How long will it take to learn to trade
Pepperpot - look at the screen recording section. I use flashback express (it's free) (https://www.flashbackrecorder.com/express/) - others brands are available. Somewhere on the forum I've explained how I use it. You can record your days hard work and watch it at 4times speed or rerecord at 4x and then watch at 16x. You can see your good moves and agonise over your bad moves very quickly - WITHOUT the pressure of trading. Saves time and MONEY in the long run!
I did Peter's course in January.
I have another side of my business (betting on lower division Scottish football) which is mature and which I enjoy.
The trading - well. I'm still at the false dawn stage I think. Days go by and I win consistently - and then BANG, one race goes wrong - there goes my profit. My results yesterday were something like:
+3
+5
-3
+2
+1
-4
-35
+11
+2
I realise this pattern is typical of idiots like me, but there you go.
My ROI since January is c. -30% on trading. I can absorb this because the betting has worked over the same period (and is at much bigger stakes). But I do wonder at what point I decide it's not for me. Not quite yet, I think.
Finally. a word of admiration for Northbound on two points - first, the capacity to enjoy trading. I don't enjoy losing - and I haven't really enjoyed the experience yet. Second, the discipline for using small stakes. It's hard to graft for several hours, have a great day - and end up with £4.30....
So, I don't know how many markets it takes. I hope not too many more for me!
I have another side of my business (betting on lower division Scottish football) which is mature and which I enjoy.
The trading - well. I'm still at the false dawn stage I think. Days go by and I win consistently - and then BANG, one race goes wrong - there goes my profit. My results yesterday were something like:
+3
+5
-3
+2
+1
-4
-35
+11
+2
I realise this pattern is typical of idiots like me, but there you go.
My ROI since January is c. -30% on trading. I can absorb this because the betting has worked over the same period (and is at much bigger stakes). But I do wonder at what point I decide it's not for me. Not quite yet, I think.
Finally. a word of admiration for Northbound on two points - first, the capacity to enjoy trading. I don't enjoy losing - and I haven't really enjoyed the experience yet. Second, the discipline for using small stakes. It's hard to graft for several hours, have a great day - and end up with £4.30....
So, I don't know how many markets it takes. I hope not too many more for me!
- northbound
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm
Thanks brimson25.
A lot has changed (improved) since my posts one year ago. The two things you mentioned remain.
Although I stopped trading horses manually and found better results on other sports / approaches.
- northbound
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm
Because I’m useless at it and found that my time was better spent building software to gather data and analyse it. Also I’m getting way better results at manually trading football.
Horse trading hasn’t been ditched entirely. Data mining for 1+ year led me to a couple of +EV entry/exit points. Only around 10 trades per month. Wins and losses, but overall profitable almost every month. I leave it entirely to my software to execute.
May I ask you something. You have a +EV strategy betting on football. I’m sure it has losing streaks, as any winning strategy does. How come you are able to tolerate losses on football betting, but struggle with losses on horse trading?
Really good question.
First, it's confidence. I know I will lose 40% of bets. Just as I know I will be profitable. I've done it for years.
Second, I don't watch the games. I sometimes don't even check the results until the next day. So the process - the research and the thinking etc. - is very separate from the result.
As the know, with trading, you can literally see the red numbers rushing past sometimes. It just feels worse.
First, it's confidence. I know I will lose 40% of bets. Just as I know I will be profitable. I've done it for years.
Second, I don't watch the games. I sometimes don't even check the results until the next day. So the process - the research and the thinking etc. - is very separate from the result.
As the know, with trading, you can literally see the red numbers rushing past sometimes. It just feels worse.
- northbound
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm
That’s a very good point.
Also the noise in horse markets doesn’t help at all, especially if you’re new.
Now I can understand why some people in the forum advised newbies to start with a different sport, much better a sport they know and are passionate about.
Also the noise in horse markets doesn’t help at all, especially if you’re new.
Now I can understand why some people in the forum advised newbies to start with a different sport, much better a sport they know and are passionate about.
- northbound
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm
I do manually trade in-play football.
I also do pick my spots/situations very carefully, so won’t trade too many matches.
It doesn’t bother me, because football can be scaled massively. Just read about Psychoff and you’ll understand.
In fact this is probably one reason why we both failed at preoff horses: trying to trade every race.
Perhaps we should try a different approach whereas we start by specialising in one specific situation.
Perhaps setup Guardian alerts to ring when a horse priced 2.00-3.00 starts dropping quickly in price. Trade only those steamers. Ignore all other markets/situations until we nail that one.
I also do pick my spots/situations very carefully, so won’t trade too many matches.
It doesn’t bother me, because football can be scaled massively. Just read about Psychoff and you’ll understand.
In fact this is probably one reason why we both failed at preoff horses: trying to trade every race.
Perhaps we should try a different approach whereas we start by specialising in one specific situation.
Perhaps setup Guardian alerts to ring when a horse priced 2.00-3.00 starts dropping quickly in price. Trade only those steamers. Ignore all other markets/situations until we nail that one.
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- Posts: 3140
- Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm
Plenty of football around, the only problem is it all goes off at once Plus racing goes off at reasonable hours so your working day is at a sensible time. I'd much rather trade football as it's more predictable than horses but weekday afternoon matches are so iliquid and saturdays far too manic to fit in all those matches
- northbound
- Posts: 737
- Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 11:22 pm
Unless you start with a specific inplay stats scenario, get a livescore API subscription, build a bot that sends you Telegram alerts when that scenario occurs. And only trade those scenarios.
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- Posts: 533
- Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:27 pm
- ShaunWhite
- Posts: 9731
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
tbf he did say 'to a reasonable level'. He should have enough idea to have a not too lossy try in that time.
But I agree with what you were pointing out, like poker it takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.