Scripophilist…..
A very good point and your example of Betfair’s football and horse markets are particularly good. The problem with financials is that the status quo can change much more rapidly than the status quo of footy and horses. With that in mind I’m not sure how suitable Betfair’s system is for volatile instruments like digital options on daily Dow and FTSE. The general ‘betting exchange’ idea has its limitations and the normal result is a very wide spread in short term events.
The basis of any company, which chooses to make a market in digital options, is to essentially make customers pay slightly more for a position than it is really worth. Likewise customers are encouraged to sell (write) a position which results in them being paid slightly less than true value. The outcome, over an extended period of time, should be a profit for the company which makes the market as it slowly soaks up the differential in ‘true value’.
The problems for the market maker start when certain conditions prevail for an extended period of time which make it easier for the punters to predict certain outcomes. The market maker requires a certain element of randomness within a market to ensure that its law of large numbers filter through. If a period of easy predictability prevails for a certain period of time then there is a much higher risk that the customer may make more in this ‘good time’ than he will be prepared to give back when the prevailing conditions change (ie he’ll spot the change in conditions and stop trading a particular strategy before the market maker has recovered what they have paid out). This type of thing is very hard to quantify from the market makers point of view and one imagines that this would cause them to react quicker rather than simply wait to see how things pan out in the longer run.
Obviously the market maker is competing in exactly the same surroundings as any other market participant. I’m sure the people who write their systems think that they are pretty clever people but because there is so much money in the markets there are other clever people who will also be attracted to the market environment. One thing is sure, if you think you’re clever there is almost a certainty that there is someone out there who is cleverer still.
The claim that a spread has been increased ‘due to market conditions’ is a very bad argument because the nature of market conditions are always changeable and that in itself is an element of ‘market conditions’ - Market conditions are a dynamic within a dynamic.
The bottom line is that the house will always want the edge. This is where a spreadbetting company is different to the market as a whole. A spreadbetting company which makes its own markets will always ultimately act in a manner which is beneficial for itself as its aim is to make a profit from customers who essentially wrong. The underlying is slightly different on the basis that it is, in a simple sense, a zero sum game. For every buyer there is a seller and for every seller there is a buyer. The market will not act in a different manner purely if you, or anyone you know, starts to make money.
Steve.