Archive for October, 2009

The clocks are about to change, racing gets earlier in the day and the quality drops off. The flat turf season is just about expended and the jumps and all weather racing are popping up with increasing regularity. Its officially the start of the tough period!

OK, lets not get all gloomy, there are plenty of opportunities, just less of them and fewer quality ones. Also it’s all relative. I am sure anybody starting out, would be happy with what some people consider a poor return. But as you go through the years though you realise the chance for really big totals and records has gone for the year. From a practical perspective, the issue you suddenly face is that that the good results become more important to get and the bad results much more important to avoid. If you are not careful this can play on your mind and affect your trading. You can often find yourself scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to top up your results for the day. Then suddenly a good race can replace many poorer ones.

But take heart, harder periods create opportunity as well, it’s a low risk time to try new things. There are other aspects too. For personal reasons I had to take last February off. It’s the first time in years I’ve had so long away from my desk. Despite this, as I approach the end of October I am already ahead of last year’s total for October and well ahead for the year on a like for like basis. So while missing a month put a dent in my P&L, it turned out not to be much of a dent. Missing some time here and there doesn’t really matter in my opinion. What February taught me was that I really should bring my life / work balance back into line. Also, if you have a tough day, I wouldn’t worry too much, its quite normal and in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter. Try and broaden out your view from just a race or a day to a much wider measurement.

I’ll be toning down my expectations from now for a few months. I’ll still look to do the best I can but I am also significantly increasing my activity in other areas this year. I also have a few projects to work on and some extra time to spend with the kids, it’s half term next week. Life is for living and while winter is decreases opportunities in some areas it opens them up elsewhere.

I’m often asked what is a good trading signal. In fact, many factors make up a potential signal and your tolerance to risk and mindset make up another factor than contributes to whether you can act on what you see or not. I quite like manic markets that seem out of control, but that’s because I can often see order in disorder, I’m tuned to that. Some people just can’t stand those markets. But there are some clear cut trading signals that all of us can see, amateur or professional alike.

Today at Catterick we saw ‘The Only Boss’ loveless in the market. From an early low of under 3’s he drifted to mid 4’s, a fairly clear cut negative. The price stabilised from there. As the horse came out from the parade ring to the course it saw the turf and bolted. When that happens punters are not exactly going to back a horse to kingdom come, in fact, if they have already backed it, they may be looking for an exit.

As the horse sped towards the start the price reacted and drifted all the way out to an SP of near on 7’s. The most clear cut trade of the day and a significant one at that.

Lots of noise in the press about this match and the fact you can’t view it unless you pay to view at www.ukrainevsengland.com.  However Bet365 appear to have done a customer acquisition deal with the providers, which means that if you open a Bet365 account and fund it you can also watch it free. I’ve had a few suggestions come through the inbox for other ways to view this match for free. But the Bet365 option seems the best, especially given the free bet offers available for new customers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n5b92/Micro_Men/

Emjoyed watching ‘Micro Men’ on BBC four this evening. It was a real blast from the past. Despite being pretty young, I too was caught up in the boom during this momentous time in the UK technology industry. While you may wonder how this is related to what I now do, it was back then that I picked up my fathers football pools coupon and started examining games of chance. I wanted a better way to fill out a pools coupon and spent some time writing code to analyse football matches. I remember sitting in the library reading all the material I could, in an effort to help me learn more about why draws occured. I didn’t figure back then just quite were it would lead.

I can honestly say that I have never been able to predict what I will be doing in five years time, I don’t think I can do that now either. But I have learnt that if you follow roughly the right path, you will do OK in time. Nobody can ever be sure what the future holds, you just have to do what you think is right and for the right reasons. It took me some time to realise, but I also learnt that having a positive outlook on things is a great way to life live. It leads you into all sorts of interesting directions.

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

September was a cracking month, even considering the end of the summer racing. It turned out to be my second best month of the year and I also went on that fantastic run of 82 winners in a row. I doubt I will repeat that feat for a little while!

Thanks to the lack of races, it wasn’t a record month. But it was a bumper one and this was helped by my improving strike rate. The last three months have definately lifted me up to a higher level, beyond what I had previously considered possible at this stage. It’s very encouraging to see there is still room for improvement despite having been around for such a long time.