1/2 Way There - Results - For Anybody whos interested

[ba1000]

Sorry team missed people were commenting on my thread!

Well its then end of the line for me! As predicted you can NOT hope to get away with ultimately relying on the IN PLAY back up trade!

As I said 2/3 of my trades were text book examples - the other 1/3 is where I am in a mess! I can not teach anybody how to be a successful trader - I am a lossing trader - I can show you how to lose.

I am a charlatan - even gamblers would not even want me to call myself a gambler - let alone even calling myself a "trader".

The dataset I created is a FALSE set of results - it does not reflect true trading results.

The point of setting myself up as a guinea pig was hopefully to help newbies/novices set up a plan where they do NOT occur large losses ie try trading at £2 stakes with a small bank and to try for a month to implement good trading practices or learn what you are doing wrong.

If you still find you can not do it - its time to seek professional advice. If you have been lossing for years may be its time to admit to yourself you just do NOT have what it takes to be a trader (I am talking to myself here).

If you can NOT look after the pennies how can you expect the pounds grow.

Andies last post is an EXCELLENT post.

I was watching one of Peter's videos where is trading at large stakes and is down -£40 to -£50 and because of his experience he says something like I know everybody will be saying I am supposed to get out of this trade but I feel the market will go in my direction - he waits and the market does turn in his direction.

You can not buy that kind of experience.

Thanks very much to all who have supported me - the advice has been excellent.

Good luck to you all!

[ba1000]

Of course I am not going to leave it there.

By observing and recording what I was doing we can all see what I was clearly doing wrong.

So what next...well I am now going for the next 1.5 weeks again start trading from 18mins to 5mins before the off.

HOWEVER when there is 5mins to the off I will STOP trading - whatever the P&L is I WILL stop. This will enable me to see how that affects my trading.

I know volatilty picks up within the last 5mins and I want to be out of that.

I have noticed that most of my trading is done 9 to 6 mins before the off.

The reason I aim for 18 to 15mins before the off is that I trade of the BA Candle Back Only 5 second chart. And it takes 5 minutes for the chart pattern to form before I can get a "feel" for the market. I also use the ladder with Trading Profit turned on. I have the charts of the top three open.

Sometimes though I do get in maybe 12 to 10 mins before the off by reading just the ladder.

(I am not recommending this method but its just how I like to trade.)

[ba1000]

And here they are:

I had move my stakes up to £10 at the start of 5th May - I had made something like £61 profit.

1.11 GB / Good 1st May / 14:50 5f Hcap
0.52 GB / Good 1st May / 16:00 1m Listed
0.23 GB / Newm 1st May / 13:55 1m1f Hcap
0.58 GB / Newm 1st May / 14:25 1m4f Grp2
0.45 GB / Newm 1st May / 16:15 6f Hcap
0.71 GB / Thirsk 1st May / 14:20 1m4f Mdn Stks
1.06 GB / Thirsk 1st May / 14:55 7f Mdn Stks
2.34 GB / Uttox 1st May / 14:05 2m4f Hcap Hrd
0.38 GB / Uttox 1st May / 14:40 2m5f Hcap Chs
0.47 GB / Uttox 1st May / 15:50 2m Mdn Hrd
3.15 GB / Uttox 1st May / 16:25 3m Hcap Chs
0.87 GB / Bev 3rd May / 14:50 5f Hcap
0.60 GB / Bev 3rd May / 15:20 1m2f Hcap
0.00 GB / Bev 3rd May / 15:50 1m Hcap
1.13 GB / Bev 3rd May / 16:20 7f Hcap
1.70 GB / Chep 3rd May / 14:35 1m4f Hcap
2.22 GB / Chep 3rd May / 15:05 1m4f Hcap
0.18 GB / Kemp 3rd May / 15:00 5f Hcap
2.79 GB / Warw 3rd May / 14:10 1m Hcap
0.00 GB / Warw 3rd May / 14:40 1m Hcap
0.29 GB / Warw 3rd May / 16:10 7f Hcap
1.21 GB / Wind 3rd May / 14:25 6f Hcap
0.35 GB / Bath 4th May / 15:00 5f Sell Stks
0.65 GB / Bath 4th May / 16:00 1m Hcap
0.49 GB / Fake 4th May / 14:20 2m Sell Hrd
1.00 GB / Fake 4th May / 14:50 2m5f Hcap Chs
1.15 GB / Fake 4th May / 15:20 2m7f Nov Hrd
1.08 GB / Fake 4th May / 15:50 3m Nov Chs
0.92 GB / Newc 4th May / 14:10 5f Mdn Stks
1.51 GB / Newc 4th May / 14:40 1m4f Hcap
0.65 GB / Newc 4th May / 15:10 7f Hcap
3.55 GB / Newc 4th May / 16:10 1m Hcap


I could have got away with this as I took an -£2-3 pound lost (and I had done so) and then thought - Then the pyscho returned -and thoguht sod it I am going for it

-129.72 GB / Chest 5th May / 13:45 5f Cond Stks

little did I know this was a PURE DRIFTER (I was backing - hoping for a BACK TO LAY with NO knowledge of horses) (In financial terms this was the NICK LEESON trade! remember he brought down Barrings Bank by refusing to accept the market was going against him)

AFTER soooo many excellent decisions - the one terrible terrible terrible decision

0.48 GB / Chest 5th May / 14:15 1m3f Listed
-2.82 GB / Chest 5th May / 16:00 1m4f Hcap
2.56 GB / Kelso 5th May / 14:05 2m6f Hcap Chs
0.73 GB / Kelso 5th May / 14:35 2m Hcap Hrd
0.34 GB / Kelso 5th May / 15:40 2m6f Hcap Hrd
0.38 GB / Kelso 5th May / 16:20 3m4f Hcap Chs
0.29 GB / Sthl 5th May / 14:25 7f Hcap
0.41 GB / Sthl 5th May / 15:30 1m6f Hcap
0.21 GB / Sthl 5th May / 16:10 1m4f Hcap
-65.91 Grand Total

[to75ne]

I am a charlatan - even gamblers would not even want me to call myself a gambler - let alone even calling myself a "trader".

The dataset I created is a FALSE set of results - it does not reflect true trading results.

I have noticed that most of my trading is done 9 to 6 mins before the off.

contradiction. you admit your "data set" is false, then you your trading occurs 9 to 6 mins before the off.

your doomed to fail if you lie to yourself. stupid idea using data you admit is false.

stop leave well alone for a few weeks. think honestly.

[ba1000]

I seem to have caused some confusion:

the term dataset just means the results which I have recorded over this last two and half weeks;

the term "false" means that although the figures looked good in the beginning I was fooling myself as I did not restrict myself from going INPLAY.

Inevitably I was found out - perhaps "a Fools Results" would be a better term.

So what I am going to do now is to see what results I can achieve WITHOUT going INPLAY and in fact I am going to stop trading 5mins before the off.

(to75ne just forget i even mentioned 9 to 6 mins)

We will get a better idea of what my true trading results will be from this experiment.

Unfortunately I can not explain it in any simpler terms.

[Zenyatta]

Been looking into trading myself for about a month, I must admit I'm close to wits-end with the damn thing myself, I know it can be very very frustrating.

Everyone has to come up with something which works for them. What works for one person won't necesserily work for another.

For myself, I think I'll stay away from numerology-based trade and stick to form-based trade aka Jolly Green style. My experience seems to be the opposite of some here. Wherever I've let my trades go In-Play, the market loses, not me. But on the other hand, for pre-race price shifts, I still can't seem to pick 'em yet.

I must take my hat off to people like Peter Webb and Adam Heathcote. Certainly its very tough, and they must be very talented to do so well.

[ba1000]

Hi Zenyatta,

Is there anywhere on the forum where JollyGreen describes the JollyGreen form based trading?

I tried listening to Timeform Radio and taking on selections by the tipsters - and you guessed it some the won and most they lost! These people knew the horses inside out but I still lost!

As I havent a glue how to read horse racing stats this is why I am trying the technical analyst approach. If mastered it is a transferable skill that can be taken directly into the financial markets. In fact it is where my style of trading comes from.

You are completely correct what suits on person does not suit another - and it is for this reason why the markets work - if we all did the same thing the markets would stay static.

Good luck

[ba1000]

End of Week 3

To recap basically I set myself the challenge to try trading horses - could I return a profit in a month and discover my bad trading practices as I am a lossing trader.

A Summary of My Results Are as Follows:

0.19 04/15/10
0.80 04/16/10
1.09 04/19/10
3.77 04/20/10
4.23 04/21/10
2.36 04/23/10
2.08 04/24/10
3.55 04/26/10
4.40 04/27/10
5.42 04/30/10
11.00 05/01/10
10.99 05/03/10
11.35 05/04/10
-127.14 05/05/10
5.58 05/06/10
13.25 05/07/10

-47.08 Grand Total

I have traded 187 races: 175 are in profit, 6 were scratched and 6 were lossing trades. The number of opened and closed positions was 1742.

The lossing trades are as follows:

-0.25
-4.78
-129.72
-2.82
-1.94
-4.70

From my results I have noticed that 2/3 of the time I can get a tick or two or three - the perfect trade. The perfect trades were usually acheived 9 to 6 mins before the off.

However 1/3 of the time I am in a mess. I take losses but I try to trade myself back into profit.

This last two days if I stopped trading at 6 mins before the off I would be reporting -£10 to -£20 losses for each day.

However I try to trade all the way up to the off to try to balance the books.

If I still have not achieved that I will study the charts and I am happy to take on a trade IN PLAY. As pointed out by Nomadic this is doomed because you are trading at 1:1000 (profit:loss).

And as you can see I was caught out by this - I kept adding to a BACK trade because from the odds I thought it was a two horse race and the second favourite would put up at least a challenge so I could breakeven (BTL trade).

This did NOT happen even though the favourite did loose - it was not the second favourite who put up the challenge. In fact the market MOCKED me by stopping to match at exactly where my exit was.

However if I had followed my conviction through the next day when I went IN PLAY yet again and let my profits run I would have been reporting back a +£160 PROFIT! which would have covered the mess from the day earlier. But as usual I CUT my profits short.

So what are the lessons:

to trade you need to make perfect decisions ALL the time - from the point of entry to the point of exit even if it is taking a loss.

So I do not know where to go from here - quit because I clearly do not know anything about trading.

I still have NOT discovered how to trade properly.

[ba1000]

Almost there. It is clear now after a month of trying I am going to return a loss.

As I have stated I am a loosing trader/gambler. I can NOT help you become a successful trader but I can show you a couple of common mistakes.

1) Just because you have a high percentage of successes does not mean you are going to be in profit!

I have been "trying to scalp" ie looking for a tick or two or three. Ideally a scalper will be scratching trades or taking a -1 tick at the worst. It is clear from my trading style I have not got a clue how to scalp properly.

I have a no of winners : no of lossers ratio of roughly about 9:1

However my P&L shows a loss!

I have read books in the financial world where the no of winners : no of lossers ratio is roughly 1:3 - however their P&L shows a MASSIVE profit. (For more information read up on Trend Following methods: eg the Turtles)

2) If you take a large loss beware of going Full Tilt / psycho

Trying to get your losses back again (quickly) may lead to yet even larger losses. Take a break and give yourself time to calm down if you suffer from wild mood swings and you can not control your temperment.

This happened to me - I thought I had calmed down a few days later BUT, my psycho alter ego was controlling me - this lead to point 3)

3) Do not to try to cherry pick other people's systems.

I tried to jump on the band wagon of somebody's system and hope to get a few quick wins. This does NOT work - the system they are playing is over the long term. As such their system will have winning times and losing times.

And unfortunately I joined in to take another large loss because I did not really know what I was doing! This then lead to a two day psycho gambling spree !

I was fortunate this time to get away with it however the next time I may not be so fortunate.

[Mug]

How many trades do you get through a market?

[mikesalter]

I still cant believe you are trying to learn with amounts of money that can result in a £15 profit or a £127 loss!!!

[ba1000]

How many trades do you get through a market?

Hi Mug - its very variable -

if I achieve the tick or two - then just 1 trade.

if I have racked up a loss then I will try to trade my way out of it.

Sometimes my read on the market is correct and sometimes no matter how hard I try the losses keep mounting.

The number of opened and closed positions is now 2105. I know its not the same a trade count but its the closest that I can tell you.

[ba1000]

I still cant believe you are trying to learn with amounts of money that can result in a £15 profit or a £127 loss!!!

I dont understand this Mike.

The £127 loss was a classic case of indiscipline - I kept adding to a drifting position - even though my inner voice was screaming DONT DO IT YOU PSYCHO FOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I noticed that I am in good company as I saw one of the regulars on the forum loose £420 by doing the exact same - the members just said "Sorry to hear about your loss"

I also told you about Nick Leeson who brought down Barrings Bank - he did exactly the same.

The purpose of my thread to help newbies NOT to make the same mistake

I am not the first and I will not be last to do such a stupid thing;

if I was perfect I'd be a multi-millionaire

[mikesalter]

Exactly though, that's why I am running with £2 trades. I am now 3 days running in profit and around 10 days with a stable bank (I am part time at the moment). When I can get to 5 days trading at a consistent profit my business plan says I can go to £5 trades. When I can go 5 days with consistent profit with £5 my plan then allows me to try £10 etc. It eventually allows me to go to £100 trades and at that point I will write a new plan providing I haven't lost my bank. When I get to £100 trades I will also evaluate how much profit I can take from my bank weekly, if its less than I need to cover my household expenses I will decide if I can increase trades value to achieve sufficient profit. If I decide the risk of the increase is too high I will count the likely 6 months this will have taken as time used wisely because I can see trading does hold potential but ultimately trading wont be for me. Using this system with a Bet to Lay strategy I can only loose a maximum of £2 no matter how rash I am until I am consistently in profit.

[ba1000]

Thanks Mike - excellent post! Agree with all that entirely!

For me I have discovered psycho problems which I need to resolve! By writing this down in the thread for the forum to see I can no longer hide from this fact.

If I can NOT change this then I am one of those people in which trading isnt for me - I do not have the DISCIPLINE to be a successful trader.

I hope my thread lets people see in hard facts what that means.