Recording Your Trading

27/06

+£52.40. Had a relatively enjoyable day today. Identified some nice moves but also got caught a few times. Most of the times where I got caught I realised after the event where I had gone wrong, so it's not as if I'm left scratching my head, like in the early days, and if anything I'm keener than ever to learn more and more (see post below).

28/06

+£52.26. I've been a lot more active in the pre-race markets this month and have realised that there is a lot to be gained from recording your trading during the day, using a screen capture software such as Camtasia. I sometimes find that when I trade a race poorly that it would be beneficial to see exactly where I went wrong. When you are sitting alone at the PC and in the heat of battle it's so easy to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again without realising. Obviously it is time consuming hitting the record/pause button every five minutes or so and it does take a lot of additional time to watch the pertinent recordings, but without doing this then I really do think that your progress is slow and limited. I'm away over the weekend (down to the coast to get smashed) so during July I'll be following this process and reporting my findings on here, and hopefully I will see a big improvement in my trading and subsequently my profits.

At this point in time I am concentrating more on identifying moves that will continue for at least three or more ticks and reversals in price movement that also give at least a three tick profit. I'm finding that in certain markets during the day that these are easy to spot and I am happy when I read a move correctly. I do, however, need to be a bit more flexible with my exit positions as these are quite often pre-defined, as in I have an order waiting in the queue to give me my green, and sometimes I find that as a move develops I could move my exit or phase my exit positions to create more green. 

The two areas that I know need improvement are my ability and speed to reverse my position when needed and I also need to work on identifying the best times/conditions in which to move more towards a scalping mode. Using these screen captures should help me improve in these two areas. Additionally I've also recently created problems for myself by having orders in on too many runners. Sometimes I will place orders for the top four horses in the betting and this can be a bastard to manage!

The markets seemed somewhat random today and then the Kamizaze Bomber turned-up and threw some hefty cash about in a few races, looked as though he done a chunk and then left! Had a nice green staring me in the face after he dropped his £20k bomb in one race and was just a tick or 2 away from locking-in the profit when he dropped a second bomb and sent me back to zero! The evening races were all over the shop and the fact that the Kamikaze Bomber might be around makes it a bit harder to trade 'normally' as when he comes in he can move the price quite dramatically.

Managed to record some uneventful races and will make an effort to watch these tonight to see if I can spot where I went right/wrong in my trades. Will have another bash tomorrow and try and nick some cash for my short coastal break.



29/06

+£82.32. Nicked a bit of beer money for my coast trip.

 

The Indecisive Kamikaze Pilot

17/06

+£14.66. Most people who trade pre-race have heard about, or even experienced, the antics of the so called 'Bomber'. The Bomber is a person, or possibly group of people, who suddenly appear in the market with an order that dwarfs the available money on either side of the ladder. So for instance, you might be trading a 5F Class 6 race at Wolverhampton and all of a sudden £10k appears in the queue. Well recently I've noticed what appears to be a new Bomber in town and his antics can only be likened to that of an indecisive kamikaze pilot, not knowing whether to shoot, dive, drop bombs, circle around or just fuck off back to Japan! Lumps of cash appear randomly, most of the time on the back side. Sometimes it's left there to be taken, sometimes it hovers about 2 ticks away from the action, sometimes it's moved down to the front of the queue and every now it gets moved 5-20 ticks maybe, depending upon the price, and snaffles up all the available. And sometimes it just disappears!

I spotted this bunch of guys hanging about outside the 'Canary Wharf Betting Exchange' last time I visited so maybe they have something to do with it?

Joking aside he/she/they are a pain in the ass until you suss out what the fuck they are up to, then hopefully you can join in and take the monies? Accordingly I found the early races today hard to play and felt knackered (probably due to a massive sugar overload/crash) following the consumption of a huge but very tasty Father's Day cheescake yesterday, so decided to take an afternoon nap instead


18/06

+£35.01. Couldn't really get going today and for some unknown reason found the markets to be a bit tricky. It was the first day of Ascot and the liquidity was high but to me it seemed as though the turnover was generally slow and then all of a sudden the price would move a tick and if you had to scratch then you were at the back of a big queue. Maybe it was just me who found it a bit tough?

I'm recording my trading with Camtasia when I can and I'm going through these in the evening or next morning just in order to spot where I go wrong and maybe notice things that I missed. I think that this is a great practice as it allows you to analyze the market moves after the event and you do pick-up quite a bit that you may have missed when actually trading.
 

19/06

+£76.76. Had a right mixed bag of results today and some races left me scratching my head as to what the fuck was happening! I had a string of races where every time I entered a trade the market would immediately move against me! I should have recorded some of todays trading but it was so busy that I didn't have time to fuck about with Camtasia.

 
Just sipping on an ice cold Hoegaarden and I might even watch a few of my previous recordings as punishment for fucking-up so many races today.



20/06

+£56.26. Another day of mediocrity. Actually started the day by doing some physical work for a change. I had the opportunity to get some block paving for free so made 3 journeys in my truck to pick it up. The only downfall was that I felt knackered in the afternoon and pretty much lost interest in the racing ... not very professional I know.

Anyway it'll be a short day tomorrow as I'm off to see the one and only Leonard Cohen at the O2. Really looking forward to seeing the old guy but not looking forward to sitting way up high in the O2 as I'm afraid of heights! Can't even have a beer or 2 beforehand as apparently he does a 4 hour set! ... not bad for a 78 year old eh?


21/06

+£2.60. Had a cracking night at the O2 but fuck me our seats were well high! I really don't do heights and I was shitting my pants even when I was sat down, it was SO fucking high and steep! If I ever go to the O2 again then I'll pay the full whack and sit at the ground level!! Was a great concert though and really enjoyed it ... Cohen was fantastic!


22/06

+£27.97. Had a little party for my 1 year old grandaughter today so got involved in the Hoegaardens early doors and therefore trading was limited. Should really have stayed away from the screen as it can easily go tits up after a few beers, but I dabbled here and there and came away with a tiny profit.

23/06

+£38.13. Didn't really have much enthusiasm today and did very little in the way of pre-race trading. Ended up nicking a few quid but nothing to get excited about.

24/06

+£17.69. A typical wanky Monday.

25/06

+£59.54. A pretty non-eventful mediocre day ....

26/06

+£4.11. Wasn't able to play the daytime racing but had a stab at the evening racing. Upped the stakes in the pre-race trading (actually had a liability of around about £1k in one race) but won a bit, lost a bit and then repeated this process over and over again.

Looks as though we might get some nice weather this weekend so will probably fuck off to the coast with my bike, drink loads of Hoegaarden and Fruli, have sex with the local women, get sunburnt and forget about this racing bollox! (much the same as what happened around this time last year actually!).

Shit or Bust/Man or Mouse?

01/06

+£43.92. It's that time of year where I really need to start earning some decent cash. Unless I grow a pair of bollox I'll just gradually go skint.

Now that the Summer has arrived I'll be spending some time down at the coast cycling and getting pissed so I need some extra funds. Unfortunately earning £50 a day is not going to get me very far!

02/06

+£43.80. Didn't have a losing race today but won fuck all!

03/06

+£26.49. And I thought that yesterday was bad!

04/06

+£31.42. Not much to say about today ...

05/06

-£8.42. Made a balls-up early doors and spent all day chipping away to recover the losses ...

Really need to string a few £100+ days together to get some momentum going!


06/06

+£49.95. Spent most of the day screaming and swearing at the markets/TV/jockeys, etc. Just couldn't seem to see any opportunities and didn't even break the £50 barrier.

07/06

+£2.87. Thought that I'd have another day of general screaming and shouting ....

I've decided that tomorrow (Saturday) I will ONLY trade pre-race and see what damage I can inflict upon my P&L.


08/06

+£1.99. Well an interesting day of pure pre-race trading which felt quite refreshing and was only let down by the fact that I only won £1.99. I felt that quite a few races were perfect for scalping (after the event) so I would imagine that Caan has hit quite an impressive figure today as I know that scalping late on is one of his strong points.

It was quite different concentrating entirely on the pre-race side of things and nearly every time that I made a mistake I recognised almost immediately what I had done wrong. I really need to get my pre-race game up to speed so I might have another pre-race day tomorrow and see if I can make any progress. My staking today was £20 and £50 depending upon the price range so tomorrow I will go for £20, £50 and £100.


09/06

+£40.20. A day of mediocre racing brought an equally mediocre return ...

10/06

+£18.54. Another dismal day ...

11/06

+£0.28. Today was a day that saw me wanting to punch something! Everything I traded early doors went tits-up. I was left in that state where I was looking at a market and just didn't have a clue what to expect or what action to take. I almost gave up at one point in the day and felt like I should just turn the PC off and watch the TV instead. However, I cracked on and actually traded the last dog race at Newcastle to get myself back into profit!

12/06

+£121.60. Had a much better day today and felt a lot more relaxed. Did make a few balls-ups pre-race but noticed where I had made the mistakes so I'm feeling a lot more confident with my pre-race trading. Might up my stakes slightly from tomorrow and see how things progress.

I'm also going to make an effort to try and record all of my pre-race trading so that I can review these in the evening/next morning to see what I do well and where I go wrong.


13/06

+£52.82. Really enjoyed todays trading. Did get caught out on one race where I layed £150+ on a last minute mover expecting the price to bounce. Unfortunately my timing was all wrong as the horses were about to go into the stalls and I had to bail-out for a £20+ red to avoid going in-play. I was maybe a bit hasty as there were still a few runners to go in and as soon as I took the red the price did in fact move well in my favour, so maybe if I had been a bit calmer I could have taken a nice green instead of the red. Apart from this I traded really well and my confidence is quite high.

The only opportunity I did miss is when someone made a massive rick in a late race in Ireland and there was £7000 matched at 1.01 on a runner that was clearly out of the frame (apparently they may have mistook the position of the winning post?). These are the sort of things where in the old days I could have easily taken at least a monkey and maybe even over a grand of that misplaced cash.


14/06

+£41.27. Had another enjoyable day today and I'm really starting to feel that I'm getting to grips with the pre-race markets. didn't post a big score with regards to profits but confidence is high and hopeful of a good Saturday (tomorrow).

15/06

+£240.29. Probably the best day that I've had this year. Had a couple of nice IR winning bets but once again felt super comfident pre-race and it's only a matter of time now before I start getting some profits along the lines of Caan from TFF who is smashing it to bits!

16/06

+£33.50. Jumped on the scales this morning and noticed that my weight has crept back up to 94.2kg. So I'm going to smash the diet for a couple of weeks along with a bit of training and get myself back down to sub 89kg by the end of June, hopefully in time for the nice sunny weather that we're due in July?

I found the pre-race markets very unpredictable today, especially after the good meetings and liquidity of yesterday, so played very cautiously.