Days of the week and algorithms

[doris_day]

I'd be interested to hear if those of you who run automated algos find there are days of the week when they consistently do better or worse.

For instance, I've always found Saturdays to be quite peculiar and wonder if others have noticed anything similar.

I must admit that I'm quite anal in my data collection as I like to quantify things as much as I can. And I have a lot of data to analyse as I've been doing this for a few years. Perhaps others are less obsessive and don't do such analysis.

I've been thinking about this only because my original algos have been doing poorly recently ( mainly because of the reduced liquidity ) and I've developed another one which is following a similar pattern of strange Saturdays. My reasoning is that Saturdays are composed of a different user base and that there is more 'live' TV racing but it would be interesting to hear of the experiences of others.

[osknows]

If you're referring to horse racing, there is bigger prize money to be had over the weekend and races are more competitive. Horses will often travel further afield or be especially trained for an unpredictable win when the prize money is worth it

[doris_day]

Thats all true. But why would those facts in themselves mean that the betting patterns pre and in-play are different ?

[KESIMKESIM]

I have noticed things have changed quite a bit on a Saturday in the last few weeks, probably since mid January.

I'm not sure for the reason for this though.

Yes, I think the liquidity is down, but I think that the 'market maker' (whoever that is !) has changed the way their bot works also.

I haven't yet worked it out as often the matched figure still seems reasonable. However, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the matched figure is purely the market makers bot eating it's own money.

I'm personally of the opinion that the 'market maker' is actually BF themselves, although I have absolutely no proof of this, it's just a hunch.

Whatever has changed is probably 'someone' preparing for Cheltenham and testing out their strategy.

[doris_day]

Thanks for the feedback KESIMKESIM.

My own view is that the strangeness (to me at any rate) of Saturdays is mainly because the market composition is different to other days of the week. By 'composition', I mean the type of player in the markets and their ratios. I think there are more players with poor information and ability on Saturdays and their numbers are higher at the moment than previous. Generally speaking this should sound like good news to those with better information or greater ability. But for me at least there comes a point when the poor player ratio is so high my algos break down. And I'm finding this is what is happening on Saturdays. I'll just have to think of some alternatives for Saturdays

[KESIMKESIM]

My own take is that Saturdays are becoming more like the other days of the week, in the way the market works, albeit with higher liquidity than other days.

It is interesting that you think there are more poor players about now. I had put some of the change down to there being less poor players, possibly due to the pressure on disposable income following Xmas. I thought that it was harder now, as it is a greater % of 'pro' money compared to before.

It will be interesting to see how it goes at Cheltenham.

[Captain Sensible]

I've always found Saturdays to be my best days, probably alot due to the amount of racing and higher turnover but also think I do a lot better with the shall we say less discerning punter. I find much the same thing with the night racing too when I assume a high proportion are playing for fun and not to make their weekly wage.

[mak]

Even though it is too early for me to "speak" (little experience and even more little knowledge) Saturdays are fine for my bots. As a matter of fact they are usual perform better than most of the rest days.The "difficult" or strange day for me is Sunday. I really don't know why, but i think is due to lower "activity" in the i/r horse markets (just my guess - watching the odds activity).

[doris_day]

Interesting to see the variation in the feedback. I suspect if our algos are taking advantage of different inefficiencies, then its to be expected we'd get different results.

Sundays Mak, have always been my worst day in terms of amount of money made simply because of the very poor liquidity. I make 20% on a Sunday compared to my best day, which is Friday.

Funny thing is, Saturdays used to be my best day but over the past few months there seems to have been a marked change. It may well be that its because of the lower number of poor players on a Saturday rather than a higher number as I first thought but somehow, because of the logic behind my algos I doubt it.

[doris_day]

I suspect Saturdays are poor for me now because Captain Sensible is getting to the money before me

[Lewis]

I run a pre-race bot, While I don't have figures to hand I would echo what many have said and in the winter my strong days are generally thurs/friday with Saturday /Sunday being somewhat unpredictable.

Hopefully things start to even out again come summer, while I have still made ok profits this winter there have definitely been a number of days with unusual patterns due to volume/weather/meetings/API.

Will try and find some actual figues for profits/day of the week