Well, after the 'nightmare start' of yesterday, I settled down for my first day at the races today and I have to say they are absolutely right - there is nothing like a bit of experience!
I ended up trading 22 Australian races (minimum $5 stakes of course) and ended up with a profit of $3.61. The figure is heavily distored by 3 races where I made stupid mistakes, two of which luckily ended up going in my favour (I inadvertantly cancelled offset bets twice and ended up going in-play while I frantically tried to close out).
The main tactic I learned with the low-liquidity, 'gappy' markets of Australia was to do away with the global settings. I found the price bounced around alot while often maintaining a general trend, and my stop losses were kicking in almost immediately, while 1 or 2 tick offsets were selling my profits well short.
When I finally worked things out, I ended up in profit in 8 of the last 9 races (the only loss being 4c), and a profit of 88c overall (discounting the distorted races), which I think was ok for my first effort, being how I lost in all of the first 5 races.
In my best individual race I made 12 trades, 11 profitable and 1 cut out even, ending up with 82c for the race.
I found it a thoroughly absorbing day, full of a quiet sense of pride when I greened out for a profit, and full of optimism as I realised that probably 90% of my failures were avoidable and took from each of them a lesson learned.
Findings from Day1
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CaerMyrddin
- Posts: 1271
- Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:47 am
Hi, I think you mustn't ignore the races where you did poorly, they are part of you trading just like the ones where you performed great.The figure is heavily distored by 3 races where I made stupid mistakes
Off course, I'm just a learner too
And another lessoned learned last night. If a horse is scratched after you've started trading, the subsequent re-calculations can wipe out all your profits on that race, even if you have only made successful trades to that point, regardless whether you have traded on the scratched horse.
This may lead me to revise how early I try to hit markets. The earlier you get involved, the more chance there is of a scratching, the more chance you have of seeing your successful trades reversed.
This may lead me to revise how early I try to hit markets. The earlier you get involved, the more chance there is of a scratching, the more chance you have of seeing your successful trades reversed.
I'm not going to keep annoying everyone with daily updates, don't worry, but hopefully you'll allow me one more.
Day 2 was inordinately more successful, despite an overall loss of $1.21. With the busier Saturday markets, I managed to make a profit in 11 out of 13 races. Unfortunately, another moment of gross incompetence meant I greened up with an open order in one of the others, and I lost $5 on that race alone.
Also, I'm not sure what happened in the last race, but I could have sworn that I greened up successfully with my first $1 profit, but the P&L says it was only 23c, so something went wrong somewhere.
Still, a cause for optimism that I might just be able to do this.
Day 2 was inordinately more successful, despite an overall loss of $1.21. With the busier Saturday markets, I managed to make a profit in 11 out of 13 races. Unfortunately, another moment of gross incompetence meant I greened up with an open order in one of the others, and I lost $5 on that race alone.
Also, I'm not sure what happened in the last race, but I could have sworn that I greened up successfully with my first $1 profit, but the P&L says it was only 23c, so something went wrong somewhere.
Still, a cause for optimism that I might just be able to do this.
