A Day in the Life of a Combat Sports Fund Manager


Written by Franco Richard aka Francombat -

A Day in the Life of a Combat Sports Fund Manager

Update: There is a new 2016 version of this article now available here.

The purpose of this article is to give you an example of a typical day in my life as a Combat Sports Fund Manager. The average workday for me begins early and usually runs late. Sports fund managing is rarely, if ever, a 40-hour-a-week job. It’s a 52 fight week season. with action all year round.

I often gets asked what I do all day long. The thing I love about my routine is that it’s never the same—each day is different, depending on what I have on.

As the Chief Investment Officer of BOC Fund™, I am in charge of making investment decisions for a pool of capital commonly provided by investors that meet designated requirements for net worth or investment sophistication. Since I am responsible for handling a portfolio of betting investments, my position is somewhat similar to that of a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) manager. However, because sports funds are typically much higher-risk portfolios that are more actively traded, they require close monitoring and a greater amount of day-to-day hands-on management and decision-making regarding investments. So I am the person ultimately responsible for conducting the combat sports investment fund's everyday affairs, such as raising investment capital and rebalancing investments to maintain a given risk/reward ratio. I am supported by a team of analysts and fund managers who conduct much of the necessary research and are in charge of actual bet/trade execution.

The secretive and exclusive nature of sports investment funds has a draw, compared to many other areas of finance and investing, which can at times seem mundane, involve more than just picking winners. A typical day in my life as the CIO usually involves constant betting market monitoring and investment evaluation, along with research and sales work.

Here’s my typical day ritual, but in brief:

The Morning

I wake up at somewhere between 7 – 10 am depending on what time I went to bed the previous night (I need at least 7 hours of sleep to function properly) and go to bed between 12 and 3 at night. I roll out of bed and switch on the iPad which is in my room. First up I check and respond to time sensitive emails that have come through during the night and assign jobs to staff members for the day. About an hour after waking up I go through a hygiene routine that includes teeth brushing, hot shower, light stretching and drinking almost half a liter of water.

Breakfast happens about an hour after waking up and begins with either porridge with goji berries, raw cocoa nibs, honey and oat milk, or scrambled eggs, toast and veggies, or a blended fruit and protein smoothie. I eat breakfast while I read up on the fight news from different media outlets, grabs a cup of tea so that I can get to my computer by 10 a.m. 

My online day starts when I turn on the computer and do some quick web surfing like fight news, Facebook, Twitter and Bet on Combat Chat room comments. 

Then I knuckle down to whatever major task I have for that day.

My major task for the day is usually something from the to-do list and could be…

  • Conduct an interview or be interviewed by someone else
  • Prepare an email newsletter
  • Write a blog post
  • Clear the email (I do this one or twice a week now)
  • Respond to forum questions
  • Lead a coaching call for members
  • Work on a component of my current project in development

I have other non-business things on my to-do list too, but I won’t bore you with things like “get a haircut” and “buy toilet paper”. it’s random, rarely planned very much in advance and is based on going with the flow above all else.

Then I spend the time reviewing the fund's current positions by looking at the previous weekend's report from my Chief Financial Officer and fund managers and considering bets to place for the weekend. Then I spend the rest of my time poring over combat sports news from a variety of sources, such as fight channels and online news feeds.

I eagerly works on my predictions for Premium Members. This includes a lot of research mostly focused on fighters and updates and information from my board of advisors. Around noon, I finishes shopping around for the best numbers on the early fights that I have put off betting in hopes the line will move in my favor on fight day.

I keep working until about lunch time, which is usually somewhere between 1 – 2 PM depending on when I woke up and had breakfast. Lunch is at an upscale restaurant even if I’m not really that hungry, because I’m meeting with either a corporate chief executive officer (CEO), a potential investor or one of my handicapper from whom I want to get investment ideas or opinions. Often If I don’t have business meeting, I will pack my laptop and for a change of scenery and will go to a cafe to work.

The Afternoon

The afternoon is prime time for making sales calls to potential investors. Upon returning to the home office, I typically answer questions regarding my investment strategy, risk/return management and the structure of the firm.

At 2:30 p.m, six days a week, I takes a break from work in the middle of the day to visit the gym. It allow me to loosing up and change my mind. The most critical variable at this point in time is me and hence business performance is tightly impacted by my own mood, well being and motivation. If I do not take care of myself my business suffers as well.

At 3:30, perhaps I’ve an interview scheduled for an analyst position. The interview is interrupted more than once by analysts apprising me of arbitrage opportunities or asking if, based on current market action, I want to change price levels on any open bets. Analysts continue to pop into my office to run betting opportunities by me. More often than not, I instruct them to use their best judgment, although I might suggest specific parameters under which to make a given trade.

The rest of the day can be quite varied but I will generally continue monitoring market action while reading more fights news blogs, publications and research reports on fighters in which the fund is heavily invested.

As the day close, it's time for an end-of-day meeting to review the status of the fund's portfolio holdings and hear ideas from researchers, analysts or bettors regarding potential opportunities for the next betting weekend.

The Evening

Dinner with a prospective fund investor means the workday isn't done just yet. Immediately upon returning home, I head back onto the computer and complete more web work and answer any emails if any have come through during the day. I also check all of my betting positions, even though I checked them on my smartphone at least once or twice during dinner. I stay online until about midnight where I switch off and read myself to sleep.

If I don’t have a night out, I love cooking and eating so this is one of my favorite parts of the day. After dinner, I’m ready for some fight tapes study. Seated in my La-Z-Boy with my laptop on my lap and four televisions going, I watches a total of three fights and focuses on betting opportunities, taking notes and the fights that are my “official” plays.

During the evening, I may have heard rumors or news that a fighter I have a large position in is injured sends the odds tumbling and make some phone calls to contacts to get more solid facts and additional information. I may then requires an emergency Skype call with the staff to decide whether to hedge the bet at a loss or try to weather the storm.

On fight day, I shops around again before the afternoon preliminary fights kick off to see if I can find any last minute betting opportunities with value. After all deadlines have been met, articles for the Blog tunes into the BetonCombat.com, I am now ready to watch the action unfold and looks for more betting opportunities in Live in-Fight Betting.

The fight night winds down with me updating the results on the websites, watching the press conference and answering question on the BetonCombat.com Live Chat room. I also starts checking out the combat sports lines for next weekend's fights in an effort to try to get in some early bets before the lines move. After that, I meet with my staff to consider and discuss new betting opportunities and evaluate existing open positions.

Exhausted, I heads to bed to catch some sleep before waking up the next day to start my ritual day all over again. That concludes my day.

I like how much variety I am able to pack into my days, even though I am working for much of them. My routine is especially flexible, which I designed to fit with my needs and lifestyle, but there are things I would like to change and that is what motivates me everyday. My longer term plans are to reduce the need for me to always be monitoring emails and the Internet. My current tasks are not complicated but they are business critical and time sensitive – someone has to do them. Because the tasks are reasonably simple it would not be hard to train an administration officer to take over most of the day-to-day jobs I currently complete, allowing me to work on handicapping, strategic direction, and create more content.

Well there you have it, a day in my life. Throw in some socializing, lots of book reading, visits with my parents, the occasional date, movies, dinner out, a party now and then, and trips to Las Vegas and you have my life. My laptop is my business so as long as I have an internet connection, I can work everywhere in the world.

Apply Now and Learn the exact betting strategy that has allowed me to become a millionaire!

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