The month of May

May's profit/loss: +£74.74

This first month of trading has produced a great result for me to work on. It has taken a long time to get there (384 horse races to be precise) but I have profit in the bank and am happy with the learning process I have made so far.

Since 5th May when I started and deposited £100 in to the Betfair bank, I have won on 240 races with a grand total of +£211.89 and lost on 144 races equating to -£148.63.

My monthly strike rate has been 62.50% overall and if it had been 50% I would have made a loss as the average losing trade has been -£1.03 against the average winning trade +£0.88.

The big plan of mine is to increase my balance up to £200 and will probably start withdrawing any profit out of betfair either weekly or monthly! This is basically so that I will keep the stakes low and minimise the risk of blowing everything I have made.

I have gone from £50 to £1100 before using Betfair's holdem game in 2008/9 and then lost it all, I was not happy but that's another storey! Lesson learned there and although it was expensive I have learnt that lesson well and truly so doubt I will be doing that again soon!

If you have any suggestions for topics to post up here, let me know ;)

1066, Battle of Hastings!

Today's profit/loss: +£10.66

Today felt like a battle with the pre-horse markets. I made some stupid mistakes but overall was a much better performance than the last few days.

I had spent some time yesterday setting up my trading screen and decided to make a desktop wall paper with some 'Trading Rules' on it that are permanently there to remind me not to get carried away - look at the video below to see them!

I think my trading screen setup is good now, not too much information to overload me but enough to see what the market is doing. On my seperate screen I just have a chart with the top 4 horse trading prices and possibly the Betfair website open.



Also I recorded just one race out of boredom whilst waiting for it to start and made over £1 off of it (nothing proud to show off yet!) :D I've just tried to upload it but the quality is rubbish so will look at getting some proper software sometime.

I traded 36 markets today with an average p/l per race of just +29.6p. I only lost out on 6/36 races and the losses equalled £7.09 making an average loss of £1.18 which is far too high.

Anyway today my goal was to make some profit and I did that so can't complain too much!

Leave a comment below if you wish!

A minor bump!!

Yesterday's profit/loss: +£2.44

Day before Yesterday profit/loss: -£6.54

The last couple of days my trading has just gone completely kaput!!

I have had no confidence to enter trades and my perception on the market was all over the place.

At the moment I don't know why this is happening and I can only keep on trading to build experience and try to improve my view of the markets.

Being -£12 down a couple of days ago at one point, and -£10 down yesterday, my head has been all over the place and quite worryingly I found myself to be chasing my losses which was stupid. Fortunately I did not do any extra damage to my bank and managed to pull a bit of the loss back.

I must say a big thanks to the guys at TradeSharks blog for talking me down from doing anything stupid that I would regret when trading yesterday. Its great to chat to people online while trading as I have already found it a lonely place. I recommend you check it out (http://www.tradesharktennis.com/chat.htm) - So thanks for your help guys!!

Anyway onwards and upwards!!

I may be trading the horses tomorrow as the past two Saturdays have been good for me but will have to see if I am doing anything else.

Good luck trading.

Tiredness can kill, take a break

Today's profit/loss: -£4.68

Once again I was working during the day today and decided to try trading in the evening for a couple of hours when I got back home.

I managed to get through 13 markets but being tired and having had trading on my mind for the past month (even regularly in my sleep!!) I think it was a warning sign of something like this result to come.

The overall outcome wasn't helped on a couple of occasions with someone walking in my room which took me completely out the zone and lost me a whopping £1.10 because of it!

Due to my performance recently, I am going to take a day off trading tomorrow and focus on Wednesday to hopefully pull in a decent result, and may even try out more stakes of £15-£20 to get me off the £10 stakes I am currently working with.

Until then, hope you have a good week :)

Quick Update

Today's profit/loss: +£5.32

Just a quick update.

Only traded a few races this evening after getting back from work.

I had a problem with my wireless internet connection that I am currently using, as my make shift trading room is too far from my router.

The connection has been quite bad at times and on a few occasions trades get matched before the information is passed on to me!! - I really need to get hard wired before I lose a large chunk of my bank through this.

Also I have been thinking about redundancy measures for if my internet connection disconnects or a power cut hits my house.

I think a laptop with a dongle would be perfect or possibly even an Ipad from what I have seen here, http://www.youtube.com/user/betangeltv#p/u/25/c-UGIGDVzFE that looks great.

I have invested £100 to trading and am not going to invest any more, if I make a crazy purchase of something like an Ipad (that I would never generally do!) it would come out of any profit made from trading so I have to work for it and look after my bank.

Also what I would ideally like is a 24" monitor linked up to my laptop from which I trade off for now. It would fit perfectly in my set-up and I think it would be a lot easier to trade from and get an over all picture of the market.

Anyway I am rambling on and need to just concentrate on increasing my bank and getting experience for now before I think about re-investing any profit made.

I am currently up £64.13 from when I started trading on the 5th of this month using £10 stakes. Its not a very impressive figure but it has provided me with a starting point and the confidence that trading could one day replace my day job!! - Lets hope ;)

It pays to be patient

Today's profit/loss: +£9.64

Today was quite a successful trading day. I set out with a target of making £20 from about 30 races but was determined not to rush any trade and just make sensible decisions.

My strike rate today was a fantastic 70.79% from 39 markets traded, including a tennis match that went horribly wrong losing me just -£1.24 (as I do not know the tennis rules!) and I also made a loss of -£5.29 where I tried to use a £50 stake to see how hard it was to put it through the market and try to get a 1 tick profit. It bit me in the arse and I had to close out for a nasty loss.

However using the £50 stake I was prepared I could lose big and I basically accepted the loss before I put the trade in - but oh well, its worth the experience hopefully for things to come!!

Some statistics for today:

Average profit/loss per race: +31p

Strike rate: 70.79%

Number of market wins: 28

Total wins amounted to: +£23.32

Number of market losses: 11

Total losses amounted to: -£11.27 (including the -5.29 mentioned above)

Average winning trade amount: +£83p

Average losing trade amount: -£1.02

I think for my journey so far those stats are quite respectable but for instance the 'average losing trade amount' needs to be smaller than the 'average winning trade amount' but I just need to figure out when to cut my losses quicker for that.

Also today I traded for around 6 hours which got to me and I think fatigue was creeping in. The majority of my losses were later on in the day and I was losing focus and interest at that point. This is something again that I think can only be learnt/developed over time and with more experience so I will not let it bother me for now - I will just have to take it easy.

My stakes were still generally £10 despite the odd £20 flutter and that £50 stake I tried to use. I think I am better off sticking with £10 stakes for a bit longer until I am cutting my losses quicker and see some more profit in the bank before I try and get more out of the markets.

There is still plenty more available to take from the markets without needing to increase my stakes just yet so I will focus on that before risking any more money.

It has been a good day for experience and I think being patient was key to my profit today. The profits were not as big as my previous days but at least my strike rate was good that shows potential.

Get Out of Jail Free

Todays profit/loss: -£2.28

Well today was an absolute disaster - with a stroke of luck at the end...I can't believe my stupidity pulled off!!

I had the whole day off, did some gardening in the morning and was feeling ready to trade.

The first couple of races saw some nice profits using only £5 stakes managing +50p and +79p, yeah not huge, but I was going to build the stakes up.

Race three comes along and decide to go for it with and from there on my racing day was doomed.

I ended up very impatient today in the markets and the pre-horse race markets looked and felt like a trap full of false money. Nevertheless I still tried to trade around it and ended up getting hammered on 11 out of 23 markets today.

The lowest point today saw me down to -£12.50 by 6pm and I can not describe how I felt after the effort I have put in to trade this month.

I gave the trading a rest and sat outside for a bit and decided to come back to trading and to be patient, ignore the HUGE loss, and just try to trade normally from then on.

My best trade of the day was during this second stint using a £20 stake and just finding a good entry position with around 10 minutes to the off and waiting patiently for the odds to move towards my position where I knew I was at the front of the que. It worked well and I felt comfortable in that position.

My usual trading strategy until now seems to be scatter trades around the market on both sides of the trading ladder - but doing this I seem to find myself rushing looking at lots of information and trying to process and to make a sound judgement from it all which for me is impossible at this stage.

I think it would be much better for me to just sit back, see what is happening in the overall market, see how is the favourite doing, find a good entry position using larger stakes than my usual and sit there being patient until the opportunity arises. When I next trade I will try that out and see how it goes.

Get Out Of Jail Free Card

I decided to take another break once my profit/loss figure crawled back to -£10 and by mistake left a position open that got matched before the off.

I left a lay bet in the Tipperary 20:20 market on Nevada Knight which was £8 at 8.40.

Fortunately for me I came back to write this blog update and found my bank balance had increased significantly almost back to where I started the day. I checked my Betfair profit and loss for today to find this...

Any other day and SOD's Law would have sent my profit and loss for the day to -£69 but luckily someone was on my side and I live to fight another days trading!

Risky business

Today's profit/loss: +£7.19

Yesterday's profit/loss: +£6.45

From the last few days of trading I have seen more and more how risky trading can be, even when a trade looks very simple, someone just decides to smash £1000's on the opposite side of the market to leaving me thinking WTF?!!

Despite that and several other amateurish mistakes I have been able to make a profit from the evening races last night and today.

I have attempted to push £20 stakes through the market the last couple of days with very mixed results.

Generally a weakness of mine I have picked up at the moment is the traders old saying, 'cut your losses and let profits run' is not working as it should with me. When I enter a trade immediately I look to closing it out at just a one tick profit - and any bad trades I let them run knowing they are likely to drift away.

Cutting my losses and letting profits run is one area I will focus on in the coming weeks but need some time to understand when the odds are likely to go on a drift or steam.

Overall I am pleased with my progress so far as I was not sure if I would even have 100% of my hard earned cash still in the Bank of Betfair!!

..but I will not be satisfied with my results until I am making consistent profits and seeing the bank balance increase.

Hoping to trade all day tomorrow so will try and get some profit from those.

Déjà vu?

Todays profit/loss: +£5.10

Tonight's trading was the same as yesterdays. Very frustrating to say the least and I think I was very lucky to walk away with any profit from the 9 markets I traded tonight.

I had been working all day until 18:30 and decided to rush some dinner down and trade the last 9 markets. I think I am realising successful trading is only possible with a focused, stable and patient mindset and should not be messed with high concentration levels!

The positives so far from my first week part time trading is I am +£38.22 up, I have not let a market run in-play (which I am very pleased about!!), and have hedged every profit or loss incurred; the largest loss of which was just over £3 using £10 stakes :S.

I may take tomorrow night off or just trade gently to sort out my mindset and learn when to enter and exit my trades better.

At the moment I seem to just be jumping in and out the markets too often, most trades of which are scratched instantly.

If I could make the same profit in week 2 I would be very pleased at this point... Watch this space!

*UPDATE 22:00*

I decided to have a go trading a couple of football matches just now with £5 stakes and managed to make a profit of £3.22 on the 'Soccer' (Football!!)

Just exited a position, to make a nice profit and within about 5 seconds a 4th goal was scored when I was trading the over 3.5 goals market, I think markets like that are too risky for me as I would not know how to trade and once a goal is scored us traders are screwed!

Anyway I will take the profit today and tread carefully next time!

Frustrating afternoon

This morning I was feeling weirdly apprehensive about trading today and I think my problem started with that. I was not confident about trading but could not resist the opportunity as I did not have anything better to do!

I sat down and had a set target in my mind of making £15 in the three hours trading - which I think was a bad mistake.

From the 30 markets I selected to trade, it would mean making an average of 50p a race.

The first two races of the day I was up £2.23 and well on the way to meeting the target. I started to get ahead of myself from there on using £20 stakes to see what damage I could do, again it back fired and from there on I think I lost my mindset and was always playing catch up.

Generally I would lose around £2.80 on a market then catch up over the next 2-3 races only to lose it again and so it went on!

Despite that it was a day learning when to close out bad positions and just accept the loss. I think I could have done much better deciding when to cut my losses but I just could not decide what my strategy should be and this is something I definitely need to work on.

I traded a total of 30 markets of which I lost in 11. The total losses amounted to £14.20 which is a massive figure for my current stakes.

However the positive of today was that I at least finished with a small profit. I accepted that I could not trade well with £20 stakes so I reduced them to £10 and crawled back from there to end the day with +£2.41.

Not quite the target I was hoping for but at least I gained experience with larger stakes and showed I fought back my position!

I really need to keep patient and not to act like a kid in a sweet shop, which at times I do when seeing some nice profits.

If anyone has any good ideas of when to close a bad position, please leave a comment as I need some free advice!

Thanks

Made minimum wage!!

Today was fantastic, went to Blackpool in the morning to watch the footie against Bolton and what a game it was!! (Blackpool won 4-3!) then came back home and made a good amount in the evening.

I was feeling sorry for anyone who may have been trading this game as it would have hurt their pockets if they traded the wrong way, within the first 15 minutes, the game went from Bolton 0-1, then 1-1, then Blackpool winning 1-2, and back to a draw 2-2!!

It was one of their Blackpool's best matches this season and it means next week will be the deciding match for if they stay in the Premier League against Man United at Old Trafford.

United this season at home have Won 17, Drawn 1 and Lost 0, but I am hoping next week will be different as they have won the league today and will be (hopefully) resting the first team players for the Champions League game in the same week.

Blackpool will never give up without a fight especially for this deciding match. At home this season we were winning 2-1 against United until the 70th minute and lost 2-3 unfortunately.

Anyway, after the football I got back home about 17:30 and started trading - which was the strongest I have traded to date.

I completed 11 markets and did not make one loss. The evenings total was £14.14 which I am very pleased about.

I was using stakes up to £15 and found to be in some good positions for when the high rollers started making the markets jump a few ticks either way. Whether that was just luck or a typical occurrence in trading I am not too sure for now, I will have to carry on and see what happens over the coming months.

Anyway today I traded for just under 3 hours which made me the exact same wage of when I started working of £4.71 an hour which I am thrilled about and I felt comfortable on each markets bar one which I crawled back from -70p to +32p.

I am hoping I can catch the races tomorrow and produce a similar result to the past couple of days.

Good luck trading tomorrow.

Profit and loss for today.

I need to slow down

Yesterday was another good start to my trading but I came back today for my lunch from work and traded a couple of races as I was on a high from making good profits the last couple of days. I made a small loss of 83p so it back fired on me!

Lesson learnt: I need to slow down and only trade when I have some proper time to do nothing else but trade.

I ended the yesterday with £9.10 profit after 25 markets ( £1 of which was on a tennis match - just to see how the the in-play trading works!) From 30 minutes watching the tennis match through Betfair's video stream and watching the odds they seemed quite predictable to judge the general movement but tricky with the in-play bet submission delay betfair impose to make a quick trade from it.

For now I will stick with my current strategy, get in and out the market as fast as I can - just take the 1-2 tick profit and will leave tennis matches alone for now!

Today I have been working but came back home to trade during my lunch break for 30 minutes and managed to get 2 races traded. 1st race was -£2.76 and 2nd was +£1.93. I shouldn't really have traded any markets today but it was tempting to nip around the corner from work to make some money from unpaid wasted time hanging around at work! It backfired on me today though!

My profit and loss from yesterday.

I am off to the Blackpool v Bolton match tomorrow which should be a good one!

I think Blackpool need to get another 4 points to secure their place in the Premier League next season.

Blackpool play Man United next week to finish the season off so it could be a disaster for us. But what a season we have had!

Up the Mighty Pool!!

A good day

Just finished my first proper day of trading and am feeling gooood!!

I traded 26 markets which comprised of [15 profitable / 8 loss markets].

The day started off slow as I traded 5 markets then had to pick up my brother from school.

But got back within half an hour and sat down to trade the remaining races.

Using £10 stakes I was making a lot of scratch trades which I set out to do however on some markets I ended up losing quite heavily still (largest loss was -£1.94).

Despite these losses I am pleased with my performance and used stakes up to £20 at one point.

At the moment I am trying to get a better feel for the markets and trying to stay one step ahead of the market where I can.

For some reason Wincanton today was a bad meeting for me, I just could not seem to get on the right side of the ladder.

York was also quite tricky in the last 8 minutes or so with so much money jumping a couple of ticks or more rapidly. I could not judge when to enter or exit a trade - I am hoping that over time I will learn more about the high liquidity races and how to trade them but until I am confident I will just be using up to £10 stakes in those.

First trading session without any losses!

Yeah I only traded 7 markets after work tonight, but it was the first time I had ever sat down and traded without making one loss!

I am off tomorrow so will sit down with a cuppa tea (PG Tips) and try to trade 80%+ of the races.

I am hoping to see a good few results and lots of scratching to save me from any big losses that have got me in the past.

Last markets of the day

I got back from work today and caught the last 9 evening races.

I was quite selective in my positions but managed to make quite a nice profit for myself.

£2.60 to be exact or enough to feed me for a plain McDonalds burger and regular fries!!

But at this stage a profit is a profit and it all helps.

Over the last week I seemed to have changed my mentality on trading. Starting off about a year ago I knew just the basics of trading, back high, lay low and hedge the difference. But in the last week or so my mindset has somewhat changed to be more relaxed and patient whilst trading and I have got a much better 'feel' for the pre-horse racing markets - its like a light bulb has just clicked!

It is still very early days but I think my trading knowledge I have learnt and researched over the last year is evolving.

If you imagine a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, I have found the corners and have a good basis now to progress and hopefully see some progress.

Here is my profit/loss from tonight.

Hopefully catch the evening races tomorrow also.

The beginning

Well the first day was quite mixed in results.

It was the first time I had used £10 stakes consistently and with my bank of £100 I was strangely nervous not to let it go straight in to the red. (I set myself a bit of a personal goal to try and keep the £100 from being eating up at any moment!).

The first day ended with a loss of £3.36 which I would not call disastrous. Being the first day of trading I think that was quite acceptable.

I also tried out Bet Angel for a day which honestly I did not like. It was slow to respond and I do not think it was my computer. 4GB memory, 2.1ghz processor speed and no other programs running.

From now on I will stick to what I know with A Geeks Toy. It seems a lot quicker and although the software does not look as nice as Bet Angel, it has proven good to me in the past!

Thursdays trading screen shot (Day 1)

Today was a lot better with the a Geeks Toy. I went back to using mainly £5 stakes and felt a lot more comfortable with the previous set up I had.

I think for now I will stick with the set up and try again on Wednesday 8th May with £10 stakes.

I am working Sunday through to Tuesday so will not be doing much trading - may catch a few evening races.

Today's P/L.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!

A quick introduction. I have been toying with Betfair over quite some time and my first back bet was on the 2007 Grand National when Silver Birch won.

Since that day I had always been keen to learn more about the sports exchanges and have just deposited £100 in to Betfair to see if I can grow the bank balance from there by trading the pre-race UK horse racing markets.

Up until now I have traded mostly with £5 stakes and have had some mixed results. I find that where I falter my patience while trading the markets is more often than not my failure - (so!) I have decided to go with larger stakes of between £10 and £20 for the majority of the time and be a lot more patient and careful when picking my entry and exit points.

My goal for today (day 1) is to just break even, however having evidence of some good trades in between to show me that potential is there!

I will post my profit/loss figures for the days ahead and keep a running total.

Good luck trading!!