Got a Few In Today

I managed to get a few races in today which I wasn’t expecting yesterday. Things just seemed to go well at work and enough sleep was accomplished for a late, but refreshed, start.

My trading was ok with, again, a slow steady profit and only one losing race. Though once again I managed to “rescue” more races from negative positions than positive starts, the first race being an exception.

Going by the first race, which were all positive or scratch trades, I should be doing much better and my best recovery was the losing race, going from -£0.38 to -£0.06.

So I have to ask myself what is it that enables me to recover a position more efficiently than I am able to make consistent, profitable trades. I am guessing that some mental searching is probably required.

Anyway, let’s not go in too deep and say that today I achieved a profit of £0.55 on a back traded £119, giving me a %ROI of 0.46%, better than most recent results.

I have more to write but it is probably better to leave that until I do my July summary in a few days, most of my comments are about my trading ability and where I think I am with the trading mentality at this time, so I will leave that for now.

I do have an issue that I don’t seem to be able to overcome and, I believe, it is holding me back somewhat. I do not like to back first and as a result I think that I miss some great opportunities. I have tried to do a bit more recently but feel very uncomfortable for some reason, probably a mental thing again.

So I have a query for any readers who can afford the time to comment about whether you have a preference for backing or laying first and if so why do you have this preference.

I would have thought that a 50/50 split between backing and laying first would have been, how do you describe it, healthy. The last time I actually checked my history on this, my split was 89/11 in favour of laying first.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough and I’d be grateful for any comments.

Cheers

A Quick Update

I didn’t realise it’s been nearly a week since I last traded, I just haven’t had the time but did a little (2 races) yesterday.

That’s neat, the Stones “Jumping Jack Flash” has just come on the radio, one of my favourite tracks, and one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen, in the film of the same name, with Whoopi Goldberg dancing around her flat trying to decipher Jacks code.

I digress, a neat little profit yesterday but not from trading, well I suppose it was as I placed a “bet”, not an intentional opening trade, and then “chickened out” and decided to trade out in play for a net of £2.69. My luck held, having traded out it went on to win :-( well never mind. I will leave this race out of my July results when I put up my trading stats at the end of the month.

I got everything ready to trade this afternoon and, after a hard nights shift, got to sleep in good time this morning, slept straight through my alarm and woke up at 15:45. So no trading today and probably not tomorrow. I think it’ll be Friday before I will have the time to trade so I’ll update then if so.

I will, over the weekend, put up my July results in a similar fashion to June but I don’t expect to have much time to trade before Tuesday next week.

Good luck & discipline!

Cheers

Steady Again?

The P&L tells a different story to today’s activity as it shows a steady, though not record breaking, profitable day.

However, of the 10 profitable races I had, I actually traded 6 from negative positions following my first couple of trades in each of the races. I couldn’t quite manage it with the 16:10 Worcester although I recovered the race from £0.64 down at one point.

My best trade was to catch a small swing in the 15:20 Catterick where I made a £0.47 gain on the second favourite, after dropping £0.14 on the favourite. I managed to catch the start of the rise one tick above its lowest and got out right at the top of the short swing, just before the odds dropped again. It was quite pleasing at the time but it then proceeded to shoot up another 12 – 15 ticks about 30 seconds later :-(.

So a profit of £0.73 today which is roughly 0.3% ROI, yet again, I’d still prefer it to be higher for less stress!

I may be able to trade tomorrow, I’m not sure as I’m expecting to be busy most of the day.

Cheers

A Few Thoughts

I am currently trying to improve my return on investment (ROI) as I seem to be able to sustain a return of about 0.25% – 0.30% without a great deal of effort.

Now I know this gives me a small profit using my current stake level but I figured that if I can improve my ROI I would feel more confident about increasing my stake level.

June turned out to be a turning point for me, with my trading mentality becoming far more normal than my gambling mentality. In July this has continued and, although it has slowed down somewhat, it looks like July will be another steady month, time will tell!

Today I didn’t get very far, granted I’ve made another profit but at this rate It’ll be the year 3000 before I can retire! I think I prefer trading at the latter part of the week as the race starts are closer together. I don’t seem to be able to put any rhythm into my trading when the races are 15 minutes apart, there is too much time between races for my liking and I can let my mind wander too much.

Anyway, turned in another tiny profit of £0.32 on a back traded £74, well at least the ROI was better at 0.43%

I gave up after the 16:00, other things to do I told myself! Just as well as Mrs TG came home early from work just as I was doing the dishes. It’s not what you do, it’s what you are perceived to do, works wonders!

Anyway I hope to be back tomorrow.

Cheers

Slow Going

Although I was quite tired today, after a busy nights work, I traded but never really got with it all afternoon. I took a phone call from a business colleague around 16:15 and used that as an excuse to quit for the day.

I found trading extremely hard work today and missed quite a few opportunities so, although I made a bigger profit than yesterday, I feel I was not at my best.

However, I managed to turn in a small profit of £0.66 on a back traded £237, making my ROI just under 0.28%, small fry but still a profit.

I’m not working tonight so I’m off out for a few beers this evening (only a few, honest). I’ll be staying away from home and coming back for lunchtime tomorrow.

Hopefully I’ll be sufficiently refreshed to trade tomorrow afternoon.

Catch you soon.

Cheers

Stay Focussed

Another day with some ups and downs where I fell into the trap of assuming my ability is as good as the last trades performance. Let me explain…

My first trade was entered with the wrong (a very carefree) attitude, not just dropping an entry point in the market, but with some thought behind it. It went against me so I cut out, got back in again, went against me, cut out, etc. etc.

I was actually quite pleased at just a £0.60 loss as prior to my current regime I would probably have left it run a bit longer and got into further trouble. The next race I approached with extreme caution but, again operating good discipline I ended with a £0.27 profit, nearly 50% of the first race loss.

The next few races went ok, nothing special but it is my trading ability that I am trying to improve, not so much the profits.

The 16:30 at Catterick is where I may have found myself on the edge of this “zone” you hear so much of. I didn’t actually notice at the time but, looking back, I was totally focussed on what was going on and with a high level of concentration I almost seemed to place my entry and exit points in “harmony” with the market.

This all probably sounds like bull but honestly, when I look back I don’t think I was aware of anything going on around me, just a total focus on the job in hand.

So then I felt invincible, a very bad move, and screwed up the next 2 races and ended losing half of the previous race gain, although I did recover both from poorer positions. Despite all this I did manage to pull a profit of £0.45 today, a 0.31% ROI on my back traded £143.00.

A good trader, I’ve read, does not focus on the previous 1, 2, 3, 10, 20 or 50 trades as each market is capable of offering something new and different to any previous market. Remain focussed on what you have to do, you can influence that. Learn from what you have done as you cannot change it, no matter how hard you try.

Jeez, Am I getting philosophical? It must be time for bed.

Cheers All

Some Mediocre Results

I managed to get some trading in on Saturday afternoon and it went ok but I was quite fortunate in the 15:25 at Ascot. I backed, expecting a fall in odds, and 4-5 ticks of money disappeared below me. I thought “ah bonus” and immediately went to lay off just as another load of money arrived and scooped another 6 ticks and the lay price shot down even further.

This time though I managed to trade out with just over £2 profit and other trades in the same race gave me a £2.85 profit overall.

However, today exactly the same thing happened to me in the 16:10 at Downpatrick only this time I was on the lay side first. I managed to get out at about a £3.00 loss and traded back to a £2.66 loss on the race.

I somehow feel that when you’re lucky something will take it and when you’re not lucky it’s just tough!

Never mind, over the 2 days I managed to stay in profit by £0.75.

Hopefully back again tomorrow.

Cheers

Disappointed but Happy

I managed to get a good afternoons trading in today but was disappointed by another of my single, silly mistakes. I keep doing these odd things from time to time and it always seems to hurt rather than help.

I’d traded to a profit of £0.60 in the 14:45 Lingfield and attempted another trade. It was obvious that it wasn’t going my way so I cut out in my normal fashion, to scratch the trade, using the offset column in BA’s ladder. It closed the trade, and my existing offset 1 tick away, vanished from the ladder.

Well you’ve guessed it by now the existing offset wasn’t cancelled but taken at the very same time and I didn’t notice. I closed my graphs as the race went in play and moved to the one click screen to see a big £23 red against all but one of the runners. I reacted immediately by checking the green up box and closed out for a £1.81 loss.

To push the knife in further the odds went from the 3.45 at that time to 4.7 with my break even around 4.0. Had I waited I could have achieved a nice profit, but no, I did the right thing, I’ve been on the other side too many times in my early days.

So today I managed to back trade just over £750 with a profit of £2.35, a ROI of 0.31%. It should have been better, much better and I would have achieved a clean day, no losses anyway, without the mistake. I guess I’m not yet ready to go with bigger stakes!

I was happy with my trading today in general, it seemed to go quite smooth and I only had to recover a couple of losing positions to profit.

With the weather particularly dour here in Cornwall I doubt I’ll get to the beach this week, so much for taking time off in the summer.

I’m not sure when I’ll trade again this week. I got the chance today as Mrs TG went to Truro with a friend to see some Take That tribute band (yawn!) not my scene.

Happy Trading & Cheers

So So Friday

I could have been better but, I suppose, It could have been much worse. My best trades came in my first race. Unfortunately, so did my worst and this left me a little cagey for the remaining few races I managed to trade.

I had a number of interruptions during the afternoon and this also conspired to damage my concentration somewhat. However, I managed to pull in a small profit of £0.64 for the day with no losing races after the first.

I “back” traded just over £330 so my ROI for today was a measly 0.19% but that is better than a loss!

I was going to watch the rest of the Roddick/Murray match before going to bed. I hoped it wouldn’t be too long a match as I start work at 10pm tonight. Unfortunately I decided to install IE8 and update the blog. I then found that IE8 does not allow you to copy and paste and, as I compile my blog in MS Word, this was no use to me. I’ve just uninstalled and reverted back to IE7 and everything works fine now.

And Andy Murray has lost, better luck next year.

Both Mrs TG and me are on holiday next week so I expect my trading will be very limited, I will update if I get the chance so have a good weekend and a good week.

Cheers

July – A Good Start

Ok, I know I’ve not long posted but you haven’t heard from me for a few days. So, a bit like buses, none for a bit then two come along at once!

I managed to get a little trading in yesterday (Wednesday), just two races in the early afternoon with a small profit of £0.39. I didn’t post yesterday as I’d not quite finished my June summary and I wanted to get that finished first.

As always nothing major to report but it set me thinking a bit more and I decided on a little different strategy today. I’ve seen many times during my trades that I exit too early, detailed particularly in last Wednesdays post.

So for today I thought I’d stay in the trades a little longer, provided they were not continuing against me. What I tend to do is if a trade doesn’t actually go anywhere or drops one or two ticks I get out immediately, only to see the market move the way I thought.

I decided that if a trade did not appear to be going anywhere I would just leave it open and see what happens, on the assumption that my initial “gut” decision was correct.

This had a twofold effect for me. In the first instance it actually worked ok for most trades but, disconcertingly it made me more cautious. However, it’s all about profit and I returned £2.30 today, on a “back” trade total of £120. That’s a massive, by my standards, ROI of 1.91%, hey – big smile!

I do have one trait that is concerning me a little and that is I can feel that I am becoming a little frustrated and impatient at the continuous small figures I return. I am tempted to up the stakes and “go for it” but I do realise that it takes time to learn and I know I have plenty of learning to do yet.

It’s my day off tomorrow so I should be able to get a decent afternoon in and test whether I’ve learnt anything or have just been lucky recently. Oh what a way to build confidence!

Cheers

How did June Go

Having set upon myself to be more disciplined from the beginning of June I think I’ve had a good month. More with my discipline than profit, but a profit I have made.

The difference between June and other months is purely the discipline. I still get frustrated at times and the temptation is always there to push too far, especially to “recover” a losing position. However, this has really only caught me out on one occasion, the early £3 loss in the graph below.

What is apparent from the graph is that the two big losses (£3+ each) account for roughly the same as my profit for the whole month. So had they been managed better, to the tune of my worst race losses over the period, my profit would have been around £10 - £11 rather than the £6 it was.

Yes, I pinched the graph idea from “Bet Your Life Sports Trading”, I like it, it’s better and more informative than looking at a spreadsheet. I like the blog too, it’s a good read.

I “back” traded just over £2,200 in June, far less than I have done in the three previous months, but it has been far more structured than before. The ROI comes in at 0.27%, nowhere near where I want to be but in previous months half a dozen or so bad trades or decisions had cost me much more than the profit in each of those months. Not this time though!

Overall, I’m quite happy with my performance for June. They are not outstanding figures but nice and steady. I seem to be managing my exit strategy much better than I used to and, I believe, I am also managing my entry points better.

My time has been rather limited in June and I would have preferred to have had many more races and many more trades under my belt, it would have given me a much better sample to evaluate my progress.

Finally, for this post anyway, I don’t know whether it is co-incidence or as a result of, but the first race traded with over a £1.00 profit was just after I picked up and started reading “Trading in the Zone”

We’ll just have to see.

Cheers