Like many other traders, November was a tricky month for me. Just like last year, there’s been noticeably less money in the platform as traders prepare for Christmas and for any Christmas bonuses/giveaways that FI decide to throw our way.

The mantra with gambling is ‘only bet what you can afford to lose’ but the excitement created by the dividend increases left some of us slightly over stretched, and I’m no exception to that. This week I needed to raise some funds to cover a couple of disasters – I ordered a laptop from Currys on eBay only to find my money disappeared with no trace (have they been hacked again?) and then I accidentally purchased two new phones instead of one – Black Friday has not been kind to me.

The Index hasn’t been too kind either with widespread drops across the board. All funds are down this week with very few players giving me any reason to smile. This doesn’t mean we should panic – no market can go up all of the time – and if I ‘zoom out’ I can see that things are incredibly positive. This is my profit graph for the last 13 months:

Note that big growth surges are usually followed by a flat period of readjustment – which is basically where we are now. Anyway, enough zooming out, time to zoom back in!

The Performance holds have been leaking all week, with Sabitzer seeing a particularly sharp drop after the game against Paderborn in which he scored but was then hooked on 61 minutes. He’s still a hold for me but I can understand traders being nervous around him.

The only ray of sunshine in the that fund this week was Pellegrini, who I added on Sunday. He’s been on my watchlist for a while but I wanted to see how he performed after injury before committing. He quickly showed his PB potential so I jumped in at £2.18 before he could rise any further. He’s now sitting at £2.41 and has earned me 3 assists in a week. Nice.

Needing to release some cash, I sold Golovin this week. He’d made me more than 100% profit (£166 inc divs) but now has tough fixtures ahead with no CL/EL involvement so definitely the right time to sell.

The Potentials mostly flatlined this week so I decided I might as well cut the dead wood. Garner, Hagi and Kang-In Lee all got the chop, all at a loss. I rarely IS but I couldn’t see any chance of getting a buyer for these and I didn’t have the time to wait. None of the spreads were too horrendous and sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on.

I’m now down to 16 players in that fund, with a mixture of those who are capable of earning divs now (e.g.: Haaland, Rodrigo, Kulusevski) and the longer term holds who are bubbling under the surface (e.g.: Gallagher, Alena, Morlanes) which is about where I want to be. Youth may be a bit flat at the moment but I don’t think it will stay that way forever.

No rays of sunshine in the Premium fund either, with only Sancho really making an impact this week. Overall, things are pretty static at the top end but I’m guessing there will be a boom as new traders join the platform in January. On that basis, I used my dividend earnings to top up on Neymar, who is surely due a big PB score in the near future.

Hudson-Odoi continues to stink out the Premium fund on a 20% loss but I’m loathe to sell him as we are about to head into the winter break period where EPL players should come into their own. When he gets on the pitch, he looks good – it’s just getting the minutes that seems to be the issue at the moment.

Overall, the Premiums were the best of a bad bunch this week with only a loss of £11.66. The Performance fund copped the biggest loss (if you exclude my fire sale in the Potentials fund) but is still the best performing fund overall – up 65% since 1st June.

I’m looking forward to things turning the corner in December (fingers crossed!). The full breakdown of my funds can be found on the separate fund pages as always. Advice always welcome!