Just A Little For Today

Yesterday I was looking forward to trading today, but following a busy nights work and a late finish I didn’t really feel up to it. I didn’t get my normal morning sleep and when I sat down at the PC I was still tired, not good for trading anyway.

Despite this I did throw in a few trades in which I came out with 2 wins and a scratch. It was obvious to me that my heart wasn’t in it and I felt I didn’t have the right “courage in my conviction” when looking to make trades. Although I did watch many go the way I expected I guess I had some psychological issues too, so I thought it would be a good idea to call it a day.

Anyway, I ended with a massive £0.31 profit for about an hour of trading which is better than throwing good money after bad.


It has been a tough week for me with various issues, both work and home, so I guess it may have affected my performance overall. However, again I think I have taken some small steps forward in my trading ability, lets see.

I don’t expect to be trading Sunday as we will be visiting my parents so I’ll be back on Monday. Have a good weekend.

Cheers

Check Your Settings!

An ok day but I guess the day could have been much better (or worse!) as you will notice a big gap of 2 hours in my trading. I had to take a telephone call, despite the fact I told the person to make it early evening. Unfortunately it was extremely important and I had no choice but to take the call, it just went on longer than expected.

Whilst I consider myself to be a completely amateur trader and, therefore, unable to offer any real advice at the moment, I’ll say this “CHECK YOUR SETTINGS”

After yesterdays “recovery” I had to go through the same process today because I did not check my settings in Bet Angel Pro, following some changes made yesterday. I didn’t matter for the first 2 races but it manifested itself in the 3rd race and cost me.

I won’t go into it as I’m more embarrassed about it than anything else but fortunately I noticed them and subsequently changed the offending settings. I then went on to have some excellent trades, pulling back the deficit to a profitable day of £1.53

By the way, I now take a screenshot of my settings and it is now another checklist item before I start trading tomorrow.

Cheers

One Small Mistake

I had a reasonable day trading, except for one mistake I made that I should have noticed at the time.

I believe I either closed my position at the same time as my stop loss triggered, or clicked twice instead of just the once. This wouldn’t normally be a problem but I actually didn’t notice until the race was in-play. By that time my net position was a deficit of just under £9.00 so I closed for this.

Now I’ve had this happen before, once or twice, so I decided to remove the possibility of it being the stop loss and traded the rest of the day without it. This requires significantly higher discipline but I actually didn’t find it a problem, felt quite comfortable trading this way and will now continue to do so.

Anyway, despite this setback, I ended the day £4.63 down which, under the circumstances, I don’t believe was too disastrous.


By removing the stop loss I think I’ve taken a small step forward in my trading and, perhaps, focussed my mind a little more.

Cheers

A Couple of Days Off

So I’ve spent a couple of days without trading because I’ve been a bit busy.

Monday I had to work in the afternoon, bummer!, Tuesday I got a couple of trades in and netted a £2.25 profit but had to go out late afternoon for some beers with friends and today I had to take Mrs to Newquay, I got back in time for the 16:10 but didn’t feel like trading so I thought I’d bore you with my blog update.

Tuesday afternoon I spent a little time just watching the markets, trying to see how things react, wondering if there are any “standard” patterns to odds movement but gave that up, whacked in a couple of trades, won and got ready to go out.

Touchwood, all should be ok for a full afternoons trading on Thursday, lets see how it all goes tomorrow.


I've posted the pic from Sundays trading, showing the £1.32 loss and the £2.25 profit from yesterday (net £0.93) just in case any of you had thought I’d won a shedload and buggered off to Rio.

Cheers

Indifferent Today

A very mixed day for me today, perhaps a little too eager to “get in there”. Also I had a few interruptions, they didn’t affect the current trades but probably disturbed my concentration.

Anyway, a small loss today of £1.32 but I feel that I have learnt something this weekend. All I’ve got to do is figure out exactly what it is!

I’m not sure if I can trade tomorrow as I may be needed at work in the afternoon, but I’m hoping an alternative can be sorted.

Cheers

Composure Day

So, after yesterday’s performance a little soul searching was required. Having had a brief look at what I’ve done differently I believe it could be that I have not been trading over the last few days to the same guidelines I’ve adopted from the beginning.

Being a cautious trader I’ve been making 10 – 20 trades per day, a couple per race maybe. The last few days I’ve made roughly 8 per race and I think I am probably trying to “force” a trade rather than waiting for my recognisable opportunities.

So, back to basics for today, no losing trades and 1 scratch trade, making a total profit of £4.06.

Although the amount is small, I’m quite pleased with how my trading went today, I hope this is the shape of things to come.


Cheers

Friday 20th, Late Posting

My sincere apologies for not updating the blog on Friday. Unfortunately I had to dash off to Exeter at 16:00 and didn’t get back until about 19:30. I then had my tea and got off to bed as I’m now back in work at midnight!

Well, I’m not sure I really know what happened today, it really seemed that everything I did went against me which was epitomised in my last trade of the day. I don’t believe that I did anything different to normal and I expect most of this is due to my inexperience.

Anyway, today’s trading resulted in another losing day, to the tune of £17.38, coming from trade after trade that went against me. In one case I was chasing the odds, to exit my position, over the full length of the ladder I use (18 rows) and when I finally caught up with the odds I was over £5 down!

On to my last trade of the day which came after looking at the Bet Angel "one click" screen with the “reverse book” open. I didn’t do anything in this mode but went onto the ladder screen to look at the last race (for me). I’d forgotten to change the “reverse book” option and placed what I thought was an opening lay position. It was in fact a back position and, fortunately for me, my prediction of the odds movement was true to today’s form, the odds promptly fell, and I greened out at £2.09 profit. It was after that I thought I’d have to call it a day!

I will spend a little time this weekend trying to find what I have done so differently this week to previous weeks, though I expect it is likely to be my experience level. Roll on Peter Webbs course, just over 3 weeks to go!

Cheers

Some Good Work Undone

Hmmm… what a day, my trading went fine, a bit here a bit there, a couple went against me but most went for me so pretty pleased in the main how the trading went.

However for the last 2 races I tried some in-play stuff for a change, only £2 lays, and it is quite obvious that I don’t know Bet Angel as well as I thought I did. This resulted in a loss on the day of £28.84 and £34.00 of that loss came from those last 2 races.

So, on a positive note my pre-race trading netted a profit of £5.16 and although my Betfair balance is now £249.20, £0.80 less than when I started, I have been able to draw a £25.00 “dividend” and I am, on paper at least, still £24.20 up.

Tomorrow, strictly pre-race trading only as sometimes it’s hard to see a positive when I get it so badly wrong :-)

Cheers

Only Just Made a Profit!

I’m a little disappointed after today’s trading, more so than yesterdays. I tried to replicate my performance after yesterdays poor start and for some reason I really wasn’t with it.

It was pretty much a win/lose/win/lose/win/lose sort of day coupled with me not realising I’d possibly clicked my position twice, or closed my position manually as the stop loss fired, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe someone could enlighten me as to whether the latter is possible (I use Bet Angel Pro).

I took a break for about 40 minutes in the middle of today’s card but I didn’t come back as refreshed as I thought I would.

Anyway I did make a profit, albeit £0.32 for the day, so at least I didn’t lose.


I also think I’m more tired than I thought as I’m yawning (a hazard of working nights) whilst writing this so I’ll keep it short and just say…

Cheers

It Finally Bites Back

I’ve been waiting for this day for some time, yes I lost today, -£4.41 and I guess that came from being overconfident to start with and then fuelling that with a dose of stupidity.

My first trade went against me (I can hear you all shouting “no you didn’t”) well yes I did, I took it in-play and it bit me back heavily, to the tune of -£11.76. The second race didn’t fare too well either with a -£0.31 loss. So I’m looking at a -£12.07 deficit after about 25 minutes of trading.

I’ve now taken 7 trades in-play and the others worked out ok. Now this is a very rough calculation but I would probably have been no worse off trading out when I should have done in all 7 than I am now. However, I believe that today’s trading experience has probably been far more valuable than any other day so far for 2 reasons.

Firstly, although I know I should have closed out earlier, having got myself into this poor position and finally traded out I was then looking to the next trade and not dwelling on the loss as I have always done previously. This really is the first time I have felt this way after a loss.

Secondly, this -£12 deficit actually gave me a psychological target. My biggest win on any day was £6.20 and I realised that if I was to turn it around I would have to out perform my best day by 200%. A tough assignment for a cautious trader.

I took a short break, gathered my thoughts, came back to the PC and applied myself to the job in hand. It didn’t work, I mean I didn’t get the £12.07 back but I managed to recover £7.66 of it and for that I made more trades than I’ve ever done in a day. It goes to show that if you push yourself you may be capable of more than you think.

Anyway, once again, I’ve rambled on too long. Here is the P&L for today and I’ve included the race P&L, just for information, as I wouldn’t normally bother.

Here’s looking to tomorrow, I’ve still £4.41 to recover!

Cheers

A Landmark Day

I’ve had a reasonable day today and the “Landmark Day” refers to my first “dividend” payment.

In my introductory post I said that I would allocate 50% of all daily profit to a dividend fund and pay this to myself as a reward for getting it right when the dividend fund balance was at a reasonable level, I think I said £10. Well today I have withdrawn £25 as a payment for the last 16 days trading, £1.56 per day :-).

Today I traded 7 races which returned a profit of £5.68, giving me £1.89 per hour traded. There were not many opportunities for me initially as many of the today’s races were just out of my trading odds range of 2.30 – 5.00, particularly in the middle of the afternoon. Towards the end though several opportunities presented themselves and all worked out fine with no losses in any race.

The 17:10 Wolverhampton caused a little panic for me today, I placed an opening lay on Princess Zohra with about 3 minutes to go and as it matched either Betfair or Bet Angel froze. However I was able to close down and restart Bet Angel in time to trade out for a £0.36 profit.

Cheers

No Rest For The Wicked

OK, so I said I’ll be back on Monday, I’ll have to stop telling you that I may not trade tomorrow…

I did a bit of a test today. I was enlightened by ronnie2ticks as to the ability to trade at higher levels, even at 100% bank, so I gave it a short go today. Nothing major, just over a couple of hours and earned roughly £1.59 per hour.

What I will now trade at is a maximum liability of 25% of my trading bank by using the “Auto Stake” option in Bet Angel as in the picture below.


This means if backing first I will stake at £67 and laying first will limit the liability to £67, so at 2.0 odds my lay stake will be £67 and at 5.0 odds my lay stake will be £16.75.

I will run this for a week and, if all goes well, will lift the liability to 50% of my trading bank.

I’m not sure how to present any stats for this so I will just continue to post my profit & loss picture for now.

Anyway, thanks to Ron for the information and catch you all tomorrow I expect.

Cheers

A Rest Day Today

My sole intention for today was to take a rest from trading. I decided to open up Bet Angel and just look at the markets, no stress, listening to Queen CD’s and a bit of studying the markets.

I noticed that, for me, there was either too much or not enough money in the markets, creating either slow movements or highly volatile movements respectively. Right or wrong this is how I read it anyway.

However I did place just the 1 trade and managed a 1 tick gain of £0.56 profit. I won’t post the other stats I normally post just for this 1 trade but to say my initial bank of £250.00 is now £292.60, a profit of £42.60 after 3 weeks of trading (13 actual trading days including today)


I must say it was nice to have a rest and not to have to concentrate so hard on the screen. I think that if I become pretty successful at this I’ll at least invest in a bigger screen.

Another rest day tomorrow, but I intend to be back trading on Monday.

Cheers

Friday 13th, Unlucky?

I read Adams 13th Feb post before setting up and took a note of his last comment “The quicker you can accept what has happened, the more focused you will stay”. Here’s a guy making more than a living from trading, someone to learn from.

So I decided to trade today and I turned in a decent profit after a very slow start. I think I started slower because of the incident yesterday but I soon got into the swing of things. The final profit level was a pleasant surprise and, as I only traded for 2 hours, a £2.75 per hour earnings rate.

For today I traded 6 races with a £5.50 net profit so :

Per Race Profit % = 3.43 (+1.93 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 20.60 (+10.60 to target)
Day on Day Bank Variance = +1.92%
New Trading Level of £27.00

Now I feel tired and I may well take a break from trading this weekend. It has been a busy week at work, an interesting week trading and a stressful week with Mrs TraderGray having job interviews.

Have a good weekend.

Cheers

Thoughts on Yesterday

I wouldn’t normally post again about a previous day but yesterdays episode has really been bugging me. I’ve just started work and I’ve got some time in the office before I’ll be “bothered”.

I wrote yesterdays post rather quickly and I see I forgot to mention that my potentially disastrous lay trade actually went on to win (Kayf Aramis in 16:30 Chepstow). Now the whole episode has quite literally scared the crap out of me and I’m only playing with small figures of £26 per trade.

If, as is my target, I was playing with larger amounts, say £1,000 trades, this liability would have been closer to £4K and that is what scares me, how will I react in a similar situation?, will I have the discipline to close at what would be a small percentage loss by comparison, but much greater loss in £££’s?

Fortunately, I believe that I have much more to learn than other, more seasoned traders, have probably forgotten and I expect that dealing with these episodes probably becomes more like a hazard of the job rather than the major issue it has for me.

I’m still not sure if I will trade on Friday but as I don’t always have the opportunity to trade at the weekend I probably will.

Sorry to bore you.

Cheers

A Dangerous Game

I may take the day off trading tomorrow, not sure yet. I’m rather perturbed that I broke my own rules yet again. This time it could have been extremely costly and I think I’ve ridden my luck enough for this week.

I took a lay trade in-play again (it wasn’t a particularly poor loss either) and I guess the horse got an excellent start as the odds dropped by about 25%. Carrying a total liability of £97, at one point my market position was -£10.19, I was about to take a -£3.46 “red up” when it drifted and I greened up for £0.55 profit.

However, today’s trading has produced another profitable day, 5 races for a £2.84 profit, giving me an hourly rate of £1.13, it could have been substantially worse, I still have so much to learn.

So for today…

Per Race Profit % = 2.14 (+0.64 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 10.68 (+0.68 to target)
Profit v Bank = +1.00%
New Trading Level of £26.70

Who knows what tomorrow brings, maybe I will trade after all.

Cheers

A Good Day?

As far as profit goes yes, but I am not entirely happy with my trading performance today as I once again broke my own rules and let a position run a little too long (backed at 4.6, then layed, finally, at 5.6). Fortunately the reverse happened with the very next trade, a steamer, backed at 4.2 and layed at 3.15. So I guess you win some, you lose some and anyway I earned £2.48 per hour this afternoon, my best yet.

I was still a little too cautious today but I’ve decided that I may as well carry on as I am for now as the bank continues to grow. I’ll probably take a different view after Peter Webb’s training course in mid March.

For today I traded 5 races with a £6.20 profit so :

Per Race Profit % = 4.71 (+3.21 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 23.57 (+13.57 to target)
Day on Day Bank Variance = +2.23%
New Trading Level of £26.60

Finally an apology is in order as I’ve noticed I posted an incorrect figure on the Saturday 7th February post. The profit v bank figure should have read +1.57% and not +3.53% as posted. The +3.53% was for the week, not the day, I’d just read the wrong figure from my spreadsheet.

Anyway, enough ramblings…

Cheers

Watching Paint Dry

Well, for me, today was a bit like watching paint dry. For some reason I found only a few opportunities, struggling to get a position matched and even when I did I struggled to get 1 or 2 tick movements in my favour. However, I did not lose a single trade and ended up with a profit of £1.86, a massive £0.62 per hour.

Like yesterday I was too cautious but I traded 5 races altogether, winning just 1 tick on each of the first 3. For the 4th race I eventually settled for equal back and lay matches. For the last race I changed my tactics and this resulted in a 3 tick gain which equated to £0.85 of the £1.86 profit and I will pursue this strategy a bit closer tomorrow.

So for today…

Per Race Profit % = 1.42 (-0.08 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 7.10 (-2.90 to target)
Profit v Bank = +0.67%
New Trading Level of £26.30


I’m going to achieve one of the targets listed in my introductory post and will be attending Peter Webb’s training course on 16th March 2009. I am sure this will give me the knowledge to take my trading, and therefore profits, to much greater heights.

Cheers

I'm Too Cautious

A slow start today but when I looked at the final profit I was pleasantly surprised. The hourly rate wasn’t up to Saturday’s heady heights at about £1.20 but the profit for the day was the same.

Again, I found some of the markets difficult to read, particularly in the middle of today’s card, but my slow and steady approach is chipping away ok. I also think I am far too cautious on occasions and missed several good opportunities because of this and know I should have done better.

For today I traded 7 races at £26.00 per trade with a £4.19 profit which gives :

Per Race Profit % = 2.30 (+0.80 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 16.12 (+6.12 to target)
Profit v Bank = +1.61%
New Trading Level of £26.20

I was reading John’s blog earlier and he says he didn’t perform too well last week with a profit of just over £1,000 for the week. I’m hoping that one day I can perform that poorly ;-)

Cheers

My Best Day Yet!

Ok, Ok, I know I'm only playing with small figures, but isn't it something to get excited about? I don't get paid £2.10 an hour to have a drink with my mates and I enjoy that too.

Well, again I didn't expect to be trading today but the opportunity arose so I had a go. I changed my tactics slightly, my focus being to raise my profit per race level and it seemed to work ok.

For today I traded 6 races at £25.80 per trade with a £4.19 profit which gives :

Per Race Profit % = 2.71 (+1.21 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 16.24 (+6.24 to target)
Profit v Bank = +3.53%
New Trading Level of £26.00


I started with a bank of £250 and although I've only traded on 8 days in the last 2 weeks. The bank now stands at £271.45, an increase of 8.58%. Just think if I'd put it in a high street bank that £250 would now be worth £250.09, and I'm having some fun as well!

Tomorrow I intend to look at my targets, it may be time to make them a little stiffer as my cumulative figures are 1.98% per race (target = 1.50%) and 10.39% per day (target = 10.00%)

Anyhow, I've rambled on long enough.

Cheers for now.

A Volatile Market?

I only made 4 trades today, in 3 races. For some reason I found the markets too volatile for me. The prices were up and down and I just couldn't read them well enough.

Anyway, I gave up after a few goes but still managed a little profit for the short time I traded, so for today...

Per Race Profit % = 3.41 (+1.91 to target)
Today’s Profit % = 10.23 (+0.23 to target)
Profit v Bank = +0.98%
New Trading Level of £25.80


I don't expect to be trading over the weekend, let's see...

Cheers

Back After a Few Days

4 days seems a long time not to trade so in I go today full of enthusiasm, aiming to break all records and guess what…?

Well no big profits, but no losses either, a nice steady day with just one heart-stopping moment. I broke my own rules and entered the market long before I normally do and the position went against me. I then took the trade in-play, this time I was lucky and it won’t be next time I know.

So I’ve learnt from this and will carry this lesson forward and, hopefully, not make the same mistake again. I’m just a little disappointed that I broke my own rules.

Anyway for today I traded 6 races at £25.60 per trade with a £2.31 profit so:

Per Race Profit % = 1.50 (Exact to target)
Today’s Profit % = 9.02 (-0.98 against target)
Profit v Bank = +0.88%
New Trading Level of £25.70



Cheers

It's Snow Joke!

I don't normally trade on a Saturday, Sunday & Wednesday (other commitments) so I haven't traded since Saturday. I work nights (as a white van man) and the recent weather meant I was very late home on Tuesday, getting stuck in a nearby town with the only routes out all uphill! I did manage to get on the PC for the 16:10 Southwell with a couple of minutes to go and placed a couple of positions but didn't get matched.

Having not traded for a few days I think I'm getting withdrawal symptons, I bought a Snickers Duo for 59p in one shop on my route, only to find that by the time I got to another shop the price had drifted out to 78p and I'm thinking should I have gone in bigger!

Monday afternoon a friend of mine "skyped" me as he had layed the 4 goals or more market in the Olymp. Volou vs Atromitos match at 6.9 for £4. After 2 goals had been scored the odds had dropped to 3.4 and he was looking to "get out" or at least for me to advise him accordingly. In the end he left the lay run and won as the final score was 1 - 1.

Now while we were discussing it I was watching the odds movement in the Bet Angel Ladder interface. There was very little money available and only about £1,300 had been matched at half time but I noticed something in the ladder figures. About every 30 - 60 seconds money was being offered to back the market (about £300 to start with but it reduced with time) then removed and then replaced at slightly higher odds. It started at about 3.5 and went up in 0.05 increments to 4.0 and then 0.1 increments. I tracked it right up to 5.0 and I don't believe any of it was actually matched before I closed Bet Angel when my friend decided what he was going to do.

As I've already said I'm not a seasoned trader but I'm assuming that this person was trying to lay this amount and if matched then back immediately at higher odds. Wouldn't this strategy have more chance of success in a market or match with higher liquidity or have I missed something here. Please feel free to comment, I am intrigued to know the thinking behind it.

I won't be trading again this afternoon (Wednesday) but hope to be back, weather permitting, on Thursday.

Cheers.