Going Green

Daily P/L: £102.98
Monthly P/L: £700.28
.
What a refreshing change - a full game of Twenty20 cricket without a dash of rain in sight and boy did it feel good. I can't help but think how unlucky we've been to have such poor weather recently or do you think these global warming campaigners have got a point? The potential for profit during the cricket season seems so good at the moment that I'm half tempted to ban the missus from buying hairspray :-)
.
Sussex v Yorkshire
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Hove is not an easy place to score runs. Sussex did an amazing job to post 193 from their twenty overs and Yorkshire were always going to be up against it. Light was fading fast and with Mushtaq and Saqlain the Sharks had the spinners to strangle the life out of the game. The first Yorkshire wicket fell quickly and from then on there was only going to be one winner. I managed to get on Sussex at 1.40 towards the end of their innings and rode their price down as the visitors fell away for me to net a profit of £102.98.
.
July is shaping up to be my best month yet but I must remember not to get greedy - small wins here and there between now and the end of the month and I'll be happy.
.
It's Nicola's (my Fiancee's) brother's wedding on Saturday so a couple of quiet trading days lay ahead. I may take a look at the British Open golf on Sunday but that'll depend on how bad the headache is.
.

Almost Laughable

Daily P/L: £108.93
Monthly P/L: £597.30
.
Unfortunately, the weather played another huge role in tonight's Pro 40 clash and I can only hope that the sun decides comes out for the second half of the British summer.
.
Derbyshire v Glamorgan
As I got home from work I was very surprised to see it was already the mid inning interval. I'd expected to tune in and see Glamorgan bat out their final overs but after suffering a middle order collapse all they could muster was a total of 165. On the surface this looked an extremely average score and the market had reacted by installing the Phantoms as 1.26 favourites. I didn't agree that their price should be as strong and as soon as their first wicket fell I lumped on a lay for £644 @ 1.30. With hindsight this was a great move as their second wicket fell a few balls later leaving them in a pickle at 11-2 and myself in a very strong position. The Derbyshire price was drifting but seemed to peak a few minutes later so I decided to back them @ 1.46 and re-assess.
.
I'm not sure that getting out and re-evaluating the market is a strategy that makes my trading the most efficient but I'm certain it's allowed me to miss plenty of losses through indecision. This all adds up in the long run and once I'd convinced myself that the Dragons were close to flip flopping the market I laid Derbyshire again. I'd only managed to get £296 matched (most of it at 1.62) when the rain started to belt down and the market began to spiral out of control. Glamorgan were comfortably ahead on the Duckworth Lewis scoring system and with this in mind plenty of punters were trying to bail out. The bad thing for me here was that only 9 overs had been bowled meaning that unless another over could be fitted in it wouldn't be classed as a 'game' - so what do the umpires decide to do? That's right - take the players off! I hate leaving positions run in these situations so I greened up by placing a back at 2.00. I was looking at a healthy profit but only if the players came back on and another 6 balls were bowled. For an hour and a half I twitched in my seat until play resumed but it was worth it in the end. I'd wasted £11.67 on the completed match market taking out some insurance but finished with a profit of £108.93 on the match overall.
.
Hopefully the Twenty20 Cup Quarter Finals can now dodge the rain and give us some action.
.

Wet Wet Wet

Daily P/L: £61.18
Monthly P/L: £488.37
.
It was my works Summer Ball last night and even though I had a hangover from hell this morning, I'd recovered enough by this afternoon to take a look at the cricket. I'm getting a much better feel for the game these days and it seems to be paying off. If the weather could improve I'm sure it would have a positive effect on my p/l but the forecast unfortunately is not good. More rain is scheduled to arrive and with Pro 40 and Twenty20 games due to take place this week it would seem they're destined to be washed out. This is hugely frustrating but what can I do? Not much is the answer except be patient, not rush into things and concentrate on picking up small wins when they come along.
.
Leicestershire v Kent
In all honesty, this was quite a poor game to trade. Leicestershire won the toss and on the basis that they felt the pitch would slow up later, decided to have a bat first. The decision might have been the right one but the Foxes were unable to construct any decent partnerships and with only Nixon making a stand their score of 175 was always going to be reachable. The Kent price at the turn was around the 1.48 mark but this dropped very quickly after the first ball when Kruger bowled a no ball and conceded a 4 on the free hit. The Spitfires then started to make the chase look easy by knocking up 79 runs off the first 15 overs which meant the only chance for Leicestershire lay with their spinners - but it wasn't to be. Kent kept their wickets and sprinted to their target with 39 balls remaining. All too easy for them and due to the game lacking any major drama I was only able to finish with a profit of £61.18.
.

Throwing It Away

Since Last Post P/L: £43.97
Monthly P/L: £427.19

A busy trading weekend has left me feeling very frustrated. Why? Well, put simply it's because on Saturday and Sunday I let reasonable green figures end in a loss when I knew on both occasions that the right thing to do was turn off the computer and do something else. I think most of us have experienced this feeling before and I'd rank it as one of the worst feelings you can get. If I try and put this loss into perspective then all I have to do is realise that I'm ending the last few days with more money than when I left work on Friday afternoon, but with a quiet week ahead it's going to be a while before I can make up for my mistakes.
.
England v West Indies
After the Windies had posted a huge 289 off their 50 overs it could only have been blind optimism from England backers that led to the visitors' price hovering around 1.60 at the change of innings. I could tell the price was screaming "value" and can only regret greening out early. The gain should have been bigger but at the time I was happy with a decent £61.67 profit.
.
Desert Classic Darts
My demise over the weekend was down to the darts. I was wasn't feeling confident (maybe down to me not trading it for a while) and it's not the type of sport that you can trade with any trace of hesitancy. To cut a long story short I was gobbled up as I chased losses and cut winning trades short. I should have figured what I was doing sooner but by the time I did it was too late. My results were; Smith v Part £68.75, Barneveld v Scholten £0.29, Manley v Jenkins £84.09, Part v Barneveld £58.46.
.
British Grand Prix
All was not lost though, a ray of sunshine did shine during the British Grand Prix. All the pre-race hype focused on the new golden boy Lewis Hamilton but being in pole position didn't mean he was a shoe-in for top place on the podium. As it turned out, he finished third and he even though he may have been disappointed I was very satisfied with how things had gone. A great race to trade with plenty of twists and turns (no pun intended) allowed me to finish with a good gain. Maybe I need to focus on Formula 1 a little more as a Raikkonen victory earned me £105.95.
.