Last Day Rally

The month ended positively. I traded 19 evening races to record my highest horse total of the month. As I have said many times, in each session I can either read the market perfectly like today or find that it goes in exactly the wrong direction. There is never any middle ground. 

 

Unfortunately my speculative lay of £200 at 1.07 when England lost their fifth wicket came to nothing.........well you never know!!!!

Looking back over the month there are too many red days to make any serious progress and the 14th June was a day to be forgotten but the last six days have been encouraging and I hope to be able to continue in the same way. Positivity is very important to trade successfully and I was definately affected for a week after my large loss as my results in the horses show. 

 

I have mentioned before that I would like to start to get involved in the Tennis markets so I popped along to the Tradesharks website during my lunch as Paul invited followers to watch him trade the Federer Quarter Final for free. His decision making was perfect and by the early games of the second set he was already up by £70. Unfortunately after 40 minutes I got cut off and couldn't get back but looking at his webpage he went on to total £100 and then made another £100 on the Nadal game. I would have liked to have seen him struggle, not because I am a jealous sod but just to see his exit strategy because minimising losses are the key to success. He may be doing it again on Saturday so why not pop along if your serious about Tennis markets. I certainly will.

The Profit Continues

Just a quick post to report that it's my fourth consecutive profitable day and my third on the horses. I only traded a handful of races and feel a lot more relaxed now that I am not chasing targets. £40 a day is good enough for me as an extra £1,200 per month is a significant amount.

England - Will We Ever Know The Truth?

Let's not kid ourselves with what might have happened if Lampards goal would have stood! England were poor. Not just this game but the whole tournament and the friendlies before. How can a large bunch of talented players put in such inept displays after such an encouraging qualification? 

My own assumption is that something must have been wrong in the camp and I have a feeling that if Fabio leaves, someone will start to reveal what actually happened. During qualification  the players are only away from their clubs for a few days and Fabio does not have any time to put in place any strict procedures for morale to start to drop. However this group of players had been together for well over a month which is more than enough time for problems to start to surface. 

The players never looked particularly happy and I put it down to Fabio. This is just speculation of course but there were a few events that I felt were strange. The fact that Fabio told the players the team a couple of hours before the game was strange including who was playing in goal.  It smacks of bad communication between management and the players. David James was interviewed after the Algeria game when he was told that Fabio thought the players were scared and nervous. He answered 'did he' in a tone which suggested that there was a reason for the bad performance but it wasn't that! Then there was John  Terry's  strange press conference when he was suggesting who should be playing in the final group game and that there should be a change of tactics which I took as a guarded message that the team were not happy with Fabio's strategy. Frank Lampards equally strange press conference the following day when his jokey and smiley attitude seemed to be so over emphasised that it looked false to me.

Finally there is Wayne Rooney. a revelation for Manchester United who was totally anonymous in all four games in South Africa. Why?

Back in the Green

It was a bad start to the trading day. The Grand Prix was more like a procession rather than a race and there weren't that many options to reduce my loss. The rest of the day was positive (apart from England of course). Once we had fallen 3-1 down I decided to trade the horses. I traded the last 8 races without pictures and was more conscious of the time so I was really good at closing my trades well before the off. The liquidity was reasonable for the few races that were on while the footie was still going and I found the movements easier to predict. The big boys were probably down the pub! I also did a handful of US races late in the evening to achieve £56. 

That's £100 on the horses over the past couple of days and hopefully I am over my bad run of results.

Gained a little profit on the cricket and the evening football to help turn the bad start around and finish the day with a profit of £42 and more importantly put me back into the green for the month.

.

Only Two More Years to the Euros

The England match report is now on Fifa's official site. Read it here.

A portion from it reads:

Meetings between these two sides often provide talking points and this one's came 60 seconds after Upson's goal when Lampard's shot from the edge of the box struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced down, with the referee ruling the ball had not crossed the goalline.

It seems to have been carefully written. Diplomatic to say the least!

Edge - I Have Found Two

I have come across a few blogs that talk about having the edge and how that is the road to success. They think they have found something that nobody else has. It's all nonsense of course as everyone knows that the only two edges in the world are shown below.

 

Gaining experience on the markets, learning to make the right decisions at the right time and controlling your emotions when things go wrong is the way to long term success. Each sports market reacts in different ways and these characteristics can only be found by playing them time and time again. The winners are the one's that understand the characteristics and the losers are normally the newbies although there are some people that no matter how long they play, can never get to grips with the market movements.

So what of Englands chances today. I am not so sure. Germany are always resilient and they have a good young side. They took apart Australia and on their day they can take on anybody. Rooney needs to be back to his best to unlock the German defence. 

If England can do the business I will be doing my bit to ensure a Mexican victory. I have few people round to watch the game this evening so what better way to help the Mexicans than with an assortment of Tortillas to nosh washed down with plenty of bottlles of Sol. 

Buena Suerte!

Taking the Opportunities

Essex needed 79 from 5 overs. A seemingly impossible task. The odds reflected this as Surrey were 1.01.

I don't know how many times I have seen 1.01 and thought that there was no point sticking a lay of £100 when it's just £1 wasted as there is no chance of it being overturned, only to see it do just that!  However this time I did it and Styris decided to let rip to make 27 runs off the next over. The following over the team made a further 13 runs leaving them 39 from 3 overs. I decided that 1.34 was plenty enough for me and took my profit. Essex went on to win having required 22 runs off the last over and achieving it with a ball to spare.

Just before that I was watching the Spain v Chile game and on 85 minutes they both stopped playing. Not literally of course..... but they were just passing it around satisfied with the result just like I had wrongly predicted may happen in the game earlier in the week. I had the correct score market already up and noticed that 1-2 had quickly dropped from 1.30 to 1.18 as everyone was getting on!  I joined in and then switched over to the Swiss game as I knew that as long as the Swiss didn't score in the last 5 minutes (they needed two to qualify) the other game will end 1-2. If the Swiss would have scored I would have quickly exited my position at least at the same price I had gone in at.

 

I am not too bothered about my continuing losses on the horses. Like I said before my mind isn't totally on it when I am concentrating on other sports.

I accidentally came across a marvelously written blog. Joining the South African Party. He should take up Journalism!  It's about a guys adventures whilst out in South Africa enjoying the World Cup. It's a must read for all of us that wish we were over there too.

A whole post and I haven't mentioned

it once and no sign of a spreadsheet!

Less Targets More Profits

It was good to see both Mexico and Uruguay going for it in Tuesday's game even if it did mean that I lost. I don't usually go for a straight gamble but I really thought that a draw was on the cards. I did make some of the loss back on the evenings matches and had a good cricket result.  I have not done much on the horses as I have been relaxing watching the footie. Trading the horses is tricky enough when fully concentrated on but almost impossible if you are trying to enjoy a football game and trading without pictures.

I would like to thank my anonymous readers for their recent comments. Having thought about it they are right when they say that I am targeting myself too much and that it is not good for overall performance. It encourages chasing when things don't go right. There have been quite a few occasions when I have traded a market just because I want to hit a certain level and then come unstuck. I will try to improve in that area as I but I still believe that an objective is still necessary to keep some kind of focus.

One thing is for sure! I am not going to reach a profit of £1,000 this month. It has been a very random performance this month with 12 daily wins and 12 losses.

My only objective is to finish the month green. I think that's a target that I am allowed!

 

An Interesting Afternoon Awaits Us

As I write we are about nine hours from the start of the final games in Group A and the volume for the draw in the match odds market for Mexico v Uruguay has gone through the roof.  We should be seeing volume for the three outcomes at about 500,000 but as you can see the draw alone is £4,238,700 which is about 93% of the whole market. Goodness knows what the volume will be as the game starts.

Will we see an exciting end to end game with the teams worried about  losing and the daunting prospect of facing Argentina in the next round or will it be a boring  unopposed passing game at the half way line securing the draw that is needed to qualify.........

........ either way, I am a contributor to the 93%.

Is 1.87 low value?

 

There is one happy guy over at the Trading Tennis blog. I don't know the actual trades but I bet that the most that was at risk at any one time was less than $500. I keep meaning to get involved. This has got to be an incentive!

Not much to show for my efforts over the last couple of days.

I am now averaging £16.56 per day which is half of my original target. I am supposed to reach £9,000 profit by the end of the year but at this rate it will be September 2011. I need to profit by almost £40 every day this year to pull it back.

The Bigger Picture

Trading on any market is not necessarily a 'one dimensional' activity as sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture. This is why research of the implications of a particular scenario is very important.  Take the France v Mexico game a couple of days ago as a prime example. While many punters were just concentrating on this in play market, shrewder one's were keeping their eye on the Mexico v Uruguay market which was due to kick off five days later.  The clever traders were praying for Mexico to take the lead. Why?.....because if the game ended with a Mexico win then both Mexico and Uruguay would qualify if they drew their last game. So while the France market was suspended after Mexico took the lead, the Mexico v Uruguay match odds remained open allowing opportunities to gain significant profits as the price for the draw started falling. Now I am not saying for one minute that the final match will be fixed but while there is speculation the price is always going to drop.

 

You can see clearly that when it went 1-0 the price dropped from about 3.25 to 2.25. Although the drop was fairly sharp it wasn't a straight vertical drop that you always get in an in play market so there was time to get on the ride. When Mexico scored their second it dropped to 1.75 and it is currently settled at 1.85.  It is worth keeping this in mind with the remaining second round of group games.

As for me, I was not shrewed enough. My main concentration was on the horses and I only thought about looking at the future match a few minutes after the first goal had been scored.

There were a lot of evening races on Thursday. I traded many of them only to finish with a profit of just £2.60 so I am still clearly struggling but after four days of losses in a row it was a significant  green result. I didn't do much on Friday as I was downing the beers watching the unbelievably poor England but I came out with a small profit of £13.

I am out this afternoon so no horses today. Perhaps that's a good thing.

More of the Same

My bad run continues. I had just five losing days in May and so far there has been nine in June. I am going to give it one last go tonight and if I end up red then I am going to give the horses a rest and concentrate on the football and cricket for a few days. I know I can do it but confidence is a large part of success and by giving the sport a rest maybe I can return stronger. I keep seeing that £357.68 on my charts and it just frustrates me. I know I have to forget about it.

I have set up a line chart just for the Horse Racing P/L and it doesn't seem so bad. Maybe I should refer to this everytime I feel down about the last few days.

Now that £1,000 is unrealistic for this month, I have amended my monthly target to £400 so at least I have something achievable to aim at. I will be happy with that profit after the difficulties I have suffered over the first half of the month.

If you remember I commented on Saturday about the large market jumps on the horses and I noticed it happening again over the past evenings. Low grade racing has always been volatile but not this bad. Or am I just imagining things.

Still Affected

I am still affected by Monday. The confidence seems to have drained away and I am being too tentative. It's another negative day which has now put me in the red for the month. I had one good race towards the end which I took a copy of to try to invigorate myself but there is nothing to be positive about. The small losses on the cricket and Football were just speculative lays at low prices to try to catch any bounce but no luck.

Devastation on the Rollercoaster

I seem to find it easier to have things to say when I lose.....and when I lose, boy it's big!

Tonight has been utter devastation. I am following the same bad ways that have been hampering me ever since I ever started trading. It's a very fine line between winning steadily and losing all self control where the losses come thick and hard. 

It all started late last night when I lost £80 on the golf. That loss wasn't settled until early this morning so it goes down as a Monday result. Then on the horses I was making silly mistakes pre-race and was about £50 down over the first four evening races and decided to go in play and lost another £50. So including the golf I was down £180. I should have just called it a day but Lady Jane Digby finally did me in as I blindly laid £50 in play without even a second thought and a further £180 went down the drain! 

The final loss for the day is £357.68 and now that I seem to have calmed down I cannot believe what I have done. It was like a red mist came over me and my body was being taken over by someone else! Losing is part of the game so I can't understand my reactions.

There aren't that many blogs that highlight big losses but it's important to highlight to people thinking about trading that it is not always rosey and dealing with your emotions is the key and the most difficult thing to control. Please do not send me abusive comments, I don't need to be told that I am a complete plonker!

There are a handful of positives. I am still up for the month, year and since I started in Feb 2007. Plus I did not surpass my record loss of £554.01 on 10/06/2007.

I'm off for a beer or three!

Another Green Day

Who was sloshing their big money about during the two evening meetings? Prices were freefalling by about 10 ticks on many occasions. Not seen anything like it before.  I just stuck my bet one tick ahead of the big money and enjoyed the ride!

I will post in the morning with my opinion on the England game. Off to play poker now.

Wait Until The Fat Lady Sings

I often hear about miraculous come backs, overturning what seems an impossible situation. The first thought I usually have is that I wish I would have been active in that market However this time I was active and I watched with utter disbelief as events unfolded before me.

It was a cricket Twenty20 game between Hampshire and Somerset. Somerset batted first and struggled throughout managing just 104-7. The odds at the start of Hampshire's chase was 1.10. I was hoping for a very early wicket to push the odds out a bit so I could place a back on Hampshire. The early wicket came, I placed my back bet and layed off later for a small profit of £9.60. The closing trade was my best decision of the day as events unfolded. Hampshire were poised for victory at 93-4, requiring only another 11 runs in almost four overs to see off Somerset's challenge. In the end Hampshire could only manage a further 4 runs losing the rest of their wickets. 1.01 was well and truly slaughtered and it goes to show that the game is not over until it is mathmatically impossible to change the likely result.

My daily trading continues to plod along. Another profitable day without too much excitement. I didn't do too much on the horses as I was flicking over between the cricket and the football.

I traded a couple of US races after mignight so I am already up £11 for today.

I have been thinking of withdrawing some of my profits for some time but in the past when I have withdrawn I seem to go on a losing run!

Maintaining The Target

I am sorry for the lack of meat on the bones this week. By the time the racing has finished I am worn out, especially last night with five meetings in one evening.

 

Small But Steady

Just a quick update to post my last couple of days results. Nothing too exciting but both days were profitable and surpassed my daily target of £33.

 

A Stormy Day

What a start to the day!  I had two back bets as opening trades in the first two races. Two minutes to the start of the 2.10 Worcester and the heavens opened with a monsoon. I have never seen so much rain!  I started to panic when I realised that the broadband had been knocked out and I had no 3G signal to use my backup plan. In addition the signal from my sky had disappeared. 

It took about 12 minutes for the broadband and 3g to return by which time the first two races had been and gone and I was £90 down. What was even more frustrating was that I had backed Silent Blessing in the 2.20 which had been sharply steaming and a closing lay would have been very profitable.

By the end of the day I had managed to claw back most of the losses with a more aggressive strategy which included utilising the in-play markets and finished just over £5 down overall.

Darting Around

Below is a screenshot of the moment when Tony Ayres hit his double to win the his Darts match. at lunchtime today.

The price of 1.11 was astonishing. Here was a guy who admittedly was a rank outsider but was hitting his doubles regularly. Wade was so far behind in this final leg that he was not in a position to finish with his next three darts so Ayres had six darts to hit his double. He did it with his first dart. I quickly put in a £100 bet and only £50 got matched as the market was suspended. I only won £5 on top of the £13 all green I had traded earlier.

Of course this was a pure gamble and at the end of the day I could have lost £100 but just because the price was just 1.11 didn't mean that it was not value. In my opinion it was a price that was screaming to be taken!

Back in the Green

One of the reasons why I started this blog was to document my journey so that I could refer to it from time to time and perhaps learn from my mistakes. I don't know about the latter but it's surprising what is forgotten that the blog can remind you about and it helps to refocus the objectives. 

If there is anyone thinking about starting a diary I would thoroughly recommend it. It doesn't have to be for anyone to read as you can set up a blog which is for your eyes only. I decided to make mine available to anyone as a way to help my discipline. I thought that making it public would make me think twice about making decisions as a losing blog is no good to anyone. It certainly has helped although I have a long way to go. Or why not do it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.

Whichever tool you decide you have to be honest with yourself. There is no advantage to be had documenting stuff that you would rather write down instead of what you actually should write down. If you find yourself continuously losing it will help you make the correct decision of whether to redefine your strategy or concede defeat and give it up.

I am relieved that after three negative days, I am back in profit. Yesterday I had totalled  £99.43 but wanted to gain the 57pence needed to reach my century. I decided to lay the draw midway through the first half of Toronto v Kansas and exited midway through the second accepting a loss of £18.66. The game ended 0-0. The irony is that when I had checked my P/L the Horse market had been adjusted to show £100.55.

Small Reds Continue

It has not been a productive last couple of days. In fact each of the opening three days have all resulted in a losses (although I didn't do very much yesterday). My opening race on Wednesday didn't help with a loss of £75 that I published on here earlier in the week.

I know that if I can keep my concentrate I can consistently come out ahead but it's easier said than done.

Clowning Around

The first day of June couldn't have got off to a worse start. I traded the first two races without going in play, finishing £50 out of pocket. Every decision in those two races went against me and I was getting very frustrated and we all know what happens when the frustration gets the better of us. We turn into a clown and make stupid decisions. Well at least I do!

I trade the third race and by the time the race was about to start I was down a further £20, probably down to my bad temperament. So I made the big sin of chasing and thought 'what the hell' I am going to lay Quiet Word as there were another couple of horses which were also fancied. I decided not to watch or trade during the race as I didn't want it to influence me but as usual I just made the situation worse. By the end of the race I was down £160.

By now I had lost all self control and went into splash the cash mode. Trading went out the window for the next few races. I went in play in all of them and left big liabilities all over the place. I managed to salvage £100 and should have ended the day in profit but I blew my £40 all green on the Somerset V Sussex by making one trade too many which resulted in a profit of 95 pence.

All in all it was a total shambles and I am not proud of ending up as a loss chaser.

Spreadsheet Instruction Error & Not the Only Error

Please see the spreadsheet tab for more details.

Whilst typing this post I forgot I left an open position. Great start to the evening!


























I had a really eventful day yesterday ended up losing £40 but didn't have time to post but will catch up with it later tonight.

Too Many Races

With so many races crammed together yesterday afternoon, it was difficult to get any sort of rhythm. In the end I was satisfied with £68 particularly as the afternoon was the perfect setting to lose discipline and end up trading in play, which I avoided completely.
 

 

I am extremely pleased at almost reaching £1,200 for the month. It has certainly not been easy and I know that I must not be complacent as I have learned that it is very easy to lose and hard to consistently win.