As many had suspected, FI dropped a big ‘ol birthday surprise into the Index this week in the shape of another two-part deposit bonus. It’s been rocket emojis galore since then, with lots of nice rises as traders emptied their piggy banks.
If you haven’t seen it already – this is how the bonus works:
There’s no doubt in my mind that the expectation of a bonus was largely to blame for the recent pullback we’ve seen on the Index, with savvy traders getting their money out early in order to capitalise on the 10% bonus available. With next year being FI’s 5th birthday, we should all be marking up our calendars now, ready to withdraw our money at the start of September 2020 in preparation.
I didn’t have a spare £10k lying around to make the most of the bonus so I needed to think about the best strategy. Having said for a while that I’d like to streamline the funds a bit, this seemed like a good opportunity to sell up and start over.
Deposit bonuses take a reasonably predictable form. The first few hours sees a small fortune going into the Index as traders reinvest the money sat in their balances. This tends to go into obvious targets, often premium players, as traders have to react quickly. As the hours and days go by, the money continues to flow, albeit it a slower rate, and traders begin to be a little more discerning about who to invest in, generally avoiding the players who have already seen a big rise.
My strategy is this:
- Make the most of the first wave of investment – do nothing, simply enjoy watching the rises!
- Put the whole portfolio up for sale when things start to slow a little, ahead of the weekend games
- Hopefully this means I’m able to market sell everyone before the end of ‘Part 1’
- …and then reinvest funds at the start of ‘Part 2’ to qualify for the full 5% bonus of £500
- Anything over £10k I’ll hold back for the end of ‘Part 2’ to top up on any drops as they occur as traders pull out.
So that was the plan! Obviously I’ll be paying some hefty commission (around £250 in total) and I’ll possibly miss some rises on the way up, but this seems to me to be the best opportunity to refresh my portfolio, effectively commission-free. It also means all of my players will qualify for IPDs for the next 30 days and it means I’ll have money in my balance to take advantage of any pullback that occurs at the end of the period (which I’d say is highly likely)
At the time of writing this, nearly all of my players have sold and I’m sitting on a balance of over £12k. Assuming those players sell to market, the results of the first 16 weeks are as follows:
Premium assets
Despite a strong start, the value in this fund has been eroded in recent weeks and this is the poorest performing fund overall.
Total profit of £584, with dividends making up around 32% of this (nearly of of this was MB).
On selling up, these players stood out:
Best performer – Jadon Sancho (£202 profit or 30%)
Biggest disappointment – Pogba (£35 profit or 5%)
Performance assets
Steady performer throughout and finished strongly.
Total profit of £896, with dividends making up around 9% of this (roughly a third IPD, two thirds PB and MB).
On selling up, these players stood out:
Best performer – Depay (£139 profit or 74% )
Biggest disappointment – Lala (£14 loss or -17%)
Potential assets
There were some ups and downs in this fund but overall it was the best performing fund.
Total profit of £970, with only about 3% of this from dividends.
On selling up, these players stood out:
Best performer – Odegaard (£200 profit or 131%)
Biggest disappointment – Mollejo (£20 loss or -16.7%)
So what next? Well now I need to find the next lot of players for each fund as I’ll be sticking to the same structure. My guess is that there will be another rise on Tuesday morning as traders who are looking for the 5% bonus make their picks, so I need to be ready to invest as soon as possible. After that, things will probably stabilise for a bit, with another little peak at the end of the period as traders invest their last few pennies. And then, who knows…
I’ll be looking for players with favourable fixtures from mid-October onwards, in an effort to reduce the damage when other traders pull out money at the end of the bonus period. Suggestions/tips are always welcome…!
MDJ 