Thursday 15 December 2011

December Update












It has been 10 days since my last post but it only seems like yesterday. I seem to be far busier than when I was working and can't believe that Christmas is almost upon us. I know I said that I would be posting every day but it really is an impossible task at the moment.

Above is my P&L since last time (P&L blog bashers look away now) and as you can see I have been treading water. Positives are that as the first two days were very good, the monthly profit is £253. Negatives are that £23 over the10 days is not going to pay the bills!

I have updated the Homer traded results page and December is more or less running level. It is an improvement on the struggle in November but not anywhere near the fantastic performance before then. So what's gone wrong? I took the day off trading to concentrate on evaluating my results. Is it just unlucky or was my previous six months of success just a lucky streak? I think I may have a contributing factor and it's in England!

Between May and September I traded 23 English league games:
16 profit
1 scratch
6 losses

Between October and today I have traded 27 English league games
10 profit
3 scratch
14 losses

I have traded a total of 86 games since the beginning of October and the English games has counted towards 34% of those. It is the only country where losses are more than the wins. My best success was between May and August where English games were few.

How many English games did I trade between May and July? The answer is zero.

If I remove the English league my trend continues as normal. My overall no loss strike rate increases from 69% to 72%.

Having said all that I have examined many statistic sites and cannot find a trend that differs in the English league so perhaps I am just trying too hard and picking far more English fixtures than I should to make the weekend far more interesting for members. I will certainly be cutting down in the future. I am certainly not relaxed as I used to be and this could also be affecting my judgement.

I am currently testing a new variation. Extreme HomerDog. This is where the away team is by far the favourite and a winning trade should give a profit around the forties against single stakes ROI should be at least 75%. I have traded three with two winners of which one was the FG and one loser.

The horse racing has been hit and miss too. I have been upping my stakes which has only meant that instead of winning and losing £5 to £20 I am now winning and losing £10 to £40. I traded 146 races over the past 10 days and have come out with a profit of £83 or £1.76 per race. This is a mixture between pre-race and in running. I just can't get out of the 'round in circles' mode that has affected me since I started trading horses nearly five years ago. I invested in some pre race training a few months back which I have not focused on as I have been so busy with Homer but will be devoting time towards it especially as I now have time to trade in the afternoons.

I will give the trading until the end of January and if the results do not show significant improvement to sustain a decent living then I will be looking for a more stable income.



 

2 comments:

Average Guy said...

Honesty is refreshing, must agree with trading the horses, up then down, round and round we go. Kinda stagnated myself and nothung worth posting about. Stick with it, please, maybe I will too.

Football Gambler said...

Without knowing all the facts it isn't easy to make a judgement, but it's highly unlikely you have been lucky for 6 months and have just started to level off.

I would be the same if I was in your shoes and would almost certainly be doubting myself.

Looking at it from a distance your system has stood the test of time and it is probably a match selection hitch or just a run of bad luck.

You have to keep faith with it, I'd try and re-evaluate the results over and over again until I found an obvious theme.

Could it just be that you were expecting the system to work all the time, took it for granted a bit perhaps, and as a result your match selection has wavered a touch?

I find it very hard to believe that it could be lucky for 6 months, in fact impossible.

I've seen your system written about by experienced traders on other sites, and they speak very highly of it, so it must be still working for them.

Keep the faith mate, hope you have a good Christmas and things pick up in the New Year, I'm sure it will.

Regards, Dean