The Journey Begins

I know what you are thinking. Another Sports Trading blog to add to the many that seem to be popping up all over the place.

For me writing a blog is important as it will help channel my thoughts and assist in controlling my discipline as I record my results for all to see. I started trading  occasionally three years ago and have been doing it more regularly this past year.

I seem to have a good solid run only to make stupid mistakes which wipe out a large chunk of the profits. It's a typical scenario but at least I am making more than I am losing. I just need to limit the losing trades to make this all worth while. I think that it's a fine line between success and failure but I know what I need to do to manage this into solid consistency.

I work full time so only trade in the evenings. (That is when I am not working late!) Football and Horse Racing are my main activities. Obviously I can only trade the horses in the evenings and weekends but with summer fast approaching there will be plenty of opportunities as the evening cards increase. I use a combination of the Geeks Toy and Bet Angel to scalp and swing the Horse Racing market. They are both excellent tools.

I also trade the domestic one day cricket market in the summer as there are quite a few evening games. I also want to get into the Tennis markets and will be taking steps to get to grips with it over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately I Iive in an area that has low broadband speeds and Saturdays has always been a struggle trading the horses particularly approaching the 3pm football kickoffs. I also have to compete for bandwidth with the kids on the PS3. However I find GT's ladder speed is not affected which is great news for me. In addition I also appreciate the flexibility that GT provides for such large customization and best of all it is free. The saying that if something is too good to be true it probably isn't doesn't apply to GT. However GT goes have an achilles heel. It's graphs are standard which makes the market prediction more difficult to judge and it does not have a stop loss function which should really be an essential for a disciplined trader..

My solution is to have Bet Angel open for their fabulous charts, great trading tools such as the stop loss and their Guardian (multi market) monitoring facility.  I make sure that the calls in both applications are no more than nine so that I am comfortably below the charging levels. I am happy continuing to pay the BA subscriptions as I feel that BA has absolutely everything a trader could want. It's just too resource hungry for the limited bandwidth that I have available.

My objective is to profit at £33 per day which does not seem much but it adds up to an additional tax free income of £1000 per month. I will not be trading every day as my life does not revolve around my computer but I feel that £230 per week is more than acheivable. I know that some traders can make my weekly target on one horse race but I am more than comfortable making small but steady progress. I am treating this as a fun project and the more that I throw money at it the more I could potentially lose and that's not what this is about. £12,000 a year will do nicely.

As you can see from the blog list on the right, I follow a considerable amount and draw much encouragement from them. At times this can be a lonely pastime and it's important to know there are others like me that are working the emotional rollercoaster trying to make it a success.

As you can see from today's screenshot, I have got off to a sound start. Let's hope that there are not too many negative days.