QuantSports

Today I found myself in the fortunate position to test out the new QuantSports software with Betfair's horse racing markets thanks to Toby's kind offer. This is a bridge between Betfair and NinjaTrader allowing the user to custom create charts with as many preset or custom made indicators desired. With this tool I could fine tune the degree of technical analysis charting displayed in real time on each runner. Now I'm pretty sure many sports traders would instantly reject the need for such a sophisticated charting option, and to be honest having read a lot about technical analysis in the last year, particularly around the time I started trading, I actually made the decision and proved over the next few months that such advanced analysis is not necessary to profit on Betfair.

Having said this though, I was really glad I gave it a go as how can somebody truly know if they haven't tried something for themselves? I haven't seen anything else like this commercially available for sports trading before, and as it has just been released, anyone taking this view must surely fall into that category. I wouldn't consider excel integration with charting directly comparable as QuantSports is truly realtime with user specified display settings varying from tick, time, range and even volume. Also the range of indicators are huge, and as you are able to create your own scripts or download other end user's efforts from the NinjaTrader forums, this gives you the possibility to specify exactly what you want displayed.

One point I'm sure we can all agree on is that the markets are in a constant state of change and assuming that the analysis required to profit last week, month or year will work equally well today is in essence false due to their changing state. We've all seen the hoardes of Betfair systems being sold all over the net which might have worked one day, but things change. So what will enhance our edge? Perhaps this might just be the ticket.

I was a bit gutted to only have a couple of hours in the afternoon and only one more in the evening to give this a go. For most of this time I was adjusting settings and generally getting accustomed to the NinjaTrader program, which to be fair was a bit fiddly but did exactly what was asked in the end. I loaded it up on my laptop so it didn't interfere with my main trading setup, fired up The Toy on my main PC and started clicking away.

Only having a couple of hours to trade I'm not going to write too much about it now as I would like to have some more hands on experience to integrate my trading with QuantSports, but what I will say is that it has impressed me to no end so far. Some of the indicators predicted swings and reversals seconds before they occurred, and I often found myself entering swings right at the top just before the big money came in. I have rarely been in that position so many times in one session before today. I think the main observation so far is that QuantSports has provided me with more confidence to enter aggressively without hesitation and a clearer idea as when to close. Although I would add closes were more effective whilst using different indicators, which I tested on the last couple of races.

I'll leave it at that for now as I do need more time to test further, but no doubt I will be writing more about this little gem as I explore it's features. Here are a few initial screenshots from today:

I have also been watching the tennis markets keenly since my decision to learn more about trading these markets. Mainly I've been watchng matches at work with the Betfair market open to see how certain points and incidents affect the prices. It has been very interesting so far and to boot I've witnessed some great tennis! I am currently arranging a Skype session with TraderShark soon which I am very much looking forward to.