This week Sir Alex Ferguson celebrated 21 years at Old Trafford, Nick Berry was number 1 with Every Loser Wins back when he took charge in 1986, which is ironic given that fact that Betfair have introduced in-running on the place markets for the national hunt racing.

I suppose this has given a new meaning to every loser wins, and although I don’t feel it will be as popular as the win market, I’m sure it will attract a few players.

Depending on the available liquidity, this could be a useful source of profits for the trained eye trainer. This market has huge potential, I am currently paper trading a few methods and will do until March, when hopefully I release a system to the members of Pro X Trading.

This week’s topic is liquidity and I’m always being asked is there enough available liquidity in a particular market.

The vast majority of punters I speak have very little grasp on the odds mechanism, that backing a 5/2 shot in a tennis match is the same as laying the other player at 2/5. There are always two sides to the coin and in this case, two sides to a market.

In general, the markets will not the momentum anywhere close to when they are in-play or in the ten minutes before a race. So if you are opening your position before the match you may have to drip feed your money into certain markets until all of its been match.

Liquidity only becomes an issue if the number of players in a particular market is excessive at a given point. Like backing, the draw after a goal is scored, if you lay it pre-match. What has happened there are not enough layers after the goals is scored and the available price is a lot less then 3 season ago.

I looked back on my notes from the 2004-05 season and in most matches the price now after a goal is almost 30% lower than it was that season. Yes, you can make a profit with this method, just not as big as you could 3 years ago.

As a trader, you have to accept that you will only be able to take a certain amount of the liquidity at certain points during the in-play sessions. At the start of 2006, I capped the amount of money I was placing in certain markets, because I was finding hard to close my position at profit or loss at the right price.

I would either chase the price up or down to exit the market, thus reducing my profits or increasing my losses, thankfully I have found a happy medium.