If you haven’t heard of Matt Shaw, here’s a little history.
Matt runs the Fixed Odds Trader service which offers recommendations on bets to place on BetOnMarkets. These are specifically fixed-odds bets on financial markets.
Basically, you sign up for Matt Shaw’s service and he emails you with details of each new bet he places, why he places it and where he puts the stop loss.
Matt apparently used to work in a warehouse but quit when he found he could make more by betting on the markets – especially since his winnings are tax-free.
Recently a subscriber to the free business opportunity email newsletter sent in the following review of Matt Shaw’s Fixed Odds Trader service:
“Further to your bizopp letter I have been doing Matt Shaws fixed odds betting on a virtual (paper trade) account.
IT WORKS! but it has taken me 2 weeks risking £160 to £180 per bet to win a £85.00 in total.
I must admit it is very safe but in betting there is always a risk and you will need to bet lots of indices every day to make real money.
However it is worth the money but I suspect I will never have the balls to stake in thousands which one will have to make big money”
I’ve been a subscriber to Matt Shaw’s advisory service for the last six weeks or so and whilst the first recommendation was a loss I’m happy to report that since then I’ve made some very good returns over relatively short periods (typically 10 or 11 days).
Whilst it’s true that to make serious money you would have to place thousands I’m looking at this as very much a medium to long term investment strategy and will use my returns to increase my bank (and I’ll probably add spare funds from time to time).
I have now focused most of my on-line investment activity into Fixed Odds Trading using Matt Shaw’s advisory service. I find that Matt takes his time before he makes a recommendation, he gives precise instructions on what to place and generally he advises clients to only wager a small amount of their overall bank balance. All these things give me confidence that he is looking after those people who have put their trust in his judgement. As I said right at the start he does get losses but I accept this risk as any sane person should.
Prior to Fixed Odds Trading the majority of my trading money was tied up with Sports Arbitrage Trading using Risk Free Profit. Now whilst I personally enjoyed the act of placing trades I found it exceedingly time consuming for what turned out to be relatively modest returns. This, combined with one of my bookmakers restricting how much I could wager on any single event convinced me to look elsewhere for an easier way to make money. Hence, I sent off for Matt Shaw’s book about Fixed Odds Trading. This did allow me to start trading at a conservative level and I soon realised that to make decent returns I would be better off by subscribing to Matt’s advisory service. I now think this was the right decision.
I soon realised that as Matt was recommending trades that give returns in the region of 25% plus over a period of 10 days or so there was an opportunity to take the information and create a further trading scenario. An example will illustrate what I mean. Let’s say Matt issues an advisory to place a ‘No Touch’ on the FTSE at 6250 for 10 days (note this is purely hypothetical). Taking Matt’s recommendation not to wager more than 10% of the bank you place the trade.
Well now that you have done this there’s nothing to stop you making another trade at say 6280 that gives a 10% return. As Matt has done the research and his track record is pretty good you can be safe in the knowledge that there is a good chance his original recommendation will succeed, hence this also means your secondary one will also. There is of course always a risk that his recommendation doesn’t work but even if this happens there is still the secondary one sitting there and there is not that much chance that this would also fail (although of course you can never rule this out).
In summary I am very happy with the service provided by Matt Shaw and given my past experiences it takes a lot for me to say something like that. I am looking forward to a bright future with Fixed Odds Trading. The recommendations are good, it takes very little time to place the trade and the returns will grow over time. One slight drawback (although in reality it is good practice) Matt only issues an advisory when he is confident that it will succeed, for someone like me for whom patience was never on my list of strengths it can be somewhat frustrating, however I know the strategy is right for the longer term.
Comment by John Murphy — 15th November 2006 @ 9:23 pm
I’ve spent 20 years in Spread Betting and I’ve got to tell you that Fixed Odds betting on financial markets is a very silly way of investing your cash. Firstly, the odds that you get are equivalent to a badly priced option. Secondly, because you only win or lose whereas if you spread bet using a considered system you can mitigate your losses and make excellent profits.
How do I know this? Because I invented this type of betting years ago for a spread-betting company for use in the sports markets. (About 1990).
The other thing that I’d be wary of is that giving advice on financial investments is contrary to the rules of the FSA and I’d reckon that this service qualifies in that area.
Comment by Brian Cooper — 22nd November 2006 @ 10:22 am
Brian makes some valid comments and I would agree that spread betting has greater potential profit if you know how to do it well. Whilst I’ve looked at spread betting I’ve not found a system that would make it easy for me to identify good trades. I’ll admit here that I’ve never done any in-depth research so there may be systems out there that could provide an affordable and profitable service.
I’d argue with Brian about the return received from Fixed Odds Trading being poor, again it is what you compare it with that you form a judgement. For me the comparison is interest bearing accounts of financial institutions and here Fixed Odds beats anything out there by a country mile. Again, Brian is right when he says spread betting can be much better but for those of us that don’t have the depth of knowledge we can only comment on what makes sense to us.
In respect of the FSA I would have to suggest we wait and see, as in any good legal argument there are always cogent arguments for both points of view.
If Brian could point me in the direction of a valid spread betting tutorial or recommendation service I’d be more that pleased to check it out.
Comment by John Murphy — 5th January 2007 @ 3:41 pm