Daily P/L: £33.47 Monthly P/L: £79.56I got involved in three events today; the 4th One Day International between India and Sri Lanka, the Worcester v Leicester rugby match and the Nissan Open Golf. For reasons that will become clear, despite my green daily profit & loss figure I'm feeling extremely frustrated at the moment.
When I got out of bed Sri Lanka were coming to the end of their innings. Despite a shaky start where they'd lost 4 wickets in quick succession, they'd rallied and were producing a reasonable target for India to chase. Or so I thought - I'd failed to notice that the match had been reduced to a 47 over game so my calculations were a little out. Even so, I thought the Indian target of 260 to win would be a challenge. At the start of the India innings I had a nice green position and looked to improve on this by laying them at 1.51 - I thought the price should have been more like 2.00 - surely the price was too low? Nope - the price turned out to be way too high! Terrible bowling by the Sri Lankans allowed the Indians to gain momentum and they never looked back. I bailed out of my position after 7 overs when it became apparent that India weren't going to be denied but it wasn't soon enough to hold onto my green position -my screen at this point was all red.
What happened next I can only describe as extremely fortunate. After a lovely off-drive by one of the Indian batsman (Virender Sehwag) he ambled up the pitch to claim his one run. However, what he failed to do was ground his bat within the crease and a moment of quick fielding saw a hearty appeal from the Sri Lankans. With the price on India at 1.14 I took a calculated punt and laid them without too much thought and got matched. Within seconds their price had drifted to 1.16 but with the commentators advising he was 'out' I held onto my position and decided to wait for the verdict. He was rightly dismissed, the price rocketed out to 1.25 and I cashed in to finish the match in profit. I know I was lucky. I'd traded the match badly but had got away with it.
The rugby in the afternoon was a pleasure to trade and a welcome distraction to the strains I'd experienced in the morning. Leicester were without the majority of their England Internationals but it was quite obvious they'd be too strong for Worcester. I got in and out of the market at the right times and made a good gain on the match.
Then came the golf. If you read my previous post then you'll be aware that I'm very much looking forward to trading on the PGA Tour this year. Last year, it proved to be an area where I was able to make a good profit so my hopes were high for 2007. That was until Sky Sports lost the television rights and Setanta Sports took over. I haven't got access to Setanta but I do have access to Tourcast which is a very nifty tool for anyone serious about trading the PGA Tour. Therefore, I decided tonight to try and trade the Nissan Open from Tourcast alone. If this was possible then Setanta would not be needed and I'd save myself another additional subscription fee. Needless to say it wasn't a successful experiment and I'm now sitting with a red position that will wipe out today's profits if I can't produce a salvage mission tomorrow when I trade on the 4th round.
Daily P/L: £47.58Monthly P/L: £46.09I felt good tonight but fell down badly. A great start unfortunately ended in disappointment and I'm left feeling a little baffled.It was all about the Premier League Darts and I'd been looking forward to it all day. Phil Taylor was back on form and it was nice to see. I'm sure that after his victory tonight he'll be back to his dangerous self for the rest of the tournament. He was looking healthier, more relaxed and hungry for success and as I noticed this quite early I ended his match with Terry Jenkins with a nice profit.
I traded badly in the Barneveld v Manley match. I was slack in my attitude and began holding onto trades for too long. I've been reading a lot about trying to 'let winning trades run' but this philosophy doesn't work for me - mines more like 'get out quick'. I finished the match with a small green figure but it could and should have been a lot bigger.The Lewis v Lloyd game went to plan and I was never in trouble but then it all went wrong. Did I rest on my laurels? I don't think so - my problem was Dennis Priestley. I think he's a great guy, a gentleman of the sport, but his slow style hinders my trading. Last week I thought my problem lay with trading Taylor. How wrong I was - it was his opponent that got me into trouble not him. My edge with Darts is being able to think 6 darts ahead - this advantage normally allows me to scalp successfully. Unfortunately for me, Dennis is the Terry Griffiths of the oche and his style allows other traders the chance to see the bigger picture. Needless to say, I got myself in a hole I couldn't get out of and as this was the last match of the night I had no other opportunities to make up my losses.I feel pretty sick, especially after sitting with a nice green figure after the first 3 matches. I'll take this as another lesson, take comfort that I'm still in profit for the month and move on.One thing's for sure though - I won't be trading on 'Dennis The Menace' next week!
Daily P/L: £8.35 Monthly P/L: £93.67I took a look at the Welsh Open snooker tonight and was pleasantly surprised. There was no frame betting available as it was the first round so I had to make do with the match odds market instead. Perry was up against Parrot and he started the match as a strong 1.30 favourite. As I'm a novice when it comes to trading snooker I kept my trade sizes relatively low and took a very cautious approach. It seemed to pay off as I identified a few opportunities where the price had moved a bit too far, which allowed me the chance to do a bit of scalping. It's amazing how much the market reacts though - an example was when Perry lost the first frame and his price traded as high as 1.59, when he won the second frame his price shot back down to 1.28! With the score only at 1-1 in a first to 5 frame contest you can see that the market was prone to over reacting. All this is good news for us traders.I'm away on business for the next couple of days but plan to get involved with the Premier League Darts on Thursday. I'm hoping that I can hold my discipline and make a good profit as each match should be competitive.
Daily P/L: £37.35Monthly P/L: £85.32Irish eyes will definitely not be smiling tonight. They were very unlucky today and only a bit of sublime skill from the French could shatter their Grand Slam dream.From a trading point of view it was a fantastic game with flowing moves from both sides making the markets swing frantically. Within the first 20 minutes I'd made some good decisions and was already sitting in front of a nice green screen. One of my rules of trading Rugby Union is to only trade for the first 40 minutes - if I'm down at half time then I'll extend it to 60 minutes but by no means will I go any further than this - if I'm still down at this point then I'll take the loss on the chin and wait for another day. My reasons? Well, if you were trading the Ireland game today you'll already know the answer - emotions run wild, you get too involved and a late score can send you to the poor house. Hence, my profit from today all came from the first 40 minutes.My success this afternoon was just as well as my dabbling with the India v Sri Lanka cricket match this morning didn't go to plan. I'm still searching for the best way to trade these one day games and need to get something in place for when the cricket season starts. I'll have to figure something out as Rugby Union, Golf and Darts won't be enough to hit my targets.
