Discuss Trading Mistakes & receive Feedback

[mugsgame]

I have a clear cut one for today already, runner in a race 20 mins ago steamed in the last 5 mins from 3.25 to 2.4. I had backed at 3.25 at the highest and layed at 2.5, and yet I lost £1.78.

I seem to be opposing trends far too much and I'm not sure why I've started doing this, it's absolutely stupid and not a positive strategy. It's a wee bit like a voice in my head saying 'the trend has went this far, no point joining now'. When in fact I repeatedly joined at 3.05, 2.86 and 2.7.

Not much of a question but any different perspectives of the real problem would be great. For starters I think I might be overcomplicating things, there's a trend, go with it?

2 of my biggest rules:
1) Have a reason to enter the market
2) Have an exit strategy

There is nothing wrong with opposing the trend, but you need to know why you are opposing it. Reasons like "it can't steam forever" just don't cut it.

The questions I want to answers to are:
1) Is the momentum slowing
2) What is it's price in relation to the live show
3) What is happening with other runners. Are 1 or more coming in.
4) If so do they have momentum
5) How tight is the book percentage
6) What is happening visually on course
7) How close to the start of the race is it
8) Where is it in the trading range
9) How big is the trading range

etc etc

It really isn't a case of stick in your money and hope.

[L.o.S]

Cheers Mugs, I'll do my best to take it all on board. Something I'm really struggling with is losses; I always cut just as things are coming back, but if I let them run they seem to run forever. I get the feeling if I stop changing my mind on the market I'll do a bit better, am I on the right track?

[LLHoward]

Hi mates,
I am using BA Pro from a week; After whatched on youtube the " Win whatever the result " applied to a horce racing I noticed that you can win if you place a lay order at odd of 5.3 and after a few seconds lay at the odd of 5.5 for example ( using the reverse function ).

Now, think about the next goal market ( soccer ); If you lay the underdog, then its odds will surely increase.

So do you think can I use the same strategy i see in the video? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9oyHSFkME )

Thanks,

Luca

[mugsgame]

Cheers Mugs, I'll do my best to take it all on board. Something I'm really struggling with is losses; I always cut just as things are coming back, but if I let them run they seem to run forever. I get the feeling if I stop changing my mind on the market I'll do a bit better, am I on the right track?

Have you heard that old business saying. "You make all your profit at the price you buy, not what you sell at"? This applies here to a certain extent. The position you open at will decide if you make any profit.

If you enter at the right place you will have a "built in" buffer if it goes wrong. That is one of the reasons I use progressive staking. I take a position, then add to it as the market moves in my favour. The ebb and flow of a market (or noise) as someone gave a great description to is something you need to gauge. This is a key skill and not something easily taught. Have a look at my stuff about book percentages and reading the market, it may help you get a small understanding of this. MG

[mugsgame]

Hi mates,
I am using BA Pro from a week; After whatched on youtube the " Win whatever the result " applied to a horce racing I noticed that you can win if you place a lay order at odd of 5.3 and after a few seconds lay at the odd of 5.5 for example ( using the reverse function ).

Now, think about the next goal market ( soccer ); If you lay the underdog, then its odds will surely increase.

So do you think can I use the same strategy i see in the video? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9oyHSFkME )

Thanks,

Luca

Hi Luca,
This is a bad idea and not necessarily correct. However, this will work in markets that have a time decay characteristic like under 2.5 or correct score. The danger in scalping (the term for this type of trading) is if a goal is scored you will almost certainly take a big loss. There are much easier ways to make money in football betting. I am sure some of the Soccer boys will help you here.

[LLHoward]

Thanks

[L.o.S]

Have you heard that old business saying. "You make all your profit at the price you buy, not what you sell at"? This applies here to a certain extent. The position you open at will decide if you make any profit.

If you enter at the right place you will have a "built in" buffer if it goes wrong. That is one of the reasons I use progressive staking. I take a position, then add to it as the market moves in my favour. The ebb and flow of a market (or noise) as someone gave a great description to is something you need to gauge. This is a key skill and not something easily taught. Have a look at my stuff about book percentages and reading the market, it may help you get a small understanding of this. MG

Thanks, I'd been trying not to place too much importance on the entry because it's so rare to get the best entry point, instead focussing on the long term, but I'll put a lot more time into finding better entries. It makes obvious sense now you've said it!

I struggle with progressive staking, because if I'm working with £25's and suddenly I have £100 in the market it completely clouds my judgement.

I think that is a big part of the problem, I often cut when it is simply an ebb and flow just to watch it soar the direction I expected. In fact this happens so often I'm convinced if I could distinguish the difference then I'd start making proper money. I keep a close watch on your blog every day, look forward to seeing you back. I understand the book percentage videos (they're great), still working on using it to influence my decisions, hard to keep an eye on everything at once but I'll keep working at it.

Thanks for the advice!

[Euler]

In reply to my poser on the open orders.

When I enter a position I tend to go in slightly overweight, at the point of entry I have no idea, on a swing trade, where I will get out. So I have to spot that as well. I don't have any pre-defined idea at the point on entry.

But as soon as I enter, I put exit positions in profitable locations away from my entry point, giving me the choice of exiting at that point. Because I am in the market early they will get matched quickly, but if the momentum is with me I can just cancel them as the market moves into an ever more profitable position.

But I know that a move can't go on forever, so exiting in smaller chunks as the market moves into profit is a neat way of reducing risk. I can make an individual decision as I approach those partial exit points.

[redtra]

But as soon as I enter, I put exit positions in profitable locations away from my entry point, giving me the choice of exiting at that point. Because I am in the market early they will get matched quickly, but if the momentum is with me I can just cancel them as the market moves into an ever more profitable position.

That makes really good sense and also will catch those sudden fast moves I've seen a lot of today. Do you have a pre-determined number of ticks in mind or would you go for the nearest empty boxes when you place your exit positions?

Often today the price would just plummet all of a sudden then go back to where it came from more or less. Great if you are ready for it but I wonder why it occurs and why only in some races?

[L.o.S]

Took my biggest loss ever, when trading. Not easy to take since I caught the earlier gamble with the huge orders coming in and had a decent profit. Got back involved again at 1.93 because I thought I'd cut the profit short and didn't cut the loss until 2.16.

I still don't know what caused the reversal and can't pin down why this one stopped, and yet the previous ones today have just kept going. Classic case of, as soon as I don't cut the loss runs, but when I do it comes right back! Very frustrating, I stayed in because this month I've cut so many profits short that I should be doing much better!

EDIT: I posted this up a little frustrated but I would like to learn from the mistake, if I can carry forward something new to focus on the lost money would be worth it.

[barlorca]

As I've stated previously, I'm a 60+ dinorsaur, 8+ years on betfair, nearly 1 year on betangel.

I'm not a scalper, not into automation (although I grew up with lotus intimately) and could set up excel bots quite easily, but I learned one one thing, I let my profits run for a set number of ticks and cut my losses at set levels, irrespective of what "I could have made".

It not rocket science, I know "if only" trading is hard and has to be emotionless.

Increasing your balance is your priminary concern.

Like "Tesco adds" every little helps, any losses incurred(sometimes) are kept to small sums, overall profits are the aim.

The aim of trading is always to be ahead fund wise.

Forget what happened, and what you could have done.

Do what you have to, be emotionless, I know its hard, but trading is trading.

[L.o.S]

Thanks Barlorca, the problem I have with set losses is that the noise of the market almost always triggers them, whether automated or just mental stop losses, they seem to just guarantee that my trades will not work. For that reasons I can't bring myself to operate fixed stops because historically they've just lost me money hand over fist.

I do need to stop trading using emotions, especially in hindsight, when I see my profit was less than half of what it could have been it really riles me up. I will be working on this 'could've would've should've' attitude! You're right, the market wont care if I win or lose, this is something I've stuggled with a lot recently

[Iron]

LoS -

Do you think that your staking could be the issue?

Even if you are trading purely at random, you will lose money very slowly if your risk per trade is low relative to your bank (say, 0.5%).

You won't make a fortune overnight with such a conservative approach, and you'll probably itch to go in big when you feel that the market has gifted you a great opportunity, but if you have an edge then that might be a good way to slowly grow your bank (I know that's a big 'if').

Something else worth trying is backing where you would normally lay, and vice versa. If what you're currently doing is losing you money, they doing the opposite might have the opposite effect.

Jeff

[barlorca]

Thanlks L.o.s for your comments, its nice to know that the forum is used by all people.

Trading and emotion are hard to separate, but as a word of caution to all "newbies", When somebody wins somebody loses, accept the slings and arrows.

My personal market favourites are football markets, I dip in and out out of other markets, (horseracing, tennis), but having found my forte. I stick to what I know and understand. Find what markets work for you and go and make money.

[L.o.S]

LoS -

Do you think that your staking could be the issue?

Even if you are trading purely at random, you will lose money very slowly if your risk per trade is low relative to your bank (say, 0.5%).

You won't make a fortune overnight with such a conservative approach, and you'll probably itch to go in big when you feel that the market has gifted you a great opportunity, but if you have an edge then that might be a good way to slowly grow your bank (I know that's a big 'if').

Something else worth trying is backing where you would normally lay, and vice versa. If what you're currently doing is losing you money, they doing the opposite might have the opposite effect.

Jeff

I changed my staking to 50p per tick after noticing last month a lot of the hefty losses were coming in at higher odds because I was using stakes too large up there.

Incidentally I lost £4 over 500 markets last month overall, whether that is good or bad I have no idea. This month I'm in profit, but today's DIRE trading has probably brought it down to break even, if I'm lucky.

I think the new problem coming to the fore, aside from being pissed off at losing, is simply noise of the market. I'm looking at the market, making a call, and long term it's correct but in the midst of all the trading I manage to lose money. So frustrating to be proved correct but implement that badly as to create a loss where it really should have been a profit.

It's naive to say my losses are the problem with my trading, but when is it market noise and when is it an actual move against me? Feels very difficult to tell!

@Barlorca I will be trying to look at it that way. I suppose every time I have backed at a peak, somebody else has just layed and is probably not happy. The emotional side is proving to be a much bigger problem than I'd anticipated, days like this are really demoralising. While I'm not as arrogant as to say I should be able to avoid losing days, I want to have lost because I was completely wrong about a market, not because I bailed out of what should have been good trades for a loss!

Bit of a rant, sorry guys just letting it out.