wee update

Just thought id write an update about how things were going, since my visit from Dave, Its opened my mind up more about what goes on in the ten minutes before the race and Ive been trying to work out when and who comes into the market at what times and trying to spot repeat trends happening and keeping records of the information I am gathering.

When I spot a trend I am putting a trade in, but until my confidence builds I am using £2 stakes, the good news is that I am beggining to see much clearer trends and when I load up a race I am trying to predict before hand what price a favourite will settle at, which Is giving me more confidence to get my entry points right!

So for so good and I am getting in right about half the time!


So for now I am happy to sit and watch and be more selective about my trading until my confidence grows further! will update again soon

Day with Dave

Well I thoughtI should write up a review of my day with Dave.

Its not going to be too long winded but more a quick overview of what we went through.

The day was really tailored to suit me and any question I aksed was ansered in double quick time with a live example/demo of what I aksed.

Anyone who traded on friday would have noticed that that markets were very very stable, good liquidity and good quality races, so there werent many swing trading opportunities to be had, which was good because my main problem was scalping believe it or not.

To start with we went in depth about course grades, and race grades and what to expect at different course and types of race classes in relation to liquidity and what punters were likely to do, we also covered form and how to read a race a properlly and anticiptate what to expect and what opporinioties to look for in every type of race, I now buy a racing post every day - Its alot easier to look at than using the web site and I can now load up a race and have a plan in place ready to put into action and even more so what to do if it does not happen.

We then covered the timing of entry and exits points and I can clearky see money coming in and out and in again and the market settling down which has helped me with my entry and exit points, we covered the betfair graphs and how to use them and read them properyl and also the bet angel ladders and scalping tools and how to read and use them properly, and then I watched dave trade for about half the day and in the latter part I traded whilst dave watched over me, the big thing that I noticed is that I now have more confidence in stable markets to leave orders in longer and wait for my order to be filled instead of backing out of the order for the loss!

All in all it was well worth it and I would highly reccomend it to anyone!

Let myself down badly

Sice starting this blog I have really honed my discipline in and was getting so much better this weel and even doubled my bank, but today my discipline level slipped and I sinned badly, so badly I could cry like a big baby - I let a trade go in play and have wiped my bank, so I am back to sqaure one, I cant believe i went so long without doing it and now this, It makes you feel so low when it happens, I wonder why I done it again after so long, I dont know if every trader goes through this and its a case of every time you do it you get stronger? to a point where you absolutely wil not do it again, or is it just me??? anyone reading that has any useful tips or anything else to say feel free to let me know! I am away to sit in the naughy corner and beat myself up.

Not only has it made me extremley pissed off, but its knocked my confidence - Anyone reading this who is trying to learn to trade please please please do not let a trade go in play, you might get away with it a couple of times, but it will come back and bite you, and steal your bank - Guaranteed.

The strange thing about this was I was greened up for £3.92 and I got greedy and tried to get some more out of the market and bang the price shot away and I could not accept the huge loss I was facing, its concerning because I have been taking losses in the chin lately and accept that you cant get away from them, but the sheer speed this price shot away left me like a rabbit in the headlights waiting to be run over and run over I was! big time!

More consistency

Friday Sat and Sun update:

Friday and Saturday I felt it was hard not to make money, and there were some decent swings and price movements, overall in the last 7 days I have doubled my bank and have not had a losing day until yesterday! Sunday was awful I felt there was hardly and liquidity and not much price movements and I sustained a £3 loss for the day, the first losing day I have had for about 2.5 weeks!

But overall the bank is up and I am getting small consistent wins so generally happy with progress!

good but room for improvement

Today at the start if the day I felt I could not put a finger wrong and it was hard not to make money, but as the day wore on it got harder and harder I felt, dont know if the liquidity was drying up a bit, anyway

I alos noticed today on certain races huge back bets coming in and send ing the pirce steaming in, which took me from a green up to a red up! certainly made me more cautious!

I returned a few quid using 50p tick sizes and after being away for a few days I think thats ok! I was on course for 10% return on my bank today, but came in just under! so more of the same the next few days please!

Personal Mentoring

Its fair to say that you can never know enough, especially when it comes to trading, I am now in the position where I have stopped losing money and making small daily returns, On friday the 15th May I am having dave raybould from betangel round at my house for a days personal mentoring, this is not the first time I have met dave as I had a day with him last summer also, but this time I am so much more hungry and equipped to get the best out of dave for the day than i was last year, I am so looking forward to it!

If you have not met Dave, or had the pleasure of dealing with him I suggest you look into it with him for a days mentoring, I actually organoised things the wrong way round, you see I had personal mentoring from dave before I went on the Peter Webb Course and i all honesty when i first met dave last summer for the day I really did not have much of a clue about what I was doing, so this time round I know I will get lots out of it as I have have been on the course and have been trading for a few months!

Here is the link to the site for anyone interested!

http://www.bettingexchangeacademy.com/mentoring.php

I have not traded againt this week and wont be back in my seat until tommorrow, as I had personal commitiments that have kept me away from the desk, but after tommorrow thats me hopefully with no interuptions for the foreseable future!

Thought id upload a screen shot from the last 2 days p n l, its not been easy and a made a few schoolboy errors, and today I found really tough, the money seemed to dissapear very quickly today which made trading hard!, but I still managed to nick a few quid here and there!

good resource and update

Its been a while since I actually sat down and not only wrote on the blog but traded.

I have had a busy week with my mother moving house and my Cab needing a lot of work to pass its strict certificate of compliance (taxi MOT) which has meant going to body shops, auto electricians and council yards - on top of that I have not been sleeping so getting all my chores done in the morning meant I was coming back really tired and I never trade when I am tired, but all the work is out the way and I can now focus on trading again!

I was readin other blogs and the bet angel forum and I wanted to read a few books in my spare time that other bloggers and forum users suggested and short of spending a a lot of money to purchase these books I remember reading the paper during the week regrading class lawsuits against google in that they were publishing books on there google books site withougt prior permission, given that google are now worth £100 billion I think this was no drop on the ocean for them and they have agreed in principle a royaltee structure for authors and publishing houses whos work is on the google books site, so this morning I set about look for a coup0le of titles and easily found them:

here is a link to the search for anyone not used it before:

http://books.google.com/

and I looked for trading in the zone, and it came up straight away:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=olUUEfY31ZkC&pg=PP1&dq=trading+in+the+zone#PPA1,M1

A book on political betting with lots of reference to betfair:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qZ_wNXtdNAwC&pg=PA54&dq=trading+betfair#PPA3,M1

The science of financail market trading:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8UwF4fYBhb0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=financial+trading#PPP1,M1


Anyway, thought this would be a useful post if anyone does not already know about it, equally if anyone is aware of other sites like google books post a comment and let me know.


Thanks
Paul


All tthere in black and white a freely available to read on your pc/notebook/tablet at your leisure!

Watch the clock or TV carefully

Take heed of the title of this post!

I have just got caught out (carried away whilst trading and a race started while i had an open position) needless to say I had an open back bet with about £27 on it - and the race was a 5f sprint, I watched in horror as the horse lost the race wiping out my bank - Its done my confidence right in as you can see from the last 2 days trading P and L I was starting to get somewhere - I will not be trading the rest of the day now because of this and probably not tommorrow - I never had the race clock up and was not paying attention to the start time.


DAMM DAMM DAMM CANT BELIEVE I WAS SO STUPID - dont make the same mistake i did

Getting better

Its been a while since I posted a P an L shot - but over the last 2 days I seemed to have made great progress only using £2 stakes, its not a greaty amount to win but I think it shows that using that charts more seems to prove that it gets a bit easier to spot trends and get in and out of the market at the right time!

progress

I have been using the new charting candle sticks for a few days now and its certainly helped with my ability to spot better entry and exit points, but even more so thanks to Mark who sent me a message a couple of weeks back I have been combining this with analyisis of the betfair chart and been looking at support and resistance levels in the chart in the 10 mins up to the race and I have been getting better and better at getting in and out at the right times, I feel this is a major milestone and a definate lightbulb moment, in fact the biggest breakthrough I have had in a while and I cannot believe I had missed this part of the jogsaw for so long, I had no idea just how much information was in the betfair graphs and in all honesty was not using them at all, just try to follow the money!

It seems that the prices and trends are getting more predictable for me as a novice and for the first time I dont feel like a small fish in shark infested waters and I am able to feel my way around a lot more.

if anyone reading who had been through this could perhaps tell me that I am hitting on something?? even if not, its done wonders for my confidence, when you have half an idea whats going on I now find that scracthing trades is becoming more natural!

So I am going to play around with £2 stakes and try to get my strike rate up and start making small consistent wins!

new ideas

Hi There folks,

Been a wee while since I updated the blog and thought I would quickly write up my progress over the last week.

I have been using a new charting setup with the candle sticks the last few days in the advanced charting grahps and I have been watching the way the markets behave instead of trying to trade them, but the odd time I have been trading using just £2 stakes.

Someone said on my blog I should be having fun trying to work out what the markets are doing, and it was a great piece of advice I have actually been having fun trying to work out what a particular market/horse will do and the great thing is its been stress free and there are patterns that the markets follow and I am beggining to get pretty good at noticing them.

So if like me you are a novice and have been trading using real money, stop using money for a while and try and work out whats going on and you will actually notice more, as you are not getting frustrated about losing money and for me I was able to concentrate a whole lot more on what was going on and what my game plan should be when I start using money again, there is no real subsitute to using money, and you will also learn a hell of a lot putting money in the market but occasionally taking a step back may help you like it has me.

I also just read a great post from adam heathcote about getting in the zone before you trade, I am not a profitable trader yet, but I can relate to what adam says in the post word for word, I reccomend you have read at it


http://adamheathcote.blogspot.com/

The enrty is titled 'routine'

slow response

Enjoyed my day off relaxing yesterday as I see many others out there in traderland did, apart from peter webb who had what sounds like a horrible accident, get well soon! but peters comments about seeing good things even in the bad times ring true! look at his P and L shot for the aus races!!

Anyway, asides being very tired as I had about 3 hours sleep last night i am finding betfair very slow today and very nervous about trading, so I am going to sit it out again today and get back to my bed for some shut eye before a 12 hour shift toninght.

Hope eveyone else is getting on better, perhaps is just my brain!

Paul

Optimism

I have the utmost optimism most of the time, and I always see the bright side of life, especially when it comes to trading, but since starting the blog it went on a short uphill trend then bang, I am back to losing - for the first time in the last 5 months since I began my trading journey I feel like throwing in the towel, maybe just maybe I am not cut out for this, my bank of £50 is now halved, its only £25, but its not the money that matters its the pyhscoligical effect its having on me and my body I can actually today feel my blood racing and my heart pounding! so I think its best to have a rethink about my future as a trader before it gives me a heart attack, no amount of money is worth a life.

I just cant seem to figure out the way the markets moves, one minute I think I have it sussed and can guess which way a market is going to go and sometimes I get it right, but of late its been more wrong and even though I can cut the trades out quicker a lot of small losses hits the bank, the opposite of lots of little winds which is what I have been striving for.

I have no idea if 5 months is enough time or I should be trying for longer, I know everyone is different but the frustration is killing me, normally I can master things quite quickly and pick things up as I go along, but the horse racing markets are a complex beast which just might be beating me! perhaps some time just watching the markets for a couple days instead, who knows anyway time for a cuppa!

The trend is not my friend, today anyway!

Ive been reading up alot and watching a lot of videos again and before trading today I was under the assumption that I would be able to trade a bit better as after watching many trading videos and reading other bits of advice about following trends and waiting for breakouts I have already lost £7 in three races today so far!! I was full of confidence today before trading, now I am really hacked off!

Looking at the at graphs from the 3 horses there was a definate trend on them, I then susses out the upper resistance and lower resistance levels and the upper ones were broke which upon reading and watching other vidoes/advice out there you would think they would continue to drift, how wrong! they all came back in with a vengeance and actually broke the lower price resistance and kept shortening, I dont know if its the odds ranges I am trading, or becauase its a monday! dont go thinking you have it all sussed! because you get proved wrong again and again! now back to trying to trade again!

Thank you kindly!

To Mark,

I just wished to say thank you very much for the comment you left! as you stated I will not be publishing it and will go through it just now and start watching the relavant markets! well done on the new job as well! id love to get out of the taxi business! time will tell! I would have emailed you, but there is no retrun address on the blog postings as you can imagine!


Kind Regards
Paul

downhill rollercoaster

Well I must say today I am cheesed off, normally I am upbeat and positive even when I am losing, since starting this blog using £50 starting bank I am now at £35 which means quite a loss over the 2.5 weeks ago I started this.

My mind is a muddle - I find at times there is too much information out there to help you?? I know that sounds strange, but if you watch too many videos and read too many articles it seems to confuse me, dont know about anyone else, I know there are no that many blog readers on my blog just now! I cant seem to find a groove to sit in or get my own style.

One good thing about the blog though is that since starting it it has definetely helped with my discipline I have not let a single bet go in running, which was my major downfall, and I can now scratch trades a lot quicker so its progress but not money making progress, what I now need to do is stop losing money, and at some time making money will follow????

Just now I trade using pure price action, ie folllowing (or trying to follow) the big price moves, but I either get it wrong or get in too late and miss it, and today seemed particularly hard with movements as there did not seem to be any great ones and the liquidity was low in some races towards the end of the day, in the past ive tried rading form etc and try to figure out which way a horse will go, but that lost me money as well, ive tried working with stop losses but thats not working as the prices are too jumpy and just take my stop loss anyway before going in the direction I thought it would go and I see the profit I was going to make dissapear in front of my eyes!

I feel like hitting my head off a wall but my entusiasm to learn and crack this never seems to fade, its becoming like a drug.

I guess i just need to learn to read the markets better and use betangel a bit more proficiently, one minute I think im making progress and then the next it goes to pot!!!

Arrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

If you could hear me scream your ears would be sore!.

Perhaps my downfall is that I only use the ladder for trading? maybe I should be scalping more, but I find the ladder interface easy to use and understand and the multi ladder I use when there us no clear favourite, perhaps I need to start looking more at scalping or bookmaking? or do I should I become good at swing trading first!!

Rollercoaster

For me subject field of this posting is what the last 3 days have been like, and apart from my lack of experience I put it down to tiredness, as some of you may know I am taxi driver just down and work nightshift to allow me to trade during the day, but latley as with everything in the economy just now the trade is suffering, so much so so that I am having to work much much longer hours to make any kind of living at all, to show you how bad things are (this will give you an idea of how bad the economy is) about 6 months ago I could make on a friday night after expenses £300 for 12 hour shift, this friday I made £70, and that was on a pay weekend for most people who get paid at the end of the month, so you would expect to it to be busy!

I know this deviates from the topic, but it ties in with what experienced traders will tell you, you really have to be in the zone and focused on your work, if you are tired like me, (well shattered) you will make rash desisions and leave trades open for longer which is exactly what I done over the weekend, I knew when I woke up late on Saturday morning that I should not have traded, and the same on sunday, btu even though I lost money, I actually still learned - the mistakes I made only re-inforced what I was beggining to understand about trading, you have to a half fulll glass all the time, not just in trading, but in life in general I think to make this work!

I have to work again tonight but will hopefully finish early enough to get a good nights sleep and take things a bit easierduring the week, and hopefully be more in the zone!

I have often thought about another job and could easily go and do something else and something a lot more challenging, but that of course would not allow me the freedom to trade (or learn to trade) so the challenge continues and this week should see some more positive results once my batteries re charge!

down a wee bit again!

Not much to to say today other than being a a few pounds down again over the last couple of days, mainly from yesterday - I really struggled yesterday as it I felt that there was not a lot of money in the markets and no great price movments, which meant just as I fired an order in and expected it to take of the price was quickly settling back in the other other direction meaning I kept getting small losses, the lesson learned however was to look more at not just the graphs, but the WOM and Momentum meters at the same time I think this will come with time and experience -Just now I find it difficult to remember everything to look at in the correct order when placing a trade, great thing about betangel is that all the information is there to help you make the right trade but it takes plenty of practice to read it all at the same time!

Just read that betangel is sponsoring tonights card at wolverhampton! I am gutted I cant trade it, so will just have to settle for reading other traders experience of tonights card! hopefully you all get some good green up!

slowly getting there

Over Friday Sat and Sun I made a small profit, well £10 of it was from sunday, so it shows the kind of days I have been having, either breaking even or making a small loss, but yesterday I felt things just clicked a lot more and I was able to scratch my trades very quickly if I got it wrong, and I also found new confidence in my graph reading abilties that allowed me to let trades run for longer! Analysisg my mistakes over the last 3 days has allowed me to progress as I try not to make the same mistakes over and over again, and not to be so trigger happy when entering trades.

if I cant see it, dont do the trade has been my motto now and it seems to be working, over all I have made a profit in the last 7 days of just over £20.00! not much, but I am now realising that it's little and often that I need to be practising and try and nip in and out of my trades quciker, nicking a few ticks here and there to help grow my confidence!

I still feel like a blind man when wandering through some of the markets not quite knowing which direction to go and cant quite feel my way around, so what I do when I dont know what to do is a take a guess and if I get it right I note it down and I am starting to get it right more than wrong, through time I assume this will give me the confidence to enter these markets and enter some trades! intitially for me I want to reach a target of £100 a day as this is roungly what I can when in my taxi! but working from home tax free (well apart from the premium charge) and without dealing with drunk people and getting a social life back are just as important to me, cant wait to get my first premium charge from betfair!