Sunday, January 31, 2010

Negative Progress - January

Total Profit/Loss: -£111.93

January was a very strange month for me. I felt like I made progress for most of the month but lost control in one session and made a loss! This is really frustrating as so much of what I did this month was very promising.

Lets talk about the manic session first. I was trying to get near the target(in my head) I had set myself this month of £250 profit. I went passed the target and was feeling very happy with myself and decided to trade just one more race and then finish. What happened next was complete madness. My PC went on super go slow I think my anti-virus software was updating. This caused me to miss the start and lose £50 on the race. Now because for some reason I thought that it wasn't really my fault. So I decided to make it up on the next race and layed the fav which won. Then layed the fav in the next race and it also won, by the time the third fav won I had lost all my profit for the month and some more. If you are reading this you are probably thinking what an idiot and that is exactly how I feel.

The crazy thing is that I am much better with my general Horse Race trading and have been taking my losses and moving on. However my stupid mistake cost me big time. This is a big reminder for me that on Betfair it is easy to quickly undo the good work of a month or longer. Anyway hopefully I have learnt from this very expensive series of mistakes and can move on to Feb where there should be much better opportunities for some decent trading.

On the positive side my American football trading was very good and I continued to profit from the sport. It is a shame that there is only the Super Bowl to go. My football trading showed a small loss but generally was quite sound. I am currently working on a few strategies for this year with the world cup in mind.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Road Ahead!

So after much thought i have decided that I am going to try and take my trading to a new more profitable level. I plan to show that with some patience decent profits are possible for part time traders. The Blog will continue in the usual format with the addition of monthly updates on my profit(positive thinking!). By showing any profits I don't mean to show off but what I hope to show are that small profits are possible with a reasonable bank. If you are looking for someone making life changing profits then you are reading the wrong blog. I will continue with my main sports and try and develop the ones I identified in the last post.

The start of the year has been a bit strange with the limited racing opportunities. However I have made some decent money in the American Football and Football. This is just as well as on the rare occasions that I trade a UK race I just mess up. To be honest I would be better off just writing a cheque to a better trader and saving myself some valuable time.

Below is a video of some inplay football trading last night. I was using The Toy for this as I am for all my trading now. The software is excellent it is very user friendly and extremely fast which is so important in trading.



Apologies if you don't like the music but I was experimenting with adding a track on YouTube. There is always the mute button.

Monday, January 4, 2010

2010 - What should I do?

Happy New Year

The New Year has made me consider my part time trading in some depth. I feel my trading has reached a crossroads. Currently I have been trading for about 3 and a half years. I have dipped my toe into several different sports markets with mixed results. My main decision is whether my trading continues as a nice hobby that doesn't really make much money or I take this a little more serious to earn some decent extra cash. My initial thoughts would be to go with the latter however before when I have thought like that I have taken too many risks and ending up losing rather than making money.

To help my thoughts I have summarised my abilities in different markets.

American Football
My favourite sport to trade at the moment. I have a good knowledge of the sport that helps my decision making. I can regularly make 50-100% of my stake trading on Gridiron. The only downside is the timings of some of the games and the season is only 5 months long.

Horse Racing
I love these markets but they drive me crazy as well. My strike rate is about 75% and I feel confident in most markets. My biggest fault with these markets is trading too close to the off and having a bet taken just as the market closes then having to get out in-play. I could probably cure this by using take SP but I don't trust Betfair SP. Alternatively I could stop trading that bit sooner! Like many traders I feel I could be making so much more out of these markets but just can't seam to manage it. I also trade much better with a smaller bank e.g. I can usually make the same with a £250 bank as a £500 bank. I would also like to go back to working on a bot to make money while I am at work!

Football
I am usually very good at trading football. My only downfall is when I let a trade become influenced by my heart. I need to be more active in these markets as I could be making more from them. I have mainly traded the match odds markets at the moment and want to expand my repertoire by investigating the correct score market and Over/Unders markets.

Greyhounds
Limited experience. Similar to horses but much less liquidity. Think I will continue to give these a miss except maybe the televised races.

Cricket
Frustrating. I love the game of cricket and am very knowledgeable(I think!)but have suffered from some big losses. This stems from greed basically and using stakes that I was not comfortable with. I want to develop this in the next year.

Tennis
I am told the sport has huge potential but I haven't devoted enough time to the sport yet. I would like to learn more but am not sure I have the time this year.

Any other sports I have traded have usually been before the event. These usually generate small but stable returns.

The next few days look quiet so I will take a while to make my decision. I think that if I decided to make a real go of it I can make a decent amount but I have to be wary of putting too much pressure on myself.