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