. But - I guess that's the nature of this business: nothing is certain.