Better late than never.

Sorry about yesterday. Not as sorry though as I was about missing two out of two winning match selections from Form Lab Lite, work commitments ensuring I couldn't access the recommendations. I guess it is at times like these that I wish they would email basic recommendations out to members. I understand their point of view in that by not doing so, a crash in the prices of the bets are avoided, but what happened yesterday was annoying in the extreme. Still, I knew the score when I joined, so I can't blame them.

Anyway, the results for July as of end of play yesterday read like this:

Racing
Northern Monkey: Staked 22.5pts, -9.299pts, roi -41.33%
On The Nose: Staked 15.5pts, -0.75pts, roi -4.83%
Winning Racing Tips: Staked 4.4pts, -2.24pts, roi -50.93%
The Market Examiner: Staked 16pts, +7.17pts, roi 44.81%
Total roi -22.67%

Sports
Summer Of Football: Staked 20pts, +5.322pts, roi 26.61%
Form Lab Lite: Staked 17pts, +0.48pts, roi 2.82%
Sportyy: Staked 16.5pts, -2.63pts, roi -15.93%
Service X: Staked 122.5pts, +4.533pts, roi 3.7%
Total roi 8.59%

Overall roi: 0.04% (!)

Some thoughts...

What a slog. I have been saying for some time that what I'm experiencing here are consistent losses on the racing which are being cancelled out/limited by consistent profits made by the sports/football tipsters. That trend lasted throughout June and has continued up until this point in July. It is frustrating, to say the least. However, I keep telling myself to the point where it becomes mantra - this is portfolio theory in action. When one part of the portfolio is not firing, the lack of performance is compensated by other parts that are producing the goods.

Having said that, if parts of the portfolio continue to underperform, then they must be scrutinised. Unfortunately for On The Nose, it is currently this service that is coming under most scrutiny. I think readers of this blog know of the respect I have for the talent this tipster has. Through much of last year, he made tipping look easy. But there can be no escaping the fact that this year has been tough. Really tough.

I mentioned to someone in the Comments section the other day that an easy way to decide when to drop a service is to simply draw a line when the bank you have set aside for it has been eaten up. My rule is that the drawdown has to equate to the size of the bank, and if this point is reached, I would stop following - this takes the emotion out of the decision making and it simply becomes a matter of mathematics. My current drawdown on the On The Nose selections is at roughly two thirds of the size of the bank, which is uncomfortably close.

I desperately hope OTN turn it around. I have faith that it will, demonstrated by the fact that I resubscribed only last week, taking advantage of the generous offer for rates of renewal that essentially mean that we get five months for the price of three. I'm praying for an end to the shocking weather and a subsequent consistency of ground conditions; I'm convinced that if we get that, then OTN will be knocking in the winners with the regularity I so enjoyed through 2011.

We can see from the figures above though that On The Nose is far from being alone as a racing tipster struggling at the moment. Only The Market Examiner is showing a profit for the month to date. Northern Monkey has been unable to buck the trend of recent losses but has shown signs of a return to form. Saturday saw a nice 20/1 winner (although it was staked conservatively and was subject to a 10p Rule 4 deduction, but still), had a big bet yesterday that placed and ran very well, and two winners from two selections today that aren't accounted for in the figures above.

Winning Racing Tips are playing things very carefully at the moment, citing the weather as reason enough for not getting involved on more than one occasion. Unfortunately the bets they are chosing aren't doing too well, but nothing to worry about at all just yet.

Thursday and Saturday were horrible days last week, and I thought I would be talking about significant losses in this update. That I'm not is down to a great Sunday on the football. Summer Of Football repeated last weekend's heroics by repeating the feat this weekend, calling four right from five, and getting stakes back on the fifth! Form Lab Lite weighed in with four from five too, and then Service X produced four winners from seven bets, but only one loser. Put together, this essentially clawed back the heavy losses suffered last week.

The only sports service to disappoint at the moment is Sportyy. Despite the occasional flash of excellence, I've yet to see this service hit it's straps. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

So there we have the month to date. That 0.04% roi amounts to £1.86. Not even enough to fund the purchase of this week's Weekender. :(

Onwards and upwards!