Hi guys,
I’ve been profitable trading pre-race since March trading a combination of Aus, US and UK markets. There’s been the odd losing day but I’ve not had a losing week.
I have been using stakes that roughly give me 50p a tick after greening, £75 sub 2, £62 2-3, £35 3-4, £24 4-6 and £15 6-10. I’ve only been using 1 stake to open a position but tend to close by using split stakes.
I want to increase the stakes but do it gradually so I get used the impact bigger stakes have and any psychological impact.
I’m thinking of increasing by 10% each profitable week which will roughly double the stakes after 7 weeks.
Does this sound like a sensible approach?
Cheers
Best Way of Increasing Stakes
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spreadbetting
- Posts: 3140
- Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm
Doubling your stakes in 7 weeks sounds a bit quick to me, maybe start with 5% and see how it goes. Any changes to your normal routine take a while to bed in and the last thing you need when doing as well as you are is upsetting that.
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 9731
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
Just let the stakes grow naturally, if you overthink it then that's what'll on your mind rather than the actual market. Stick to your existing stake and there'll come a point when your stake just 'feels' too small and you'll nudge those presets up a notch or two without it being a big psychological issue.
It seems a bit vague but I assume you didn't start on 50p/tick, probably nearer to £2 min stakes? So how did you get to 50p/tick? By waking up one day and thinking £2 hardly seems worth bothering with, I'll make it a fiver. No drama, no big grand plan about increasing it, £5 now just feels like £2 did. Repeat that process and in a few months you might be on £5 a tick and hopefully not quite know how you got there.
The good thing about staking a bit bigger is that it gives you more scope for being flexible. Even when you do decide you could have a bit more on, there's no reason why most markets can't still be 50p/tick and when you see a situation you feel really confident about then make it 75p, or if you're just dabbling to stay focussed, then make it 20p/tick. Just trust your intuition about what feels like the right amount for you and the market you're looking at.
It's all a bit like poker rob, needs to be enough money for you to care about it, but not so much that you care too much. That's going to vary from day to day according to your recent results, mood and state of the markets. Obv don't use the bigger stakes to chase losses though, do the exact opposite, push on in the good times and scale back when it's not been so great.
It seems a bit vague but I assume you didn't start on 50p/tick, probably nearer to £2 min stakes? So how did you get to 50p/tick? By waking up one day and thinking £2 hardly seems worth bothering with, I'll make it a fiver. No drama, no big grand plan about increasing it, £5 now just feels like £2 did. Repeat that process and in a few months you might be on £5 a tick and hopefully not quite know how you got there.
The good thing about staking a bit bigger is that it gives you more scope for being flexible. Even when you do decide you could have a bit more on, there's no reason why most markets can't still be 50p/tick and when you see a situation you feel really confident about then make it 75p, or if you're just dabbling to stay focussed, then make it 20p/tick. Just trust your intuition about what feels like the right amount for you and the market you're looking at.
It's all a bit like poker rob, needs to be enough money for you to care about it, but not so much that you care too much. That's going to vary from day to day according to your recent results, mood and state of the markets. Obv don't use the bigger stakes to chase losses though, do the exact opposite, push on in the good times and scale back when it's not been so great.
expect to quickly hit your limit in US, then AUS HR, UK/IRE is way more scaleable.
I have a dif staking plan and set of rules for all 3 but they were all pretty similar pre-scaling.
Given your size is quite small you could go up in £25s or £50s get 1-4 weeks of results, and reassess.
Have found it useful to preset specific criteria regarding what DOES and DOESNT justify another bump in size during reassessment phase.
As long as you're journalling you should easily spot any psychological problems you run into and you can refine size adjustments / tinker with length of time til next reassessment period.
Regressive risk management which Shaun talks about at end of his post is something that's on my mind atm but I haven't put it into practice in a meaningful way yet. Pressing when you can read the market well and retreating when conditions aren't conducive to your strategies has useful potential, think it requires you to accurately gauge a distinction between variance and conditions causing your results which requires a good chunk of experience with your trading, your 4 months might not be enough?. For now I'm just using a set risk limit per session to maintain a healthy Risk/Reward of sessions but please come back and share your progress if you get into that. Would be keen to hear how you get on either way.
Best of luck
I have a dif staking plan and set of rules for all 3 but they were all pretty similar pre-scaling.
Given your size is quite small you could go up in £25s or £50s get 1-4 weeks of results, and reassess.
Have found it useful to preset specific criteria regarding what DOES and DOESNT justify another bump in size during reassessment phase.
As long as you're journalling you should easily spot any psychological problems you run into and you can refine size adjustments / tinker with length of time til next reassessment period.
Regressive risk management which Shaun talks about at end of his post is something that's on my mind atm but I haven't put it into practice in a meaningful way yet. Pressing when you can read the market well and retreating when conditions aren't conducive to your strategies has useful potential, think it requires you to accurately gauge a distinction between variance and conditions causing your results which requires a good chunk of experience with your trading, your 4 months might not be enough?. For now I'm just using a set risk limit per session to maintain a healthy Risk/Reward of sessions but please come back and share your progress if you get into that. Would be keen to hear how you get on either way.
Best of luck
PS When you reach a max stake which is not applicable in every market you will have to learn the skill of varying your stake size if you don't have that down already. I've lost loads from taking entries then paying silly amounts in slippage on exit. Even an extra 1 tick on average can really hurt your edge depending on what you're doing. It can be tricky sometimes as people are always pulling their orders on some days and almost never on others, took me a while to get good at and still room for improvement. Have also found prudency was needed to size on the lower side whenever I was unsure however I am aggressive in nature. You may find you're always too safe, undershooting size missing out on profit potential, and find it's worth leaning toward the higher side. Fit to personality as appropriate.