I am in the smoke quite a bit in January - However my requirements include beer that is not flat and comes with a nice creamy head

I have held Messi since I joined the index in May 2018 but have had him in the sell queue for 10 days and it has taken until today for his shares to start selling.

He has been a fantastic investment and returned great dividends and I have some decent capital appreciation.

However I have now taken the decision to sell for various reasons:

1. His dividend return will/should be excellent over the coming years but his share price will fall as he ages - he will not be anywhere near his price today in 2/3 years.

2. As each season passes his dividends will possibly only make up for the capital depreciation and therefore money may well be better off in a younger player who offers lower dividends but better capital protection/appreciation.

3. At his current age 1 slice of bad luck (broken leg etc) could end his career in Europe

Use Sterling and Kane as an examples:

It is unlikely either will win more dividends than Messi but we will all agree that the probability is they will win above average MB and PB over the next 3 years.

If they do this they will at least hold if not increase there share price especially with Euros and World Cups every 2 years as well as high media presence.

Therefore there overall return could/should be ahead of Messi over this period and if they had a year out due to injury there share price should recover. So as a risk they are actually lower as the timing of your exit is less important.

This is not to say you should not own him it is just pointing out why I have sold him now having made my money and not wanting the current risk.

Mo has been falling week after for circa 3 months now from over £5 to his current £4.22 and his Instant sell price of £3.92 would suggest there are quite a few shares in the queue.

His positives are a possible 1st title for Liverpool and another champions league challenge which should produce MB and Gold PB chances in the latter rounds of the champions league.

His negatives are that he now shares more of the limelight with Sadio Mane and he obviously has no Euro’s.

Therefore what do you think is more likely £3.50 or £5.00.

I currently have just 300 shares left as sold 700 hundred over a month ago but not sure what to do with these.

Currently I am thinking sell as I do believe without PB win in the next month or so it could be £3.50

@Ellisandro

I have just cashed some in for a VCT will use the tax free dividends to invest back into FI and if I get my sums correct will wipe out my tax bill :)

@Ellisandro

It took me over a week to sell some Salah's and a few other obvious ones.

Glad the majority are going as you will need to invest soon if you want the EIS certificates in this tax year!!

@Ben_pz

As I said this is just my reasoning, however you are unwise to use the graph as new players keep being added to the platform which artificially increases the index. In addition all the new traders buy players which creates new futures which pushes the index higher but if they then sell and buy other players the index may increase but not player prices.

Remember statistics can prove anything!

I am selling up because the index is now substantially different to when I joined and so not for me - I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I have but personally I do believe buying and sitting on players is a safe strategy.

I have today spent 3 hours reading through literally 1000’s of posts on the forum discussing the current downturn in the Index. There are all differing types of posts some support the current direction and many more worry about it.

As a businessman that has spent his life building a substantial business that has always had to move with the times and embrace change I believe I have identified the direction FI are moving in and for me it is time to take out all bar 10% of my funds.

This does not mean everybody should as we each use, invest, enjoy FI for differing reasons, but for me it is time to go.

Why

In my opinion Football Index has now reached the part of its business plan where it diverts from it’s original strategy. It only makes money when players are sold so the more selling the more profit. Daily buying and selling (gambling) on the outcome of matches (IPD’s) is now and probably was always planned to be the heartbeat of the operation and it is where it can maximise profit and revenue.

To get to this point it needed to build a large loyal and dedicated fan base (us) to help build its name and reputation so it could achieve this. We have made money month after month which is the perfect way to build the brand. However it is now happy to lose a percentage of us as we were never actually part of the long term plan.

When I sell my players off they will make commission, the players will fall in value and as more traders do the same, these players will become more affordable to daily trade! Players going up and up in value are not what the platform is about from there point. Cultivating regular punters who enjoy a differing style of short term gambling is where the big profits are.

Do not be upset as this is a business and I have benefitted greatly but over the next few years you will see it more and more become a more mainstream gambling site - It is a disruptor just like Betfair was. However the bottom line is that it was created to make profit for the owners not a cash cow for us. Eventually 90% of people will lose money as that is what gambling is all about.

It has been a great ride and I wish you all well, I will still be here gambling and punting on players with a couple of grand of my profits but the other 20k of profits is about to be used to buy a property for my daughter (she is only 14) so will be paid off by the time she needs it 😀

@Timothee-Atouba

I do believe we will see them but not until the new technology is ready. The reason being is that they will increase FI’s profit margin substantially and probably improve there cash flow.

To explain:

Using all current players priced at £1.50 there instant sell price are £1.45, £1.46, £1.41 and £1.40 which reflects the risk involved and recent trends in buying or selling of that player.

Therefore when order books are introduced if the player is priced at £1.50 but you cannot get a buyer at that price you will start to lower the price you are willing to sell at if he still does not sell as nobody wants him then FI will be a buyer of last resort and offer a price which is probably lower than current.

My guess is that all instant sell prices will become a standard % lower than the buy price and at a guess say 10%. This means that offloading unwanted players will involve much more skill and timing. However for the compulsive gamblers and one day flippers the risks will increase dramatically.

It will be very similar to the Betfair model in the early days - I was a first day customer of there’s and the buy and sell prices then were much further apart from todays where the margin is so tight.

Personally I think it will be brilliant for thoughtful and serious investors as you will be able to buy players at roughly what todays instant sell prices are, it will be very good for FI but will be disastrous for the compulsive short term gamblers.

• by serious I do not mean the heavy hitters/rich I mean those that study and have a solid strategy 😀

As per all 3 threads money will still be able to be made by good selection of players that provide above average dividend returns and as you state capital appreciation in specific circumstances just not at the rate we have made money in the past

@Dan-The-Man

Hi Dan,

Thanks for replying I want to clarify once and for all to you and Pagey that if both of my posts are read accurately I definitely did not say the only way to make money in the past, now or in the future is only via dividends or to hold the top players only!

If read accurately I used the following phrases:

With each passing month
Becomes more established:
Within 12 months
Majority of Top 50 players have reached stagnation price
When people finally realise
But eventually
There are still IPD plays available
When the platform matures further

None of this reflects your replies I was trying to articulate the part journey FI has reached.

To explain further:

The majority of recent IPO’s in the view of most traders are now overpriced compared to the past and cannot be bought at value prices.

Therefore there are only previously released players at lower prices (less than £1) on the index and as more and more traders trawl through them there will be less and less that have any chance to really break through.

Where cheap players increase in value FI seem now to increase spreads a little further.

When order books are introduced FI instant sell will be a backstop only and spreads will be even wider.

Therefore I was stating that over the coming months and maybe in a years time - it will be substantially harder to make money at the lower end as there will be no decent cheap players as the odd good ones will already have been identified and bought - spreads will be too wide for many IPD flips and no new cheap players will be added as they are being IPO at significantly higher prices. So for the vast majority of traders wanting to make good long term profits we will have to accept a different world where the majority of players are accurately valued.

The diversion from this will be that there will be a significant number of traditional style gamblers who get short term fix’s by in effect gambling on a match by match basis. This will still enable other strategies but in my opinion not as easily as currently.

Good luck to you and all, lots of strategies can and are working for all and as a final thought for those that enquired about future returns - I can add that I have made circa 150% on my money over 18 months but have set the target of just 25% for the next 12 months unless there is a significant dividend increase.

Fletch