Since Last Post P/L: £84.30
Monthly P/L: £1,090.76
.
Oh boy! I should have known after my bad start to the day that things could only get worse...and they did! Wales are out of the Rugby World Cup after losing (an enthralling game) to Fiji. If you're not Welsh then it will be hard to understand the pain. My head is spinning and I feel sick. This may sound a little extreme but I'm very passionate about where I come from and our National sport. How could we go from 6 Nations Champions and Grand Slam Winners to not even qualifying for the quarter finals of the sport's showpiece event in less than 2 years? Numerous reasons come to mind but the one that sticks out is that the players seem to have been over coached. When we had our success in 2005 the coaching staff encouraged the team to play 'heads up' rugby and it paid off - there was enough natural ability in the squad and this shone through when the players were given the opportunity to express themselves. This approach has self-eroded over the past couple of years into 'coaching by textbook' and the results speak for themselves. We need things to change and we need them to change now. Fair play to Fiji though - your guys were great and you can be very proud of them.
.
From a trading perspective I'm sure you'll be glad to know that I always avoid trading when any Welsh team are involved - when there's too much emotion it confuses the mind :-)
.
India v Australia - 1st ODI
My bad day started here. The Aussies won the toss and elected to bat. A good choice as the game was a day/night match and the chasers always have a difficult task if a decent target is posted but the visitors wouldn't have planned for losing 2 early wickets. First Gilchrist then Hodge for a duck - the Aussies looked like they were in trouble and the market reacted. Their price was now at around the even money mark and with India in the box seat I was taking a keen interest.
.
Umm, okay so that's not strictly true. I was keeping one eye on the TV and the other on a spreadsheet I'd been working on and guess what happened next?
.
Correct! The third Aussie wicket fell and I immediately tried to back India for a grand and get a piece of the action. This isn't a normal trading strategy for me but I felt this was a big wicket (Hayden) and I needed to get into the market quickly. So what went wrong? Well, to put it bluntly, I BLOODY BACKED AUSTRALIA INSTEAD!
.
I'd forgotten to switch the selection on the 'ladder' screen of my trading software and immediately realised my mistake. I needed to take the loss quickly and the result left me with a big all red position of £250 - ouch! Angry with myself and resigned to the thought of finishing the month with less than a 1k profit I switched off the PC and headed downstairs to make a cup of tea. I was in no mood to continue and knew that if I did then bigger trouble would head my way.
.
So if I stopped trading then how did I turn the £250 loss into just £84.30?
.
Quite simply, a couple of hours later I flicked channels to see if India had won and was delighted to see that rain had stopped play. This was great news as the Aussies had only been allowed to bowl 2 overs of the 2nd innings and 20 overs were needed for this to be declared a completed match. Now I could have let my position ride and take a punt that the monsoon in Bangalore would continue but that's not what I'm about. I'm not a weatherman and would prefer to minimise my losses so I headed for the 'completed match' market to cover my position.
.
This time I got lucky so please take note - always give trading your full attention. Mistakes like the one I made today are the ones that can throw you 'on tilt' as the feeling of being robbed (rather than stupid!) kicks in and it's then that you to start to chase your losses.
.
I can't be too down hearted though as September has allowed me to grow my trading bank by another 26%. It really is unbelievable how quickly your trading bank can grow if you're not too greedy. Did you know that a £250 trading bank can grow into £7780 if it increases by just 20% per month over 2 years? Not bad eh? Naturally I've had a little play around with the figures and it's scary to see what a £5000 trading bank could become over the same time period!
.
October looks as though it's going to be a difficult one as there doesn't seem to be too much going on so I'm going to have to be patient (again!) and be on top of my game to turn a profit.
.
Monthly P/L: £1,090.76
.
Oh boy! I should have known after my bad start to the day that things could only get worse...and they did! Wales are out of the Rugby World Cup after losing (an enthralling game) to Fiji. If you're not Welsh then it will be hard to understand the pain. My head is spinning and I feel sick. This may sound a little extreme but I'm very passionate about where I come from and our National sport. How could we go from 6 Nations Champions and Grand Slam Winners to not even qualifying for the quarter finals of the sport's showpiece event in less than 2 years? Numerous reasons come to mind but the one that sticks out is that the players seem to have been over coached. When we had our success in 2005 the coaching staff encouraged the team to play 'heads up' rugby and it paid off - there was enough natural ability in the squad and this shone through when the players were given the opportunity to express themselves. This approach has self-eroded over the past couple of years into 'coaching by textbook' and the results speak for themselves. We need things to change and we need them to change now. Fair play to Fiji though - your guys were great and you can be very proud of them.
.
From a trading perspective I'm sure you'll be glad to know that I always avoid trading when any Welsh team are involved - when there's too much emotion it confuses the mind :-)
.
India v Australia - 1st ODI
My bad day started here. The Aussies won the toss and elected to bat. A good choice as the game was a day/night match and the chasers always have a difficult task if a decent target is posted but the visitors wouldn't have planned for losing 2 early wickets. First Gilchrist then Hodge for a duck - the Aussies looked like they were in trouble and the market reacted. Their price was now at around the even money mark and with India in the box seat I was taking a keen interest.
.
Umm, okay so that's not strictly true. I was keeping one eye on the TV and the other on a spreadsheet I'd been working on and guess what happened next?
.
Correct! The third Aussie wicket fell and I immediately tried to back India for a grand and get a piece of the action. This isn't a normal trading strategy for me but I felt this was a big wicket (Hayden) and I needed to get into the market quickly. So what went wrong? Well, to put it bluntly, I BLOODY BACKED AUSTRALIA INSTEAD!
.
I'd forgotten to switch the selection on the 'ladder' screen of my trading software and immediately realised my mistake. I needed to take the loss quickly and the result left me with a big all red position of £250 - ouch! Angry with myself and resigned to the thought of finishing the month with less than a 1k profit I switched off the PC and headed downstairs to make a cup of tea. I was in no mood to continue and knew that if I did then bigger trouble would head my way.
.
So if I stopped trading then how did I turn the £250 loss into just £84.30?
.
Quite simply, a couple of hours later I flicked channels to see if India had won and was delighted to see that rain had stopped play. This was great news as the Aussies had only been allowed to bowl 2 overs of the 2nd innings and 20 overs were needed for this to be declared a completed match. Now I could have let my position ride and take a punt that the monsoon in Bangalore would continue but that's not what I'm about. I'm not a weatherman and would prefer to minimise my losses so I headed for the 'completed match' market to cover my position.
.
This time I got lucky so please take note - always give trading your full attention. Mistakes like the one I made today are the ones that can throw you 'on tilt' as the feeling of being robbed (rather than stupid!) kicks in and it's then that you to start to chase your losses.
.
I can't be too down hearted though as September has allowed me to grow my trading bank by another 26%. It really is unbelievable how quickly your trading bank can grow if you're not too greedy. Did you know that a £250 trading bank can grow into £7780 if it increases by just 20% per month over 2 years? Not bad eh? Naturally I've had a little play around with the figures and it's scary to see what a £5000 trading bank could become over the same time period!
.
October looks as though it's going to be a difficult one as there doesn't seem to be too much going on so I'm going to have to be patient (again!) and be on top of my game to turn a profit.
.
9 comments:
Hi Mark, Very entertaining entry. It is nice to know that I'm not the only one to get caught not concentrating. Always enjoy reading your blog and have been following it from the early this year. Keep it going !
LuisGarcia
Hi Mark,
Good stuff, as usual... just thought I'd let you know you are being talked about on punt.com ;)
I think you are doing a lot right here, but be careful not to ever get ahead of yourself. It's a rare case where someone continues on doing the same things (read patience, learning and stake sizing) past the natural urge to start increasing and looking ahead. With each step forward comes new challenges and issues previously unforeseen - build things nice and slowly and with an emphasis on learning from everything. As your post indicates, it is amazing how much a bank can grow - even a modest bank, given the right attitude. Keep at it :)
Matt @ Punt.com
Hi LuisGarcia,
Thanks for dropping by and for leaving a comment.
I was lucky to justincur a small loss, serves me right and I'll try not to make the same mistake again!
All the best
Mark
Hi Matt,
Just left a message on your blog - thanks for the sound advice and regular support!
All the best,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Some very impressive wins you got I must say, nice writing style about you aswell,
I notice you are mainly betting on cricket atm, well this may be inappropriate but I thought you might be interested in hors eracing also? GG.com have a new free to play horse racing tipping game
It’s called Tipzone: (http://www.gg.com/tipzone/)
You can play competitively, use it to test a betting system RISK FREE, or should you wish set up leagues to play against friends or colleagues.
It's kinda like those fantasy football leagues but in relation to horse racing. Although it only caters for UK and Australian racing at the current time, we will be introducing US racing in the near future also.
You seem to be a serious punter who would benefit from having a tinker with it, we have unearthed some great horse racing tipsters on the back of using it, the most notable of which has an overall profit of £570,250.01 (honestly) goes by the name of The Sweeney and is 20th on the all-time leaderboard, im sure it'll interest you.
Just have a play with it, see what you think, then if you wouldnt mind give an honest review on it?
We believe you will find it a very useful tool to aid in your horse racing betting
Either way, thanks for your time and good luck with your blog.
Regards,
David Ackerman
GG.com
Hi David,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and for saying some nice things about my blog.
Horse Racing used to be my main focus but I was only making small profits. My approach has now changed and I now only focus on in-play trading on sports such as cricket and rugby union.
If things change again though I'll be sure to give your site a look - I already have it saved in my favourites :-)
All the best,
Mark
hi mark,
great blogg and well done for increasing your bank from £250!! i am learning to trade thanks to the many bloggs on the net giving me inspiration to try it for myself. can you tell me what your money management was when you started out with only £250? i.e. how much did you open a trade with and how much were you prepared to lose in that trade if things went against you? any help or advice would be great!!!
cheers
vj
Hi VJ,
I'm sure that any trader who has been successful will say that risk management and in particular money management is crucial if you are going to profit in the long term.
My stake sizes always correspond to the size of my trading bank and the odds at which I'm trading. When I started with £250 my stake sizes were structured like this:
Trading Bank = £250
1.01 - 1.50 = £100 (40%)
1.50 - 2.00 = £67 (27%)
2.00 - 3.00 = £33 (13%)
3.00 - 4.00 = £20 (8%)
4.00 - 5.00 = £14 (6%)
5.00 - 6.00 = £11 (4%)
As my bank has grown I've gradually tried to reduce my maximum exposure and my stake sizes now looks like this:
Trading bank = £5343
1.01 - 1.50 = £1015 (19%)
1.50 - 2.00 = £677 (13%)
2.00 - 3.00 = £338 (6%)
3.00 - 4.00 = £203 (4%)
4.00 - 5.00 = £145 (3%)
5.00 - 6.00 = £113 (2%)
As you can see, when the odds move so do my stake sizes. I believe this to be one of the fundamental reasons some new traders don't last - they don't manage their risk. For the record, I recalculate stake sizes at the beginning of each month. My aim is to get my maximum exposure down to 10%.
I hope this helps and good luck!
Mark
mr iverson, you are obviously very clued up on the subject of online sports betting - even if you can't always pick a winner! - can you recommend a good site where i can i can bet on football, or alternatively, if you know of any good online horse racing betting ones then let us know... thanks buddy and i shall continue to check back :)
Post a Comment