Lightandbitter

exactly. solid description of what it is. multiply what you are doing by a billion and that basically is what the investment banks are doing.

as i have said before i basically do this as an income and been doing it for a long time. My only advice is to look at 5 minute charts, you will see nothing goes either straight up or down, it always takes a breather before going up or down further. Think of it like a battering ram, has to pull back before it goes up further. These are the places to get in and out on, you need to be very hands on but markets in the very very short term are extremely predictable and thats where you can be in and out with a profit.

Saying that as i said before, limit your downside and run up your upside. if i get it right 50 % of the time using that discipline i am well in the money.

Also the sites will encourage you to leverage at 200, 300 or even 400-1
This is for their benefit as fairly small movements can stop you out or kill all your equity. I trade oil at 30-1 and Dow, FTSE at 50-1. Profits are lower but so is the downside which is the most important factor in making money

Good luck

Lightandbitter

Re Blackjack- would you split two eights if the dealer had a 7 ?

Bahtatboy

Yeah. Your previous posts now make sense to me. I've been looking at the 5min charts, and yes there are patterns, but Brent today plummeted today - unfortunately I just switched to Buy, but got out of it quickly then caught it on the rise, quit, then caught it on the rebound down, but not sure I'd have made the gains if it'd been real money. Still, first day. Currently misreading Gold. Willing to reveal anything about your view of extreme predictability?

Bahtatboy

Of course. Basic Strategy says you split 8's up to a dealer's 8, then surrender on 9 or 10 if surrender's available. Splitting 8's is almost always beneficial.

Lightandbitter

Yes of course, its us against them as far as i am concerned

Depending on which site you are on you can use a 5 minute candle chart which will show in green and red for up and down. These are good for showing when a run up or down is running out of steam.

Because of derivatives and hedging , you have to remember that most of the market are happy to lose money on the hedge or the principal because they are making more money on the other instrument they own.

Look at support and resistance levels on a 5 minute chart, a good platform will let you put a horizontal line across and you can see where it tries to go through up or down but hits resistance, it will retreat and then try again.

Take oil for example, if its at 30.50 and wanting to go up. there will be billions of dollars who are short who dont want to see it above 31.00. They will pre ple place sell orders at 31.00 so for the market to go through it has to first absorb all of those sellers, this takes ti,e and it will attack the 31, get hit by all the sell orders, pull back and try again and again. These are the perfect in and out points for guys like me. It would take me a week to describe my calculations on here but very broadly if the pullback is more than 60% of the movement then i am out because more times than not direction will change.

And stay the **** away from gold, totally manipulated market, The true value should be 1500 plus, massive concerted effort by central and investment banks to keep the price low

Lightandbitter

I know the game and the odds, but for me this is a really dubious one

38% chance dealer will hit his card, if you split you have 46% chance on either hand of improving. obviously if either side goes to 3,4,5 cards then the odds change but for me this is one area where basic strategy is wrong

Bahtatboy

I took your question as an honest one, and not one to try to test me (it was far too simple). If you play and honestly didn't know the answer, then read Uston, Wong, Thorp, Snyder and Schlesinger; and what the actuary Michael Shackleford doesn't know about the statistics of blackjack (and blackjack is a game of pure statistics) isn't worth knowing.

Edit: And Griffin if you're really into the stats.

Bahtatboy

If you work out all the permutations (not that difficult manually for a 4, 6 or 8 deck full shoe), then it pans out. It's as much an insurance bet as anything else.

Lightandbitter

it was an honest and without motive question

One which i have constantly questioned the strategy, and really on this hand i am not convinced

Bahtatboy

Thanks. I'll try to digest the bit about pullback, although a very basic question (based on your example): how do you know that oil wants to go up? Just from the previous trend?

Bahtatboy

I've done manual calculations for most scenarios, just to test Basic Strategy. I'm not sure if I've done that one, I'll have a look.

Bahtatboy

Pulled this from 'net (shows player's odds of winning):
Stand -0.478988
Hit -0.410029
Double -0.820058
Split +0.318180

That's based on standard UK casino rules. So actually a no-brainer. If you want to see how it actually works, then just set up a spreadsheet, give yourself a few hours and put in all possible scenarios.

Blackjack Hand Calculator - Wizard of Odds

Lightandbitter

it goes back to pure human nature, whether it be you or me or the millions trading on their laptops for a few 1000 dollars or the monster banks playing with billions. Banks employ humans to trade, and basic human nature wants us not to miss out, to jump on the bandwagon, call it sheeplike, whatever. It is in our nature to jump in and follow just in case we miss the boat. Add to that if it goes wrong, it wasnt your decision, you were not the only one to get it wrong in some perverse way can ease the pain and justify the decision.

Call it simplistic, but for me its fundamental, the market moves on momentum, the snowball in the avalanche gathers more snow.

More buyer than sellers it goes up, more sellers than buyers it goes down. Derivatives complicate this where people are happy to lose.

And watch the round numbers, most sell or buy order are in or around the whole numbers. i.e. oils at 30.60 looking to go up, it will hit resistance at 31, pullback and try again it will try and try again, if the sell orders are too big it will give up and head south to try another day, so for example if momentum is upwards and you buy in at 30.60, set your stop loss at 30.40 and put a sell order in at 30.95. as good as 2-1 reward over risk and a lot of times you will look a clever f....r because it will go up to 30.99 and come back down

Lightandbitter

This is where i struggle, on a split, both hands need to be good to make a profit, I understand the insurance factor but however I calculate it, cant get a plus number on the basis of winning money eg. winning both of the splits.

Bahtatboy

On a very simplistic level, you've got the same chance (well, slightly less) of drawing two 10's as the dealer has of drawing one 10, in which case you win double. Go down one notch, you and the dealer both draw one 10 and your other hand is rubbish, in which case it's quits. Also at that level you stand a chance of drawing a lowish card giving you a good chance of getting close to 21 with your third card: an A, 2 or 3 puts you in a very strong position, especially with the opportunity to double.

You'd have to be unlucky not to beat his 7 with at least one of your 8's.

Also remember that the average card value is 6.5 counting A as 1, or 7.3 counting A as 11. You're starting with a near-average 8, so 2 more "average" cards are going to get you close to 21, and 7 for a dealer is only stong if he draws a 10 or A; even if he draws an A you've a 5:13 chance of drawing with him or beating him.

Splitting 8's against a 7 is a relatively strong position, especially when faced with the alternative of standing on or hitting 16, which is one of the worst places to be.