Hi all,

I joined FI about three weeks ago. I'm currently about 8% up, so not too bad.

I'm interested in hold and grow strategies, and wondered if any of you had any good ones. But rather than just ask, I thought I'd try and start the conversation with some analysis.

I wondered whether there is just natural growth going on in the system. More users, will just be creating a demand.

The first hypothesis I wanted to test is - good teams will grow more than "average" teams as joe bloggs is more likely to buy them.

So I looked at the top 4 teams in the Premier League, an "average" premier league team, and a newly promoted PL team. I also threw in the top 3 from Spain and Bundesliga. I did all of this from the start of the 17/18 season - and took the players who played (started or a sub) in the first two games of the season. I compared their price "today" (this was last week), and their price 1 year ago (using the "average" price displayed in the 1 year chart).

Results (if you bought every player in these teams from the start of last season, excluding dividends);
PL - Top 4: Liverpool 111%, Man City 98%, Tottenham 64%, Chelsea 56%
PL - Avg (West Ham chosen at Random): 12%
PL - New (Brighton chosen at random): 1%
LL - Top 3: Real 95%, Atletico 52%, Barcelona 45%
BL - Top 3: Bayern 80%, Schalke 74%, Hoffenheim 36%

So it does seem that the "popular" teams deliver better results than average. Obviously the teams that performed better in the season also delivered even better results, but you could just go "PL top 4, Spain top 3, BL top 2" and you would have got a return of 75%.

I then wanted to look at whether position or age had any impact on price change (this is all excluding West Ham, Brighton, and Hoffenheim).
GK: 16%
Defenders: 89% (CD 82%, FB 100%)
Mid: 66% (DM 6%, CM 79%, AM 81%, W 43%)
Fwds: 85% (Striker 52%, Second Striker 132%, Winger 101%)

So slightly surprisingly the Defenders are the best return on average, but Second Striker is the best sub position (but this is because of Salah - 433%, so be careful with the analysis at this level down).

Age?
1983-1985 - 5%
1986 - 1990 - 65%
1991 - 1995 - 86%
1996 - 1998 - 146%

So there does seem to be a relationship with age - the older the player the less return, the younger the player the higher the return.

So you end up with a picture that says something like; Buy the Full Backs, The Central Midfielders, the Attacking Midfielders, and the Forwards from the Top 4 PL, Top 3 LL, and Top 2 BL teams as long as they were born 1990 or later (would be 1991 this year). If you'd done that a year ago you would have a return (excluding Dividends) of 97% - how does that compare.

Obviously all of this is historical analysis, so will almost certainly be wrong for future speculation - but I thought I'd open up the conversation!

Hi all!

Update and closure on this "experiment" (will release my £10 for today!).

You might recall (probably not) that I set up the "pets" portfolio a while ago - randomly generated from the names of peoples pets!

I set this up against some of the top tips at the time.

I was aiming to do three things; 1) just keep myself busy, 2) see if a random selection generated a profit, and 3) see if the "top tips" beat a bunch of randoms!

Conclusion.
The pets portfolio did generate a profit! They cost £19.91 on 17th June, and today they would cost £21.95 (a 10.2% increase), if I instant sell today and take out 2% commission then i Get £20.75, a 4.2% return in about two months - so not too shabby!

The Top Tips won though, they cost £19.93, and would now cost £25.55 (28.2% up), at IS and with commission that's £24.26 (21.8% up in two months!).

Top performers;
Leon Goretzka (tip) - £1 initial cost, £1.40 instant sell price today. 37.2% profit with commission.
Jonathan Bamba (tip) - £1.16 initial cost. £1.56 instant sell today. 31.8% profit.
Ruben Vinagre (tip) - 75p initial, 90p IS today. 17.6% profit
Amadou Haidara (pet!) - 83p initial, 95p IS today, 12.2% profit.

I'd like to carry this on for longer than two months, but to be honest I can't be arsed.

Overall conclusion (was pretty obvious at the start);

1. Top tips (regularly discussed up and coming players) are better than random selections!
2. Even a random pick will probably make you money. If you are losing money on here at the moment you should take a long hard look in the mirror!

I'm currently writing up my scientific research paper on this and will be submitting it to the relevant authorities in the coming months,

Dog out.

Yep. Conclusion is that some go up, some go down. Most are going up, not all.

End of discussion.

🐶

I can't resist coming back to this. My follow on question (for myself) was "how have they done over two years"?

Average return: 107% !!
Decreased: 11% (20)
Same: 4% (7)
Increased: 85% (154)

Top of the Pops;

Bottom;

Lets have a scatter chart :)
Age to return (2 yr) relationship

Dog out.

Getting a bit sick of these ideas. I think FI towers should lay off the brain storming on how to get people to buy and sell more to generate commission, and concentrate more on the core product.

Super points, IPDs, transfer bonuses, so on and so forth.... getting sick of it

OK. Well I've dug up some old research I had from last year and updated the prices.

This looked at the following teams; From end of 16/17 season Top 4 PL, Top 3 LL, Top 3 BL, plus a random promoted team (PL) and a random mid table team (PL).

So; Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham, Brighton, West Ham, Barcelona, Atletico, Real Madrid, Bayern, Schalke, Hoffenheim.

I tracked every player who played in the first or second game of the season (17/18) - the idea was "what happens if you just buy the top teams players" vs. mid table or promoted,

I won't go over that research again, but if I just use that group of players (all their players touching the pitch two years ago) what has happened to their prices in the last year (actually 10 months since end of August).

On Average: 25% increase
Players decreasing: 31% (56 of 181)
Players the same: 7% (12 of 181)
Players increasing: 62% (113 of 181)

Avg YOB for "top" 10 decreasers: 1987
Avg YOB for Top 10 increasers: 1995

Conclusion:
On average you should have a return in the last 10 months, even if you bought everyone! 25% for this random sample.

It is certainly true that not everyone will rise. Steer clear of the oldies!

Some other interesting snippets if you are interested;

Top players
Declan Rice - 452%
Yannick Carrasco - 325%
Digne - 299%
Sterling - 231%
Demirbay - 221%

Bottom players
Kompany -67%
Naldo -55%
David Silva -53%
Marcelo - 50%
Otamendi - 50%

You'll notice they are all old. 1987 is the average year of birth.

So what if you were slightly sensible and only bought players born after say 1993 (so 25 or younger) - then your average return would have been 60%. There's 46 players, and 8 went down (so 83% went up).

Results by club;

Results by Club if YOB >= 1993

Think that's enough for now. Better do some proper work!

I used to work in Digital for a large airline, and there was a forum called flyertalk. We used to monitor it, and most of the senior management did, but when it came to posting there was always a resource and job description conversation.

I’m guessing it’s the same here. Lots of the FI team probably browse our discussions, but it’s no ones “job”, then if something big is going on then Dan gets told to post.

FI management the solution is quite simple. You clearly have a social team. Add this forum to their responsibilities, give them some targets on interaction. At the same time workshop what the forum should be (lots of ideas above, but also just look at flyertalk or any other mature forums), then prioritise that and stick an agile team on it for three months.

These guys give FI the money that allows FI to give us the money 😂.

Great! Awesome start to the season, I’m up nearly 5% on the week! 1.5% today! Crazy stuff.

Long may it continue, growth seems to be accelerating not plateauing.

Just buy good players, and hold.

Thanks for the tips. The analysis certainly indicates their scouts are ahead of the game.

I'm going to buy 5 of each and see what happens :)

For anyone that is interested the players they have listed in this years yearbook are;
(excuse the formatting I'm pasting)

Defenders
MAX AARONS
REECE JAMES
Éder Militão
AARON WAN-BISSAKA
Nikola Milenković
JUNIOR FIRPO
JOACHIM ANDERSEN
YOUCEF ATAL
STANLEY N’SOKI
NOUSSAIR MAZRAOUI
CHRIS MEPHAM
MANUEL AKANJI
RUBEN DIAS
MARIO HERMOSO
KEVIN MBABU

Midfielders
DOMINIK SZOBOSZLAI
MICHAEL CUISANCE
FRAN BELTRAN
RITSU DOAN
JAMES MADDISON
NAHITAN NANDEZ
DIEGO LAINEZ
FERRAN TORRES
SANDRO TONALI
GIORGI CHAKVETADZE
Nicolò Zaniolo
TYLER ADAMS
Ibrahim Sangaré
Nikola Vlašić
Brais Méndez
MARC ROCA
Diadie Samassékou

Forwards
Vinícius Júnior
João Félix
DANI OLMO
Ismaïla Sarr
STEVEN BERGWIJN
JOELINTON
Krzysztof Piątek
CUCHO (Juan Camilo) HERNANDEZ
FEDOR CHALOV
LUKA JOVIC
VIKTOR TSYGANKOV
CENGIZ UNDER
HARRY WILSON

Last years tips were (these were published in March 2018)

Forwards
CALLUM HUDSON-odoi
jadon sancho
jann-fiete arp
moise kean
reiss nelson
ben woodburn
justin kluivert
HANNES WOLF
IVAN IGNATIEV
PATRICK CUTRONE
JACK HARRISON
FEDERICO CHIESA
DOMINIC SOLANKE
HENRY ONYEKURU
ADALBERTO Peñaranda
RICHARLISON
MIKEL OYARZABAL
DOMINIC CALVERT-LEWIN
DAWID KOWNACKI
FASHION SAKALA
ALLAN SAINT-MAXIMIN
david neres
Gonçalo Guedes
MAXI GóMEZ
Sebastián Driussi
Patrik schick
Cristian Pavón
GELSON MARTINS
Keita Baldé
BRUMA
PIETRO PELLEGRI

Good luck everyone!

He looks like a good prospect, but 1.03 when Robertson is 1.16. Personally think that is mental - Robertson is already doing everything this kid might do, plus champions league final coming up.

Getting a bit sick of these ideas. I think FI towers should lay off the brain storming on how to get people to buy and sell more to generate commission, and concentrate more on the core product.

Super points, IPDs, transfer bonuses, so on and so forth.... getting sick of it

Handily my sale of Fernandes went through at 16 minutes before midnight, only a £15 bonus, but still a happy coincidence :)

Bruno fernandes, 60 @ 4.65 about 24 hours.

I took about 10p off the market sell min as they kept delisting before that.

January, pretty flat. 3rd Jan to today = +0.65%
December was +1.52%
November +4.0%
October +2.0%
September +0.87%
August +4.1%

So August to now +13.4%

A little bit meh... but better than a kick in the teeth.

Last year was easier money.

Football index have announced this, wow, surprise transfer move of the millennium!

(According to the player bio anyway)

@janner73 said in Minamino:

@DrDog Sell low and buy high? Interesting strategy ;)

Haha I know!

Wish I had a time machine and 160 of him instead of 60.

But I’m up 7% so still better than zero.

I find forgetting these things and just focussing on when I’ve been awesome is healthy for my mental state :) - shelvey at 30p is my current back pat.

Apologies if I’ve missed an existing thread!

Up 81p on the Liverpool transfer story.

I sold 160 of him for 75p about a month ago! Doh! Just bought about 60 of him for about the same money.

Oh well, let’s see how this plays out.

@DrDog said in Top 10 *VALUABLE* Young Players:

TAA! This post was too short, so here are some pointless words

Just replying to myself as it’s nice being right for once :)

Probably already been mentioned, in the 1000+ posts!

But Shelvey seems ridiculously cheap, quite well suited to the new matrix and just back from injury.

I jumped on at 30p today and he’s already 35, but was 40 just before injury when Newcastle were poor and on the old matrix.

Well at least it seems to have “corrected” the market a little. As said, some decent rises ahead of the detail, and I’ve seen 0.3% on top since, so seems to be holding.

I hope this will make the market more logical again