h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tuesday, 17th January

YAY!!! YAY!!!

I am TOP TRADER today!

The Number One

Ah, wonderful...

The effect of me not getting Appleby last week, who everone bar me got, has dropped off. The effect of my great Andy Fordham dividend; plus good day-trading; plus 2 out of 3 win bonuses right; plus me being around to nip in and out of Brett Lee for the cricket win bonus, rather than leaving it there overniight, has come very very good.

I'm top trader with 1,777.95% where as the second place guy is only on 1,378.42%. That's a crushing margin

... and I forgot to say, it's the Beta account that got Top Trader.

The Alpha account is doing pretty good as well with 10th place. And my Personal League with all four of my accounts is up to a best ever of 5th

Wednesday, 18th January

... and Beta is *still* NUMBER ONE with a crushing 1,917% growth over the last 7 days


Time (well, about 4 hours actually) will tell if I can hang onto this for the third day. I can't call it now, as there are going to be all sorts of fun and games between now and then, as the dividends are gint to be paid out. The expectation is that Sven Goran Erikssen will pay out big time; and most are holding is shares right now

Thursday, 19th January

Last night the dividends paid out, and then today the WB for the snooker was paid.

Alpha had a total disaster: it was all in for Jelena Dokic, who for some unknown reason didn't pay a dividend. As her share price actually went down a couple of pence, I ended up losing money over the two days. The league position plummeted from 10th on Tuesday morning to 611th on Thursday. Ouch!

Gamma and Delta were both all in for Sven dividend and did very well indeed with a dividend payment of £6.85 per share, plus some day-trade growth to come out with a very respectable 168% for the period.

Beta was day-trading with Graham Dott, amongst others up to the WB buy-in time. After which it went all in on Sven for the last 11 hours. The return for the period was a very pleasing 128%. And when the WB payout is factored in this becomes 165%, or almost identical to the Sven option. The account did drop from its exalted position of #1 on the leaderboard, all the way down one place to number 2.

Oh, and I forgot to say. Here is the link to my top trader interview - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sportdaq/news/toptraders/2006/01/19/28971.shtml

Friday, 20th January - 10pm

Beta went back to the top of the tree today, which was nice That makes three days out of four this week that it has been number one. That's a record for any of my accounts.

As I was away from the PC for the whole day, I missed the move out of Ronnie O'Sullivan at lunchtime (I picked up on the move out of Todd Hamilton first thing ) I've lost a few percentage points. The net effect of this has been to drop me from second amongst the Sportdaq Talk top cappers for the week, to third. It's probably cost a couple of million as well in my shortly to be capped Delta account.

In other news the Gamma account is doing so well after getting all three of last weekend's win bonuses right that it has made it to 7th place on the leaderboard in only SIX days It reamains to be seen how today's missed moves impact upon its further climb tomorrow when it has a full seven days of growth on board.

Saturday, 21st January

No sooner was the Beta account downtraded from £12m and first place to £2m and about four-and-half thousand places lower down, than it was replaced at top spot by the Gamma account, up from 7th yesterday

The main news of today though, is that this is the first day of the retiring accounts as they cap. Today Delta capped for £34m and has been formally retired.

Since its inception on Saturday, 30th July 2005. The account has gone through 6 four week cycles for a total of £152m. It was never a top trader account, but did make it to number 1 on Saturday, 6th August (at the end of its first full week in fact!) The closest it ever came to Top Trader, in and of its own right, was on Tuesday, 1st November when it was 14th. In total the account spent 4 days in the top 10 and 20 days on the main leaderboard in its 24 week career.

So farewell dear friend. You were never a stellar performer after your vigorous start, but you were well loved as a solid and dependable plodder

Sunday, 22nd January

What a boring day today. All the accounts sat in Jamie Peacock all day long as he put on over 60% growth for the second day running. The only thing we had to do was buy Marcus Gronholm shares, for a one sided win bonus, at 9:15am and then go straight back to Jamie. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull...


Oh, and the Gamma account was top of the league for a second day (albeit only by ten or so percent in over two-thousand three hundred)

That means that I've been top of the league with one account or another for five of the last six days

Tuesday, 24th January

Well I got Monday totally wrong. I forgot to check the Daq before I went out, and as a result missed all of the moves. When I got back home I realised that my Jamie Peacock shares were worth less than they had been at 4am that morning. Whoops!

I got out quick, and as Petrova and Sharapova - the two options for the win bonus - were rising I bought in then, even though it was 7 hours before the deadline. That was a reasonable strategy as to invest in the actual top mover would have meant an extra trade and an extra 2% in commission.

After the deadline I sold the Sharapova shares for Bernhard Langer - well it looked like a good idea at the time. And kept the Petrova as she was still moving.

By 8am today it was obvious that Langer was a bad idea, and that Petrova was stalling. All out and into O'Gara (again). Five hours later and it was time forus all to switch again to De Rossi, where we've been ever since.

Position-wise, Gamma fell from 2nd spot on Monday to 30th today. All due to my poor care an attention during Monday. It will probably fall again, despite my better trading today, as it was the account that went for Petrova rather than the actual winner, Sharapova.

In another new development. The Daq now comes with an RSS feed, and one of these feeds is the number of shares being traded. Today's figures show 74 million O'Gara's being sold and 192 million De Rossi's being purchased. These two trades by far and away outstrip all other activity on the daq, and indicate to me that the vast majority of players go for the 'follow the leader' approach. The success bit comes with the timing.

All good stuff, then

Thursday, 26th January - 4pm

Wednesday was pretty quiet. We all spent time peering at RSS feeds which told us what we already knew ie that De Rossi was rising, and then Brian Noble was rising (but more of him later).

The dividends came out pretty much as anticipated. Sven was near the top of the returns list. His divi for the last week was over eight quid, but his share price was too high to make that worth playing. Especially as there were two win bonuses in play for the period.

The first bonus was in the early hours of Tuesday morning - Sharapova v Petrova. Sharapova won it, but the return wasn't great as her share price was over £6.50 and the pay out wasn't until Wednesday lunchtime. The seocnd win bonus of Southampton v Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening would have been a great one had it not been for the mathc being drawn. Andy Johnson (who had a prefectly good goal ruled off-side) was at £2.70 which would have yielded a stonking 35% return on investment.

Oh well never mind. My return for the period was 125%, which beats Sven's 101% and Freddie Flintoff (who weirdly got the best return ) at 108%.

Now, Brian Noble: he's been flying since about 6pm on Wednesday. His growth over the last 22 hours is in excess of 80%, and we reckon it could hit 90% or more. This is outrageous, and a real worry for the game. If his movement is due to folk working from the RSS feed information, then we're going to see more stampedes in and out of players, and more radical swings on the Daq. Not something that we really like the sound of

four hours later:

Brian is running at 92% for the last 24 hours. Outrageous!

It also means that the Gamma account will make it to £2m before Friday - in fact it's there already. Normally this would mean that I would downtrade it, then downtrade it again the week after to keep it on a 4 week cycle. Obviously now that the other accounts in the cycle are being retired, there is no need to keep to a timetable, and as such Gamma will be retired at the end of next week, at the end of a three week run.

Saturday, 28th January

What with being awat from the PC for all of Friday, I needed a share that I believed would perform right through the day. I chose one of the new additions to the Daq, Cruickshank. I chose well

He put on some serious business from the early hours right through until about 5pm. As I made it home by about 7pm, that means that I only lost a couple of hours of growth, so I was pretty happy. I switched to the top mover Grosjean. Did what ever downtrading needed to be doing and retired from play for the night.

On Saturday morning I've got the Gamma account on a capping run after achieving the £2m in under two weeks. And I've got the Beta account joing the list of permanent retirees.

So, the Beta account.

It did a great final run for its last capping, notching up a total of £41m. In its 8 run lifetime since its inception on the 11th June last year it's run a total of £189m. Right up until the final days, this account was always the bridesmaid and never the bride somehow. It always managed solid figures; figures that were better than accounts around it usually, but without ever hitting top spot.

It was in fact, its success in what turns out to be its final run that has lead to its retirement. This accoun was the last one of my four to make it to top spot and to get that 'little number one' by its name. And it did it by being Top Trader to boot This meant that I had achieved my goals with the accounts, namely to be Top Trader in my own right; and to place all of my accounts at number 1. Therefore there was no reason to keep playing with four and I would reduce my number to just the one.

So to its stats. As I said, it made it to Top Trader (17th January, 2006) and spent a total of three days at top spot during that week. In its lifetime it spent 15 days in the top 10 and a total of 36 days on the leaderboard.

A pleasing career with a great swansong. Thank you

Monday, 30th January - 1pm

The accounts got paid for the Cricket win bonus

The buy in time as a ridiculous 5:30am on Sunday morning. Therefore one had in practicality buy into the shares late on Saturday night and then sell them again and go back to the fastest mover when one got up later on Sunday morning.

I've got two accounts on a capping run, so I could hedge if I wanted to. I played the Alpha account on Gilchrist who was definitely playing. And Gamma on McGrath who was cheaper, but a possible doubt for the game.

First off Australia beat Sri Lanka, so we're going to get paid

The cost of investment between 1am Sunday and 9am Sunday was 11.2% and 11.4% respectively, which was a bit nasty really.

Now today once the bonuses have been paid I can work out the return over not doing anything, which comes out at 7.1% and 9.7% for Alpha and Gamma, respectively

Oh, and I've made a switch from the long term leader, Bernhard Langer @ £3.35 to Iestyn Harris @ £1.47 at 1pm.

I hope that that wasn't really dumb

Tuesday, 31st January - 2pm

Yes, that was the right switch

Though I'm having my doubts about the 11am switch to Grosjean, as he seems to be slipping and Josh Lewsey is right on his tail.

Oh well, "one more update...!"

Four hours later:

I did go with Josh Lewsey with the account that isn't playing the win bonus, Gamma.

The Alpha I held out a little longer for and then went for Okocha - there is some debate as to whether he's fit to play; and if he doesn't play, then the whole win bonus is null and void.

Unfortunately Josh Lewsey tanked, so it's costing me a commission regardless of not playing the win bonus - frankly the whole leader board has been a right mess for the last couple of hours. And I have tentatively re-entered the market with Lewis Moody in all accounts.


(I've got a nasty feeling that Frederic Michalak might turn out to have been the right move at this point and not Moody.)

An hour later:


Yep! Michalak was the way to go. Bollocks!

Saturday, 4th February - 10pm

Busy, busy, busy... that's what it's been these last few days!

After the Tuesday evening switch to Michalak, both of the accounts powered ahead as he put on about 30% by Wednesday lunchtime. At this point it was time to switch to Ian Millward for the run up towards that evenings win bonus.

Millward didn't quite make it all the way, as Colin Charvis made an appearance late in the afternoon. However it was too cose to the win bonus buy in time to make it worthwhile switching and make the commission back.

For the win bonus I put the leading account, Gamma, into Darren Fletcher of ManU; and the other account , Alpha, into Mark Hughes to sort of cover all bases.

Well blow me! Blackburn went and won

For the dividend period I played daytrade and win bonus. There had been talk of buying Rafa Benitez for the last few hours of Wednesday, as he was going to get a good dividend. I declined and went for Charvis as I knew he was going to get a small dividend, he was flying on the day-trade and I saved on a commision charge post midnight. It was the right tack, as I reckon Charvis made 12% between 8pm and midnight Wednesday, as opposed to 9% that was available for Rafa.

Anyway as I said before: all back into Charvis straight after the win bonus buyin time and hold until Thursday lunchtime, at which point it was over to another rugbyist, Will Greenwood. That proved not to be a good move, and I had to switch out again within a couple of hours to Ian Woosnam.

Ian did very well for a few hours, but by mid-evening it was time for the third switch of the day into Finlay Mickel (he's a , btw). He roared ahead overnight and put over 50% growth in the 21hours that I held his shares.

But by Friday evening he had had his chips and it was time for another switch, this time back to our good old Rugby League friend, Paul Deacon. His shares all the way through to capping on Saturday morning.

The capping was very good with £34m for Gamma (more of that later) and £39m for Alpha This £39m put me at the top of the pile for the highest capper in the SportdaqTalk league - and that is a highly competitive place to be

Saturday was a restart back with £10k in Alpha on Ljubicic - some Eastern European apparently . There was a quick dip out in the afternoon for the Rugby win bonus (England v Wales) on Mark Cueto (Matt Dawson would have given a better return, but he was on the bench and not guaranteed of playing).

And now were looking forward to a golf win bonus in the early hours of Sunday morning. I'm not sure that I'm going to bother: there are four listees in with a shout, but plenty of others who could win it. I don't fancy leaving my shares parked in something say like Tiger Woods who will offer a crap return at all levels of the investment. No, I think I'll stay in bed

Saturday, 4th February.

Today marks the final day of my reducing from four to one accounts in play. The final of the three retirees - Gamma - was switched off today

Gamma was always my superstar account. It's the one that has done the best business in the months since its creation at the end of July.

In total it made £181m in 7 capping runs. That includes one run that capped prematurely at £2m, which would have been a £26m run if it had run properly.

It was Top Trader once; it spent 4 days, spread over two occasions, at number one. Plus another 10 days in the top 10, and another 15 days somewhere lower down on the leaderboard. That's 29 days in total That's nearly a month!

So farewell good friend. You shone like a star! But now your day is done

Monday, 6th February - 7pm

Saturday night was all about what to do with the win bonus in the early hours of Sunday morning. In the end, at around midnight, I sold Ljubicic, the top mover, and went for Tiger Woods. At around 7am on Sunday, after the deadline had passed, I switched back to the top mover - still Ljubicic in fact.

The overnight hold and commission charges cost me 7%.

Fortunately Tiger won, so I was getting paid.

The daytrade through Sunday was Ljubicic all the way until late evening. Then Sculthorpe overnight and through Monday morning.

At lunchtime I got my win bonus payout. The Rugby was nice and that was fine. The golf was close, as the daytrade through Sunday and Monday morning was wiping out the potential return on the bonus. In the end with the payment I was placed only 3% ahead of doing nothing. But hey, all profit is profit

There's been another switch in the top mover to Kevin Sinfield - another Rugby League bloke.

Now the debate is what to do about the dividend period.
- The Tuesday win bonus has been cancelled
- The Wednesday win bonus is tough as it's a first scorer one. One of four or five is not fun.
- Do I go with the very expensive Sol Campbell and hope that his large potential dividend is matched with some day-trade in the next two days.

I'll have a think about it and let you all know...