New Sports Exchange Trader

Great expectations

2012-03-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

Today has been GREAT for my trading by far I have lot less than most, but the is that yet again I was able to turn off the PC and not feel the need that i HAD to try and trade every single. I managed my mind well today too, taking moderate profits that are consistent with my trading bankroll. Not putting under pressure and not trying to compare myself to anybody either, I WILl make this work and I know it.

Hands up if you've heard of Darren

2012-03-03T04:11:00.000-08:00

Seriously though I am talking of Darren Hall and his site Betting system notes, he has added some new strategies to his highly successful market matcher software that will show you exactly which strategy to apply to almost any football, for minimum risk and maximum return, Darren is always showing his profits of green screens on facebook and twitter, so I would suggest that you do the same and find out how he does it here.

On a run.....

2012-03-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

Good run today only traded a handful of races made an OK profit, still going forward and staying positive, both in bank growth and also in mindset. Sticking to my plan of only trading for a maximum of one hour, the geeks toy isn't even loaded at the moment and in a minute the PC is going off so I can concentrate on some college work and focussing on other things away from trading.

Until next time, keep it green.

Best month of the year

2012-03-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

Early days I know but it turns out that March has been my best month of this year to date. OK maybe a bit tongue in cheek but it looks good on the record but it looks good on the record books, lets hope the good run continues.

Ten straight demotions

2012-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

If I were a football team, I would feel like I had been demoted down through ten leagues in one season, however I am not but what I am is a wannabe sports trader on betfair, one who is now trading with a bank of just under £30 with a stake of £3 whereas a not so long ago I had £289 and was trading with 5% of that each day.(Negaitvity over, move on)

It takes a lot longer to earn it back than it did to lose it. But I'm am glad as its presented me with further evidence that not sticking to the plan and by deviating from it doesn't work.

Sports trading/betting/gambling is a slow long term game and I have began to realise this over the last few days, as when I try to rush I find myself building up with tension, therefore I am now limiting myself to just one hour per day and no more to spend trading, obviously that rules out football well inplay at least, this is just to maintain my focus for just one hour and learn to accept whatever the market is offering. Then come away and have a think about how my session has gone, what I can learn from it and take into the next session, also I think that spending my free time either trading or thinking about trading isn't a healthy mindset to have, so that's another reason for not over trading. As time goes on I may review that with the help of one of the many professionals out there in the world of sports trading.

Good luck to yourselves.

Good advice

2012-02-27T12:00:00.001-08:00

I received a comment on a previous post yesterday and I thought I would share it with you as its very valuable to a newbie trader (me included),-

'This is a very consistent outcome for a large amount of traders and one you can overcome. I have seen so many people get the basics right, start really well and kick on for a month or two and then one of two things happen. They start to aim too high or the discipline loosens. And that results in a loss. Once that loss comes the confidence is knocked and they have a bit of a panic. Some people at this point will raise the stakes to recover the loss and get in more trouble or worse still they will win the money back. If they win the money back, they feel a bit invincible and think if they get in trouble again they will be able to get out of it and so the discipline falls further. It is extremely depressing to come back the day after the big loss and that is why it is so important to avoid them. But when faced with a winning position, people can easily accept a win and exit, they become risk averse. They don't want to lose what they have so they take it. When faced with a loss, people become risk seeking and will risk further loss to avoid the one they are about to suffer. It is a well known reaction and has been studied and proven to be the case. You can come back. You need to have some time off, about a week, reload and start again with a new perspective. Take your profits quickly and your losses quicker.'

The comment came from the badger and he is one of much knowledge and experience and I would like to say thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

The focus in trading

2012-02-25T09:52:00.000-08:00

I think trading becomes all you think of, it must be getting to become an obsession, I feel that it has become just that for that for me, so instead of going through a couple of further boom and bust periods,(as per the last few weeks) I am going to go back to treating this as a hobby and trading when I can and not every time I get chance, so as per Cassini of green all over blog has recently said, its best to put in some money you can afford to lose and build it up slowly from there.

So maintain your focus but don't let it become and obsession.

Markets Suspended

2012-02-24T04:48:00.000-08:00

With regards my daily blogging activities and how I am trading, I am suspending, whilst I will still blog in the future, I will not be putting myself under the pressure of publicly display my targets, gains or increases on my trading for the day so to speak.

I think I may of aimed too high too soon and will be looking to work with a more modest trading bank of a few hundred pounds, until I feel in my mind I am able to use that amount of money effectively and confidently, also without going into the 'snow ball' effect where I feel I should be winning more and more each day, I will be attaining such a level and staying on a plateau until such time I feel comfortable.

I did have a spreadsheet showing daily increases until I hit the £5000 figure and after my first big loss last week, I went on to revise it and that became my target for around November this year, then suffering my second loss this week I have decided that targets are nothing but a way of increasing the pressure on myself and have will now take each day as it comes. Just mentioning my big losses this week I wasn't in a red position at all when it came to going inplay with my bets I feel it was just born out of greed and trying to win more than I did the day before.

So still blogging but not on the same note as I was previously but will still be sharing my experiences with you.

Day Twenty seven

2012-02-22T11:52:00.001-08:00

Made some massive errors today, messed up big time, went inplay, lost loads, not going to go into it right now but its a long way back from here. Its a mixture of greed and being impatient, not trading anymore tonight, seriously f'd off with myself again.

Day Twenty Six

2012-02-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

Did the old faithful when I got back from work, having negotiated through some sheep on the motorway and managed to trade the horses again, I made about £15 and decided to have ago at laying the field in one race as there was only five runners, so I dutched two runners by laying them at around 6's for £3 and backed them higher in play for £2 to guarantee a £2 profit on any runner and then laid the field at 1.75 and and made a further £2 profit and locked in around £4, tried it again on the next race and lost £0.60 so went back to normal trading- result +£22.

Traded the game between Blackpool and West Ham, I did a mixture of U2.5/U4.5 and a bit of CS, locked in a profit on the under/over markets and was going well, but all didn't go to plan with the first two goals coming from West Ham, so for about 3% risk to my trading bank I made around 1% in total. Traded with the TF guys again, really enjoyed the company in their chat room. Still need guidance in my football trading and these guys are excellent at giving it.

Day twenty five

2012-02-20T10:49:00.000-08:00

A quick attack of the horse racing markets today, nothing more than a handful of races left for me to trade, I increased my stakes to increase my returns given the remaining races. In the last race of the day I was scalping with £150 stake and I the market must of steamed about 10 ticks instantly and I was able to hedge on any runner for £19 and scalp another horse in the same race and made a further £3 in that one, and an average of £3 in the other six races. So I've broke back through the £200 mark and made good progress, I was considering trading some football tonight but feel a bit tired from my first day back at work so I'm going to leave it, but there is no reason why you shouldn't get involved with a free 14 day trial at trading football - good luck.

Day Twenty Four

2012-02-19T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'm still battling back my big loss on Friday, but took it steady today and traded every race, yes all 22 of them and came out at the other end with £38, not a bad return at nearly £10 per hour, a lot more per hour than some real jobs, but I can't realise the profit out of betfair just yet as there is a hell of a lot of bank building to be getting on with.
Anyway today has restored my confidence in my abilities and now just need to learn how to cap my enthusiasm/curb my greed and maintain the same discipline as we come back, because until I have recovered all the loss I don't think I will be able to feel like we are making further progress.

Back to the real world tomorrow and back to my real job, the school holidays are over and I may only be able to trade a couple of races per day now, will have a look later, but there is champions league football that I can trade with these guys.

How to trade Pre Match

2012-02-19T06:43:00.000-08:00

A quality video from the Prematchtraders / TradingFootball team.

Day Twenty-three review

2012-02-19T05:02:00.000-08:00

A bit late in writing up yesterdays trading activities, but a successful day it was, I was still a bit raw and apprehensive about what happened on Friday so I felt some kind of nervousness about making a 'mistake' and not having control of myself and my mind but scalped away and came out of it OK, I just need to maintain the same routine and my confidence in trading will return.

Looking at the bigger picture of this challenge I am not sure I will be able to cope with trading with banks at increasing levels day after day until I hit the £5000 mark. The challenge may take longer than I first thought and I will have to take a more graduated increase in trading bank amounts, by withdrawing any profits daily or weekly and only increase at the end of each month or so. But we will see how it goes.

Saturday Offerings

2012-02-18T05:20:00.000-08:00

Not too sure what today will bring me trading wise, already traded the first three races and done ok, still annoyed with myself with yesterdays episode, you could say a bit of 'lost' enthusiasm, I know what it is that I need to do mentally and that is find a middle ground where I am content with the bank growth but also not bored where I'm not interested, percentage wise I think the 3% is too low for every day especially when you consider what is on offer at the weekend to trade, on the other hand its probably about right in the week when evening races start again.

Whatever you trade/bet/gamble on today goodluck.

Day Twentytwo

2012-02-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

Well I suppose they come to most people, but sometimes you have a choice of losing or not and it was me who took and me who decided to go inplay to get 'more' profits and I would put it down to nothing but greed on my part, I could have done nothing and moved on to the next race, I can't even remember what kind of position I had before the off. Anyway I call it the 'snowball' because as you bank grows so do the profits and so does your bank and so do the profits and..... you get the drift, the bigger the bank the bigger the profits and the easier it is for greed in me to take over, I have had days like this before where you want a bigger bank faster and I have also imploded and lost before, but I may have lost two thirds of my trading bank, but I am still well in front and I can also be thankful its profit in betfair and not physically my own as yet, well mentally it lessens the impact if I think of it in that manner.

So I took a break for a couple of races feeling quite sorry for myself and reflecting on what had happened and just got back to the PC and carried on trading, I managed to recoup a portion of my losses but still ended the day down by -£176 but looking at my spreadsheet and week on week I am only £31 down but have yet again learn't one hell of lesson, I'm sure I've read somewhere that I should put post-its of the wall to remind me of f@ck ups and when you can't see the wall its time to stop, but I think I'm safe to carry on for now.
Just looking at betfair for the weekend and seems to be plenty of horse racing to go at, so lets just do that and keep going.

PS thanks to robbo and the guys in the trading football chat room again today.

Going with the flow

2012-02-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

The goods time seems to have got the better of me today, I always get myself into a snowball effect and only seem to get out of it when I get beaten by my own drive for greed, yes greed as I see bank rising rapidly I feel the need for constantly winning more and more, you can probably see it over the last few blog posts where my trading bank has increased significantly over the last two weeks by £200, well today I have proved that I am not ready to receive that level of money from trading and have subsequently given it back within a 'mad' 20 minute period, where I was more concerned about winning more than ensuring I'd kept what I already had. So all the 'credit' days I had built up on my challenge have nearly all been wiped out by being stupid.

I have a plan and I should stick it.

Coming in from the cold

2012-02-17T03:23:00.002-08:00

Trading days are back from the cold, there are over 40 races on offer to trade today, Newbury starts early @ 12ish and Dundalk wraps it up late on at around 830, plenty of opportunities to take my trading bank to new heights and far in excess of the 3% I have forecasted, but I don't think it will be a straight eight hour trading shift, where I will probably do it in two lots of a couple of hours at a time, as I don't think even the pro's would trade all of them. Although handyandyhomer did trade something like ten hours on football last weekend, so well done to him. All of the above obviously depends on what senior management (mrs) has to say about me trading the whole day on my day off, will catch up later see ya.

Day Twentyone

2012-02-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

Excellent day of trading, great banter in the trading football chat room again, relieves a bit of the boredom from trading, no in depth review tonight as I'm off straight out from here but in total nearly £40, so amazing result and definitely will have to start withdrawing while my challenge days catch up. Friday tomorrow and should be another good day, see ya.

Day Twenty

2012-02-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Good full card, shame about the jockey at Southwell getting injured and throwing those races out of line, with about a thirty minute delay, so the first one I got involved with was already subject to a delay a didn't realise at the time that there was a problem, still plenty of coverage for Bet Angel as they sponsored the whole meeting.

With plenty of races came plenty of opportunities, leading me nicely onto a comment I got on twitter yesterday- 'you put that you've learnt how to put your money through the markets but say what you're doing? could you give some more info?' from Andy on twitter.
What I do is start with a stake of 5% of my trading bank and will either place a lay follow by a back or a back followed by a lay- eg If I place £10 lay at 5 and then place a £10 back at 5.1 I will have made 0.1 times my stake, in this case £1 on this runner but if you divide the £1 by the current lay odds for will have made around £0.20, if you can repeat this process many times before a race you can lock in a profit before the race has even begun, that is the basic idea of horse race scalp trading in a nut shell, many articles have been wrote before and there may even be one in the title bar above.

On a personal note again I have made another 10%, although this gain is fantastic I am extending the gap between my current day (20) and my trading bank total (64) so although this could allow me to finish my challenge early, this is not my intention but I do plan to start withdraw a little each week until the gaps between current and project trading day are nearly the same.

Day Nineteen

2012-02-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

Another tremendous day trading on the betting exchange, I have started to learn how to put my money through the markets, even though I have only been using 5% stakes from my £200 bank I turned over more than £100 backing and £100 laying in the first race today, rather than earn the £1 a race I have previously been looking for I made £2.67 in that race and my biggest win was £4.03 and lowest was a £0.95 loss.
Nice that there was more than one market but a shame that folkstone was cancelled this morning. I finished horse race trading with a profit at the end of £22.84, later on I decided to get involved in some football and had a bit of chat in the Trading Football chat room, they offer great advice and guidance, but I decided to go it alone and ended up -£2 down on the football, if only I'd followed the crowd as there matches had goals going in everywhere. So tomorrow night I will be following the lads in their. Update I layed the 0-0 @ 1.2 and obviously it finished 0-0 and cost me a further £1. So a 9.3% trading bank increase.
Good day that was.

Day Eighteen

2012-02-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Well like I said earlier one whole meeting of horse racing, obviously the weather is taking its toll on some courses, but this is no sprint this game, so take what's on offer and that's what I did, not a massive gain, but enough to tip me over the £200 marker or 4% of the challenge total. Today saw massive gaps between races and I took the plunge and joined Trading football, had bit of banter between races in the horse race chat room, been having a look through the members area, some brilliant resources available to wannabe traders and seasoned pros a like, made to feel very welcome and look forward to some happy days with them.

So to compliment my horse race scalping I now have an opportunity to learn a bit more and profit a lot more on the football, so here's to the future- Cheers

One sport, One meeting

2012-02-13T05:56:00.000-08:00

Having not really thought about Monday being a poor day for racing, I didn't really expect to be sitting down to my PC to see there is only one measly meeting on the card, seven races from Wolverhampton and not even an Irish meeting to supplement it with. Will be an effort today to achieve my goal and will probably follow up the afternoons trading with a football trade, to keep the bank growing.

Day Seventeen

2012-02-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

These days of my trading challenge are soon racking up now, I have been going now for over two weeks and should have a bank of £62.58 if I had been increasing at 3% per day, but as I have been able to increase at a better rate each day I have nearly three time the projected amount and if I had trade for 3% a day it would of taken until day 57 to reach that amount I have now. So where I am impressed with myself is the gains I have made and stability in the way I have approached my trading each day, whether that be horse race scalping or pre match trading of football from my Iphone during the normal working day.

I made some notes today whilst trading to enable me to share some of my thoughts with you, they included-

Maintaining composure, learning that losses are an inevitable part of trading- accept them and move on.
As above I wasn't phased during the 1415 race where I had worked myself into a -£1.88 loss but managed to turn it around to a £1.95 profit.
Being decisive and acting on what you can see in front of you.
Contradiction to point above is being decisive but being cautious.

With one of the meetings cancelled today it left plenty of time between some races, I have managed to resist temptation and don't feel like I need to get involved just because there is market in front of me, patience and discipline in me are really developing now. One last race left of the day left and going to take £1 or so out of it.

Day Sixteen

2012-02-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

Well to start with I didn't make any in roads to reduce my loss on the Man Utd game in fact it increased by £2 as I layed the 2-1 scoreline @ 1.20 as I thought there may have been a late goal since Liverpool scored minutes earlier, but not to be as I eventually lost £7.86 in total on the football.

But on the flip-side I have traded every horse race up to now this afternoon and have recovered my loss and then some again on top to boot, really successful afternoon on the horses and there are plenty of races left yet with the last race at Wolves at 1920 but don't think I will trading much longer as I'm at the theatre tonight watching my youngest in Goldilocks, but made enough to be sure that this going to a good week off work.