Full-Time Traders Mindset

A Few Announcements...

2011-06-01T00:07:00.001+01:00

First of all I should apologise to RacingUK for uploading that last video of Frankel. Oops it won't happen again :)

I've been on a crazy journey the last few months and it feels like I've been living in a cave, that just happens to be my bedroom. I swear my skin melts when I step foot outside in the sunshine as my body thinks what the hell is this place! I've even grown a caveman beard to fit into this new lifestyle of mine haha.

STJ has taken over my life somewhat recently, but it's been a very humbling experience and I've learnt a lot about myself in this short process so far. I started this whole venture to ultimately challenge myself and I was looking for some direction to follow and work towards. But what has come as a pleasant surprise to me, is the overwhelming sense of positivity around the community at STJ. It's very much brought me back to why I got into trading in the first place, which was a way to have freedom in my life and be in control of what I do and when.

I truly believe that being positive changes everything! You stop thinking 'I can't do it' and you begin to think 'how can I do it'. If your brain is silenced at the first step of asking, how are you ever going to find any answers? Positivity is a way of thinking that manifests from people around you, and what is great is that I've noticed this happens even online! The community has turned into a place for people to not only speak about trading, but also a place to speak about their goals and aspirations in life in general. I've spoken before about trying to find something else that will push you through the oncoming barriers in this game, rather than the obvious 'I want to make loads of cash'. The search for freedom? The search for a change of lifestyle? The search to simply challenge yourself? Whatever it might be, you need you find your own drive that will help you find success in this game.

STJ Live

I have so much planned over the next few months and I'm very pleased to announce the launch of STJ Live! What the hell? I hear you ask. Let me explain...

STJ Live is 3 month video journal I'll be recording every few days. I'll document my thoughts and feelings on the markets, and talk about life in general so people can get a real insight into the life of a full-time sports trader.

This will start on the 1st June and end on the 31st August, and this is a completely FREE invitation into my life for 3 months!

I'll also be recording every race I trade over this period starting with a £700 bank. My members have asked me for some full days trading videos, so I thought I would start from scratch and show them how to start from a realistic trading bank. Trading race after race, and explaining exactly what I'm thinking throughout.

So if you want to be a part of this unique experience for FREE! And get a chance to receive loads more juicy trading content over the next few months. All you have to do is join my free members area on my site to gain access.

More details are here:

FREE trading content - Join now!

See you on the inside! It should be fun!

Rgds

Jack

Frankel WOW!

2011-05-04T23:34:00.002+01:00

The summer is really hotting up now after a blisteringly warm April and witnessing that performance shown by Frankel in the 2000 Guineas. I say 'that' performance because it was truly something special! He simply destroyed the field making Group 1 horses look like ponies. Absolute madness and I still get a chill down my spine when I watch it back. The sport needed a superstar flat horse and ohh yes he's arrived!

I've recorded the race and just uploaded it to YouTube. So if you didn't get chance to view this you are in for a treat trust me. Click on the Youtube HD button, go full screen, crank up the volume and enjoy!

I think my unplanned commentary on the mic sums it up pretty much haha-

Today was the start of the Chester meeting and it was a decent days trading. I think the markets are perfectly suited to swing trades at the moment, so if you are patient enough to pick your opportunities wisely then there are some fantastic moves to be caught. These graphs below are becoming common place in many races, and I have advised my members at STJ to be very cautious looking to scalp these markets of late. Pin point a trend, follow your instincts and swing baby swing!

Overturn was another impressive front running performer today, although not quite in the same style as Frankel it has to be said. It was still a gutsy victory and was great to see the trainer Donald McCain win a Grand National and a Chester Cup back to back. I'm sure that doesn't happen very often!

Grand National Meeting

2011-04-10T23:39:00.002+01:00

It's been another fantastic week of top quality horse racing at Aintree. Climaxing at the notorious Grand National on Saturday. Somehow I picked the winner Ballabriggs this year, but was far from confident so I just had a cheeky fiver e/w fun bet. He jumped like a stag and was always looking in contention from the get go.

With all the glam and prestige surrounding the Grand National, we do witness many horses getting badly hurt or even die from this race every year. I think there was 2 that had to be put down this year. So it does beg the question whether to make the course a bit safer for future Grand Nationals. I hate to see these animals land so horribly after a bad jump, but I can't see whoever is in charge rushing to change things any time soon.

I found the Grand National itself very difficult to trade too be honest although I didn't expect much from the race before hand anyways. The high prices/ lack of movement and equal spread of liquidity across countless horses doesn't really suit my trading style too be honest. I have evolved into more of a swing trader over the years and the mad moving markets are more my cuppa tea.

I had a good festival, but didn't reach the heights I achieved at Cheltenham. The first few days went really well but I struggled a little bit on the Saturday to make the most out of a few opportunities. I might look into trading on Betdaq for bigger meetings in the future, as the volumes are apparently a bit more manageable for trading. A healthy amount of liquidity, but not too much sounds quite appealing to me.

It does come down to expectation as well I believe, and I do tend to raise the bar a bit for bigger meetings. Pushing myself can be a positive thing most of the time, but on the Saturday I tried a bit too hard to create opportunities which simply weren't there to take. The only way you can really get on a roll with trading race after race, is to let the opportunities come to you and pounce on them when they arise. When you increase your stakes more profits can be achieved, but this also creates more risk. A double edged sword in which the smallest mistakes can be the difference between a big profit on a race or a break even.

All in all I've had a good week, but I am naturally quite competitive so I'm quite hard on myself at times. I try to never get complacent as this can be very dangerous for your mindset, and I'm constantly looking to work on the holes in my game which I can improve on. The biggest lesson I have taken out of this years Aintree meeting, is to focus on my trading strengths and work to them. I'm going to try and Identify which races I can be really aggressive in, and know which races I need to treat with caution. This should stop me being too aggressive in markets that hold a little too much risk.

My best result over the 3 days came on the 7th:

I'm not sure what happened in the race that made Baby Run hit 8.4! If a bot made a mistake or a combination of people needed to close their positions out? But I couldn't understand it when I looked at the graph after the race. I thought Baby Run was travelling really well throughout so it makes me think it was more of a mistake with a bit of a mad spike. I'm quite tempted to have a go with small stakes in running again when I see things like this. Problem is it takes a different kind of mindset to succeed in running than it does pre - race. I have tried doing both in conjunction with each other in the past at a trading cafe, but I found it quite difficult to go from one mindset to the other. You have no time to even breathe between each race, but saying that I might give it a go again out of interest. Maybe adopt a slightly less active approach in running and stick very small stakes. I'll mention it again if I decide to give it a go.

Cheerio

10k @ 1.01 please

2011-04-07T00:35:00.006+01:00

A friend of mine has just moved out to Sweden and he was flying through Amsterdam to get there. So I thought it would be rude not to go with him for a few days to send him off in style hehe. I forgot how mad that weird and wonderfully place is! I vaguely remember the last time I was in the Dam which was back when I was 18. I went there with 8 of my mates and well, as you can imagine fun times! This time was more a few days of chill and relaxing. It's a beautiful place to visit if anyone is thinking of having a few days away.

Good Times A Rolling

After a big meeting like Cheltenham, I always remind myself to take things a little bit steady in the markets until I get my breath back. It can be easy to get carried away when starting to trade the markets again just like you were doing in Cheltz. So after a chilled out weekend I thought I better get back to it and didn't expect much from the day knowing Aintree is on 2moro. But I thought today was damn tasty too be honest. It felt like the start of good times to come, with the sun shining outside and some really nice moves to get stuck into in the markets. It brought me back to memories in Madrid and how much better I feel when the sun decides to say hello.

Ouch!

I noticed 1.01 getting turned over today in running at Nottingham. Amazing how often this actually happens and this time a combination of people got stung for a cool 10k! Who would back 1.01? God only knows =/

Turnover

I've never been a massive stats man or one that cares too much about how much my turnover is on the day. Either how much percentage of my bank I am using or how much my ROI is. These things just seem a little tedious to me but if that's your thing then knock yourself out. Of course I pay close attention to my staking plan and controlling how I trade in a race, but I'm referring to analysing results after the day. I mean maybe I could improve some of my results after spending hours analysing what I'm doing, but too be honest my take on it is life's too short and I'd rather have a beer with my mates thanks. That said I did notice something quite interesting on 2 races today. I basically reached nearly identical totals on both races, but the total turnover on each was very different. It all comes down to what style you decide to adopt in a particular race which determines the amount of turnover that is achieved. Different markets can also offer you more opportunities to turnover your bank at a faster rate, but it also sometimes comes down to simply making a conscious decision to trade one way or another.

The race below shows me consciously deciding to take a long term view on the market. Opening a few positions up and looking for the big move going in one direction. Instead of sneaking in and out and turning over more of my bank. The point I'm trying to make here, is I'd recommend spending more time on improving your styles/techniques and strategies, more than worrying too much about small differences in percentage turnover on your day. Nice profits can still be achieved on relitively low turnover totals. This total below was only £1250 matched on the back side and £1350 matched on the lay side.

In comparison the race below was an example where I still was looking for the swings, but I made a conscious decision to try and turn over more of my bank. The main reason for this was as I wasn't as sure of the overall direction of the market compared to the previous example. So in this case I was cutting out for smaller profits, turning over more of my bank, but as you can see the profit is nearly identical. This time £6147 was matched on the back side and £6244 on the lay side. That might sound like a lot of money, but I can easily turnover a lot more than that in a race but only when the market allows me to. Funny thing is though that doesn't necessarily mean x amount more profit. At the end of the day the overall profit is more important than your actual turnover.

On swing markets you can afford to look for more of a longer term move, and be able to hang onto your position longer with the aim to look for more profits. This will inevitably mean you won't turnover much of your bank, but who really cares :) In scalping markets you need to turnover a large amount due to the fact you are only looking for 1/2 tick profits. But also you will scratch a lot which boosts the total up even more.

Anyways Aintree starts 2moro and I'm really looking forward to the Grand National Meeting. I'll tell you right now....as far as a pure horse racing spectacle, you won't see a better horse racing card on any day of the year than what is on show 2moro. A lot of the big boys who ran at Cheltenham are lined up and I'm pretty excited!

Ohh and I've just noticed Woolcombe Folly is 8.0 on BF in the 16:15 Aintree. He's high in the weights but I'm having some of that fo sho. Seems massive price! He was unlucky in the Champion Chase at Cheltz after being bashed about in running and I think should destroy this field even at top weight. I'll be having a go on a few multiples as well 2moro which have been proving a nice little earner recently. Good luck all!

Fingers crossed the markets will be just as mouth watering!

Cheltenham - Day Four

2011-03-21T23:34:00.002Z

I took a few days off after trading this weeks Cheltenham festival. It was a great week but it was definitely energy sapping that's for sure. I've been catching up with a few things at STJ over the weekend and thought I should make a post about the last day before all is forgotten.

Cheltenham is without a doubt the highlight of the horse racing calendar and the final day didn't disappoint. The gold cup was a truly fantastic race that saw Long Run, the baby at only 6 years old smash the old boys of Denman and Kauto Star.

Kauto travelled like a dream in the race and looked back to his best, but he's lost that turn of foot over the last 2 hurdles where he couldn't hold off the cavalry. Denman is still a beast of a horse and will still give any horse a close race even at the tender age of 11. Denman's raced fewer times than the classy Kauto, so there's still a few more very top races left in the tank. I won't be giving up on one of my favourite horses just yet. I must say it's a pleasure to see the old guns back to somewhere near there best and my hat goes off to Mr Nicholls for keeping these wonderful animals on show year after year.

The Gold Cup went to a very deserving victor though and too be honest Long Run could be the best chaser we have ever seen. Due to how long he's still got left in racing and what he has achieved already. I think he's still improving and didn't even jump brilliantly half way round the course. Alarmingly to every other chaser around, this horse could be winning many more group 1 races with ease. He's got an engine like no other and I can't see any other horse other than the upcoming Diamond Harry challenging his unstoppable status. Time will tell :)

I didn't build up a great trading total on the Gold Cup race, so I thought I would stick with Long Run. But I was worried with Imperial Commander returning back to full fitness so kept my money on those two.

I did a few multiple bets on the Friday and I nearly hit another great £400+ return off a £10 stake.

I did a £2.5 Win Trixie with Long Run, Bob's Worth and Baby Run.

It was a bit painful to see Baby Run fall at the last when looking a clear winner. But I had to take that one the chin.

My best race came from the 14:40. It was one of my fancies on the day - Bob's Worth. I traded well pre race and too be honest I couldn't resist leaving all my profit on him this time. I was in a giddy mood and felt like trying to hit the jackpot. Luckily he ran like a stag and my profit looked safe from half way round the course. Well as safe as you can be when your profits on one horse :p

In the Conditional Jockeys Hurdle I witnessed an unbelievable ride and performance by Sir Des Champs. Wow I think the horse was around 25 lengths down and somehow got up on the line to sneak the win. I was in shock watching that race and there always seems to be one ride like that every festival that blows me away. It looked like there were some burnt fingers too when I looked at the Betfair graph. It hit 75.0 and there was half decent money matched all the way down the ladder. OUCH!

All in all I was very happy with the week and really enjoyed the racing as usual. But it's back to normality now for a little while as we experience some very average meetings again. Saying that Cheltenham does tend to kick off the more liquid meetings coming up soon. So all good in the hood! I hope everyone who tackled Cheltenham learnt a lot about the more liquid markets and hopefully will know what to expect in the bigger meetings coming up in the summer.

Cheltenham - Day Two & Three

2011-03-17T22:42:00.007Z

Day Two

After a nice start to my fun bets on the first day, my e/w shots didn't perform yesterday unfortunately. No excuses really, it was just an impressive clean sweep for the Irish who dominated all of the races.

I started the trading day steady enough, but unlike the first day I got quite stuck into the other meetings on the card on Wednesday. Which I found to be more profitable overall than the races that I traded at Cheltenham. These races lacked the huge liquidity, but this actually helped me out too be honest. It was easier to get filled and there were some huge over reactions in some markets that I caught some tasty swings on.

I was struggling to get filled at Cheltenham and it was like slow motion trading for a while. This played on my mind a bit which I will talk about soon. The reason for the poor fill rate is because the markets are getting dramatically manipulated and its quite astonishing the effect this is having on everything. There's actually more money sat in the queues than any other Cheltenham I can remember, but actually less overall turnover and fill rate. This observation is almost a contradiction in itself as more money should mean more activity in general. Let me explain further:

When a market gets aggressively manipulated, the money that is sat around in the queues is a false representation of the genuine/or even traders money in that market. The huge amounts you see are often nothing more than market domination by one, or several bots controlling things for their own benefit. As crazy as that sounds! A money machine that seems to be created to trap people into taking losses. They do this by using large orders on several runners to control the market book and push it in their favour. I'm sorry if I lost you there =/

However it's not like they always get away with this kind of activity. What I think happens is they win big but also lose big too. They surely must be winning more than they are losing though as they are still around with their apparently limitless Betfair bank. When they can't hold a market in position, they need to fight their own orders which results in them chasing their losses. So opportunities are here to be had when this occurs but this only happens when there is enough resistance battling against this manipulation. A game and cat and mouse it would seem.

The problem this caused me on Wednesday was I lost my patience, and got too aggressive in the markets. This led me to struggle to keep my profit in tact in the later Cheltenham races. It felt like a roller coaster for an hour or so and was hard on the mind. I basically let my emotions control my actions too much and if you let your head go, everything else will spiral out on control. Luckily I noticed what I was doing and finished alright on the day considering my yo yo hour.

Day Three

The fill rate was still a bit poor at Cheltz but the big thing really was controlling my green zone better when I was already in profit. I wasn't too happy with my performance at Cheltz yesterday, so I decided to adopt a slightly different approach. I toned down my aggressiveness and kept a close eye on not over staking in markets which were slow at taking orders. This helped me reach a more consistent day, even though the profits on the races weren't as big. I felt more in control of my game plan and emotions today, and these two go hand in hand. It's a constant mind battle this trading lark and you have you keep a close eye on how you are behaving in certain scenarios. If you choose to ignore your emotions, the market becomes your worst nightmare and you lose all rational thoughts on what you should be doing. I made sure from the get go that my mind was focused and my emotions were calm and collected.

The big one today produced a cracking race- The 15:20 World Hurdle. Big Bucks was clear favourite at just above 2.0 with around 20 mins to go and it looked like a gamble all day long. I worked myself into a nice position getting a few orders matched about 2.02. I was sure a gamble looked obvious and I was waiting for it to develop. Problem was the manipulation got hold of it and after a small steam to around the 1.96 mark, it was eventually pushed out above 2.0 near the off. An annoying race in which I turned a £150 all into a £30 all as I thought the market was going to come down for ages! I was quite amazed it went back above 2.0 too be honest but hey, not to be. This was a great example of when the manipulation wins the battle.

Big Bucks again proved to us just how good he was by beating the up and coming superstar Grand Crus. The grey will be winning a World Hurdle soon I'm sure, but the young pretender wasn't going to overturn the champ just yet. Big Bucks found another turn of foot when Grand Crus came up against him at the last, and wow I still think he's got more in that endless tank of his. Pure class that horse and a joy to watch!

So we have one more day at Cheltz ladies and gents and I'm sure the fill rate will be a bit better tomorrow (lets hope) I've learnt a few lessons over the past few days, but also experienced many a smile :)

Let's see if I can get anything out of my last cheeky multiple on Gold Cup day:

13:30 - Sam Winner

14:05 - Alarazi

14:40 - Bobs Worth

15:20 - Long Run

16:00 - Baby Run

Enjoy tomorrow all, and good luck if you are trading the last day at Cheltz.

Cheltenham - Day One

2011-03-16T00:35:00.005Z

It's been a nervous lead up to the festival this year with Betfair's unexpected recent down time, so it was a pleasant surprise to receive an apology from them in response to my last blog post. Haha I doubt it was anything to do with my rambles on the subject but it was certainly coincidental anyways. Link here:

https://promotions.betfair.com/explanation

Plus they are also running the first decent promotion that I can remember that is really beneficial to us traders over Cheltz-

"We have listened to your feedback and, in recognition of your loyalty, we would like to offer you a 100% commission refund on a selection of this week's top markets."

That's more like it Betfair! Maybe my rambles weren't a waste of time after all ;)

£7 Boomer!

I always have a few cheeky bets over the Cheltz week and I landed a fantastic e/w multiple today.

Selections:

13:30 - Sprinter Sacre

14:05 - Captain Chris

14:40 - Bensalem

15:20 - Peddler's Cross

17:15 - Quantativeeasing

My stakes were -

50p E/W cross 4 folds.

£1 E/W acc.

Total - £7

2 won and the rest placed so the place part of the bet totaled an absolute gem of £275.32. Woooop!

Settled

Ref Id

Placed

Description

Avg. Odds

Stake

Status

DR
(£)

CR
(£)

Balance
(£)

2011-03-15
17:29

21328252

2011-03-15
17:29

Transfer from Multiples, Multiples Bet Id 21328252

275.32

This finished off a great start to the festival and I'll add my selections below for tomorrow. Let's see if I can continue the good fortune. Follow me in at your own peril though I must add.

I don't fancy as many on the card tomorrow, but I think these 3 have a great chance of placing and are all priced around the 8/1 mark.

14:40 - Aiteen Thirtythree

15:20 - Woolcombe Folly

17:15 - Raise The Beat

Bensalem Beauty!

It took me about an hour to find a groove in the markets today, but I did expect that too be honest. Nothing compares to Cheltenham and we have been so used to trading very average meetings over the past few months. The first day is always a bit of a warm up really, so If you found things hard going today just stay positive as you will gradually feel more comfortable playing in these markets as the week progresses.

The high odds on these big events are quite hard to try and work yourself into a nice position. For a few reasons - They often don't move much, the price takes up a lot of liability of your bank to be sat around in queues, and also orders can take a while to get matched. So patience is key really in these, and I would recommend you sit in a few queue positions and keep an eye on if the market feels solid. Then start to become active scalping around the available when things pick up a bit and the prices are staying within an obvious range. Also don't be scared to join the back of a big order if the market is very stable, ie. 10k. When the fill rate is good, you can still get some nice scalps away even behind big money.

You can still look out for market moves on runners though which have blatant public interest on. But I would say you have to take a more of a long term view on these if you are looking to ride a swing, due to the high amount of liquidity on both sides of the book. If there's momentum behind it, you can get a nice swing out of being prepared to wait in an open position.

My best result today came in the 14:40 Stewart Family Spinal Research Handicap Chase. I have really fancied Bensalem all week and if the horse didn't fall last time round at the festival, it could/should have easily won that race a year ago. So the way I viewed it was this was an overpriced selection and the market didn't properly take this into consideration. Without a win at Cheltenham, the horse was not in the public eye like many other runners on the day. It felt like 'the forgotten horse' as it were, so that 6/1 or 5/1 available @ many bookies easily could have been 3/1 if Bensalem didn't fall last year. Massive value I thought and I couldn't resist having a win single on the little beauty too.

Trading pre race, I built up a nice hedge amount of around £90 all, but I decided to try and maximise my profit by going in play with the full amount riding on him. I ended up backing a few runners as well in the race for small stakes that looked strong to cover all angles, but made sure I kept most of the profit on Bensalem. Unfortunately I couldn't hedge up for small stakes on the outsider 'The Rainbow Hunter'. Which left me with too much profit on that runner. Oops but no complaints I was very chuffed with the final result:

I will look to adopt this technique on a few other runners I fancy this week. However this approach is backing up my own opinion that certain horses will travel well in that race, if not win it. So I'll only do this on horses I think have a really good chance.

STJ Cheltenham Offer

Better late than never hey!

I've decided to run a Sports Trading Journey Cheltenham offer that will be available from the 16th - 21st March.

If you are interested in learning how to trade from either the very beginning/ or alternatively you are a trader searching for new angles and techniques to implement into your own game, please visit the link below for more details.

10% Off 'STJ Six Month Journey' Course!

Only available if you choose the 'pay up front' option.

Was - ~~£199~~

Now - £179

for more info visit:

www.SportsTradingJourney.com

I'm still buzzing after today but times a ticking I must try and sleep........bring on tomorrow!

Betfair Crash! (Again)

2011-03-12T17:14:00.003Z

With the Cheltenham festival just around the corner, what's the first thing on our minds right now? The excitement of seeing the greatest show on turf? The huge boost in liquidity in the markets? The sound of the loudest roar in the racing calendar? Unfortunately not.....

It's yet again the thought of Betfair's instability, and terrible service that is beyond a joke. Another Saturday arrives and another crash occurs! I've lost all faith in the company and there is simply no excuses anymore in my opinion.

It's all very well they say they have just undergone 'the largest infrastructure project in it's history' in Ireland and are claiming they are up there with the giants of the IT industry. With the likes of Google, Ebay, and Amazon. But in my eyes, Betfair are a country mile off achieving anyway near the amount respect and great praise these other giants are rewarded with. If Betfair think they should be even mentioned in the same sentence as these giants, they have a lot of work to do! The first step should be the most obvious - provide a service to customers that is stable and robust. Simples! If you cannot achieve this on a regular basis, what the hell are you doing in the IT industry. Second step I've mentioned before, is listen to your customers and make them feel like you want them as your customer. Not in the scenario right now which is a classic case of feeling the need to use your exchange due to your monopoly domination.

With the explosion of social media over the past few years, we are in constant communication with each other and the power of the consumer is really apparent. The Internet has turned into a very open playing field in terms of letting other consumers know what's really going on. Anyone can post up opinions about products/services/websites, so there really is no hiding place when it comes to corporate bull$^i! anymore. I think Betfair is treading on thin ice right now and they seem to be betting on keeping 'secrets' from people, instead of being willing to be 'open' on these issues. My opinion is, be transparent in your business and people will respect you for it.

Betfair is leaving us in the dark too often and this will only ruin them if they choose to continue operating like this in the future. I hope they open their eyes up and see how much of an impact this is having on their companies reputation.

The main problem for us is that Betfair is a monopoly, where so much of the liquidity is generated on their exchange. As a trader it's not easy to pack up our bags and move elsewhere unfortunately. So there reputation might be going South, but they know we will be coming back. Although I think you all should be keeping a keen eye on the Betfair share price, coz it's only going in one way.

Other competitors could be doing a lot more to take advantage of this situation. You have to do something more to grab our attention and make us think about alternatives to Betfair, come on how many chances do you want to land on your plate without doing something dramatic to make us move? People are crying out for change but we need persuading :)

The real question right now - Is Betfair going to be stable enough over the Cheltenham festival?

It's a big worry and all we can really do is hope they sort their Shi! out. Going by the recent shenanigans this year, I've never been so scared to trade in volumes on such a great event.

I hope nobody got caught out badly by todays drop out.

Rgds

What A Difference A Day Makes

2011-03-03T22:44:00.002Z

Howdy,

I noticed a few comments on the STJ forum regarding people struggling yesterday in the markets, yet finding today a breath of fresh air. So I thought I'd make a post about why this was the case to try and help other people understand the situation too. I'm comparing the 2nd and 3rd March. Did you see a difference in the market conditions? Did you do well one day and struggle the next?

Please leave comments below if you traded both these days and found this to be the case.

'What a difference a day makes' Let me explain..............

2nd March

First I want to mention there is a huge diverse range of different meetings throughout the trading calendar and particular meetings attract more interest than others. It's that simple. By 'interest' I mean more money flows into these meetings and in turn generates more liquidity. It's common sense that if there is more 'interesting' meetings for the punters and the public in general on that day, more money arrives in the markets and this has a massive knock on effect for us traders.

So on the 2nd March the meetings on the card were quite weak as a whole.

Bangor

Downpatrick

Folkestone

Kempton

Wolverhampton

When we have cards like this on a day, we can't expect to see huge amounts of real genuine money being attracted to these meetings. So what happened yesterday was a clear case of traders and manipulators battling against each other for prices and queue positions. So spikes were common place in the market. There was lots of aggressive and erratic behaviour and this basically means patterns were harder to spot and follow. I think yesterday in particular had a lot of races where everyone was half guessing the market, and it was obvious big manipulation was dominating the market. The 'flow' was very weak so instead of money getting turned over at steady intervals, it was very quiet for minutes on end without much happening. Then suddenly someone hit a price and the whole market was thrown out of sync and the chase and battle continued. While you were sat around in queue positions, the market struggled to find an equilibrium which in turn made getting in and out of a situation with little risk hard going.

3rd March

Today was a different ball game and the meetings on the card were average.

Ludlow

Southwell

Tauton

Wolverhampton

Meydan

When there is three meetings on a day (which is quite regular) we want to see at least two of those three in the day that aren't All Weather or Irish meetings. Why? Coz these meetings should attract more money to them as mentioned earlier.

Based on the meetings lined up on the card, the markets should have attracted more money in general and this was definitely the case. In fact it felt more like an average card in the summer too be honest, where there was a really good amount of overall turnover matched, with some real genuine action in the markets. Of course there was still erratic moves at times, but this behaviour happens on most days too be honest.

The huge difference was the amount of 'flow' in the market and to spot this look at how much money is spiking through the market, and how regular this is happening. So when more money is getting turned over on both sides plus with a good amount of flow in that market, you can get in and out of a position faster and with less risk.

Also due to the fact the markets get manipulated so much nowadays, I saw an obvious battle against the big manipulation where this automation struggled sometimes to keep up with the overall activity in the market. Again the knock on affect of this was long term trends and also highs/lows of the markets were reacting quite well to momentum moves and bounce backs in a price.

Ok ramble over hope that was some help to a few people.

London Olympics 2012

2011-02-28T21:44:00.001Z

I returned back from London last week after a small break away. It got me thinking about the Olympics in 2012 and tickets go on sale in March 2011, I've got to go!

I'll be trying some trading on the event too which I'm sure will be an interesting learning curve, but one I'll be keen on doing some research on before I get stuck in. I wouldn't know where to start too be honest, however money will be flying into the markets so I think I'll be keeping a bit of an eye on athletics over the coming year or so.

But seriously who the £u^# did the art work and whole design concept for the games? I don't mean the structures for the games themselves, they look mighty impressive....

I'm referring to the logo and the mascots.Yikes they are sooo bad they are actually hilarious!

I'm beginning to think they let a child take over this part of the procedure, or someone who's been in the woods picking too many magic mushrooms. To explain my point further watch this video:

STJ - New Monthly Subscription

2011-02-12T12:45:00.000Z

"This one I have to pay money for, but she worth it! Wa wa wee wa!"

New Computer

Wa wa wee wa! My new computer arrived a few days ago and wow it feels good to have a reliable machine again after my recent shenanigans! It works like a dream however I did go a little bit overkill on the specs:

• AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
• ATI HD 5770 1GB Graphic Card
• 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory
• 1TB SATA-II Hard Drive
• 64 GB Corsair Nova Series P64 Gaming MLC Solid State Disk
• Asus M4N68T-M V2 AM3 MB
• Thermaltake V3 Black Case
• Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling

It will last me years so it's a good investment, and I've gotta say the company I bought it from were great! Very helpful customer service, safely wrapped and tidy cables inside the computer. Not to mention the cheap prices on a custom build gaming machine and an excellent build quality overall. So if anyone is looking to buy a new pc I'd recommend this site:

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/

STJ

I've just added a new payment option to Sports Trading Journey. Available to any budding trader wishing to learn sports trading from the very basics, and also current traders wanting to reach new heights and improve their styles and techniques.

Now available on the site is a monthly subscription for the journey. 6 easy installments are made via Paypal on a monthly basis. It's that simple!

You will still receive all the great content available to you just like the pay up front option, the only difference being the payments are made easier.

The community at STJ is growing fast and there's already a few members saying some great things about the journey, even though they are only 9 weeks in. Read about some early testimonials here on the Geeks Toy forum:

Geeks Toy Forum

For more info visit STJ

Cheers

The Human vs The Machine

2011-02-08T01:40:00.002Z

Load this market up now for the latest odds!

http://www.betfair.com/humanvsmachine - Place your bets now!

The last two weeks I have:

1. Understood the workings of a computer more than I probably ever wanted to.
2. Nearly witnessed a computer flying out of my window.

SUMMARY:

Alright so I bought my bro's computer off him a few weeks ago at a bargain price (after assuring me it was a stable machine even though he didn't used it for 6 months) and I was more than happy with my purchase. That's until the dreaded freezing came into play, with strange error messages appearing left/right & centre. The battle begins....

ROUND 1:

A few posts back I mentioned memory/RAM testing, and I found a faulty stick in my machine so I thought bingo! just buy some new RAM and problem solved. Think again...although I solved the issue of the dodgy RAM, some other issues were still apparent. Ha it's not like I waited for a week to receive my new RAM from Germany to solve the problems. Ohhhh no. So.....after reinstalling windows and noticing the errors were still haunting me, I narrowed it down to being another hardware issue.

ROUND 2:

So I ripped the thing to pieces (yes this was satisfying) and cleaned the mofo head to toe. I rebooted the mofo up and did some more research online. I found out you could manually change all the settings in the BIOS to configure your hardware to run at the optimum rates required of your motherboard. So I tinkered around with getting the perfect volts/bus speed/ vram frequency and all that crazy technical stuff to see if the default settings were causing the mofo to crash.

NOTE: I smelt victory in the air and I felt confident I was going to have the last laugh.

ROUND 3:

After several reboots and tweaking I honestly thought I had won the battle! It worked with no crashes for several hours and I even had a sly giggle of satisfaction. Shame on me! A few hours later the mofo died on me again. Hmmmmm.

ROUND 4:

After finally getting the thing up and running again I got on the tinterweb and did some more research. I found a program that tests the temperature of your processor. I downloaded it and found it was running at around 65 degrees when it was idle, and it shouldn't even be going to 70 when its running at full speed on an intensive stress test. Wahoo that's it of course! The mofo is just struggling and needs to chill out a little. Literally. Then BOOM the mofo died on me again.

NOTE: By this point you might be wondering, why the F%^k are you torturing yourself Jack? and the answer is much like the game of trading.....this was a battle I wasn't willing to give in to.

ROUND 5:

My bro had given me this strange compound paste which you spread on the surface of your fan which sits on your motherboard, this helps to reduce the overall heat that is getting trapped (apparently) OK jobs a good en, so I got started on the surgical procedure right away. A short time (ish) later I booted up again and did the temperature test. Unbelievably I had knocked around 15 degrees off my last test. Shocked and somewhat chuffed I was 100% confident I had finally solved the mystery...an overheating processor. I did a little dance, clicked my heels in joy and thought I was going to start a whole new career as a computer technician. OK maybe not but the battle had been won.......so I thought.

2 hours later it crashed again and that was where I nearly witnessed a flying computer from my window. But after a reality check I held up my white flag and bowed my head in shame to the victorious machine. I narrowed it down to a faulty processor, video card or hard drive but I really couldn't be assed with it anymore.

RESULT: Winner - The Machine by TKO

The taste in my mouth was bitter, as not only had I wasted hours on this mofo but I was forced to give in to the machine. The bastard won and I couldn't even smash the thing up to cheat in victory as my bro wanted it back to start his own battle with it. Don't ask me why ha. It was an interesting learning curve and I hope an enjoying post to read, but not one I will be looking to repeat anytime soon.

So the moral of the story - only buy a second hand computer if you can bet your life on it working perfectly. Let this be a lesson, it's not worth the battle I can assure you.

But today brings a new day and ooooooooh yeh a new computer! It should be arriving before 10am and it's the computer in the pic at the top. It's a beast which is custom built and touch wood 'should' last me years. So here's to a computer that actually works properly. Well I hope :)

Betfair Shambles

2011-02-05T15:22:00.005Z

Another Saturday arrives and another Saturday we have a Betfair crash!

When is this recurring event of pure incompetence going to stop I ask? Never is the answer...

Betfair's instability has been a formality for years too be honest and this is no breaking news. But does this mean we just say ohh OK no problem, a company worth over 1 Billion is allowed to be unstable and have terms written in to their conditions to cover their backs when the %£$ hits the fan?

I don't have a problem with the scheduled down times that Betfair announce, as you simply stay clear of the markets for a day or so afterwards while they pull their finger out. But an outage out of the blue when you least expect it is a shambles. It's all a bit of a joke and there should be better rules and regs lined up to cover the customer if and more appropriately 'when' Betfair crashes again. Not just rules in small print to just cover Betfair, the principle is all wrong. Betfair are forcing us to play the all money on red situation when 'they' as a business can't keep the hamsters in their wheels running quick enough.

Lets be honest things aren't going to change for the following reasons:

Betfair can't take liability on all bets if a crash occurs.
Betfair are doing what is in their best interests and not the customers.
Anything can happen and systems can fail and become unstable.

But this is what I believe Betfair should implement: (in my dreams)

Build a bomb proof backup, (or 2) and have a carbon copy of the entire system with servers ready to go jump into action after an outage. This backup has to be running constantly and needs as much maintenance as the primary system. When a crash occurs it might be down a few seconds until the backup kicks into gear...but no worries. Money well spent in my eyes
Provide a better overall customer experience and listen to what people have to say.....at least send an apology email out to people for random outages and downtime. How hard is that?? Even go to the effort in offering people who are out of pocket a promotion... a free bet, a discounted voucher to the races, just anything to make the customer feel like their not been taken for a ride on a roller coaster with no harness.
When the downtime happens, offer everyone a chance to use the exchange at a discounted commission rate. Instead of 5%, offer a 2% day deal a few days later to make people smile and not frown. Give a little back to the people who are filling your pockets. It's really not that difficult.

There is too much taking and not enough giving back as fair as I'm concerned and its such a shame. I have listed just a few ways to really improve on things and take the exchange forward, and these are only ideas off the top of my head. However the honest truth is probably much of the same I'm sure...

So I'm guessing Betfair's next genius idea to build a better exchange is to....increase the premium charge rates. Ohhh you clever people you tut tut tut.

Post some comments below guys of your thoughts on how Betfair could improve. Cheers and cheerio :)

Memory Test

2011-01-19T00:05:00.000Z

Happy New Year to all....here's to a prosperous 2011!

The launch of SportsTradingJourney has gone really well and there's many exciting things happening over the next year. Many thanks to the community of people who have become active members of the site. All the best!

January is known for being one of the poorest months in the horse trading calendar due to the lower quality of racing on offer. Added to the fact the colder weather is often still apparent around the country which inevitably has an affect on how the markets operate.

However over the weekend on Saturday, we had the rescheduled Boxing Day meeting at Kempton reinstated which is always a great day for racing and the markets alike. It was a bonus having such a high quality meeting on show this time of year.

The two big group 1's were great races and the liquidity on the day I thought was pretty good overall. Binocular looked very impressive in the 2m hurdle and the Champion Hurdle @ Cheltenham is hotting up to be a fantastic race with some up and coming prospects looking to take on Binocular the champ. Kauto Star in the other big group 1 race - The King George didn't ever seem to ever travel in the race and looked to be struggling for pace. Long Run wasn't hanging around though and he successfully dethroned Kauto putting in a very solid round of jumping. He he looks a star for the future and has loads of years left in him. Yet again we have another exciting Gold Cup lined up this year @ Cheltenham, but I think people won't be just focusing on the top 2 big guns at the Nicholls yard this time!

I really enjoyed the days trading and felt like I got into the zone. But unfortunately I had to stop just before the Kauto Star race was kicking off due to bad memory. With this I actually mean bad/corrupt memory in my computer, also known as the RAM.

I have recently bought a new computer off my bro and its super quick, but I noticed a few programs were randomely doing a windows crash on me every so often. It only happened now and again so I didn't think much of it until it happened again whilst I was trading on Saturday. Luckily I only had a few positions in the queues early on the Kauto Star market and I easily cancelled all my bets on Betfair after the crash. So no harm done......But I knew I had to get to the bottom of the issue as a reliable computer is imperative to a traders success.

After a bit of research I found a bit of software called Memtest86. This tests if your RAM is performing how it should be doing and detects if theres any errors and issues. If the test shows up any problems then you need new RAM...its that simple. Dodgy RAM can do some weird things to your computer and this is the last thing you want as a trader. So if your computer is acting strange and closing down applications/software or not booting up windows for example..... do the following:

1. Rip this bit of software to a CD.
2. From the bios menu when your computer is booting up (hit delete to access it) click on the option that says boot at the tab at the top.
3. Select the primary boot drive to be from the CD.
4. Restart the computer.
5. Your computer will now run from the CD and automatically run the memory test for you.
6. Leave it a few hours and see if the program finds any errors.
7. After the test is completed reset the boot up menu to be from your hard drive not the CD.

If you have no errors then bingo your RAM is reliable and there must be something else wrong with your compujter. But if the test finds some errors then do something about it as soon as you can. Don't risk trading until you have it sorted as its simply not worth it.....Better safe than sorry and all that jazz :)

I'm currently waiting for my new RAM to arrive in the post.

Here's a p/l shot of the days trading leading up to the crash. An annoying end to a nice day but no complaints on the total.

NEW Website Launched!

2010-12-12T14:51:00.005Z

I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Sports Trading Journey website! Please feel free to have a look around and sign up to the FREE membership plan. After joining you can will be able to check out the 'Ultimate Start-Up Package', which is a series of 11 videos I've created that contains everything you will need to set yourself up as a trader. Some more free videos are available to watch and plenty more will be updated over time.

All the information about what the Sports Trading Journey is all about is viewable on the site, so if your tired of waking up to cancelled meetings and an overload of all weather tracks, go check out some videos.

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into trading again after spending more time on the site than in the markets recently. But I'll ease myself into it all over the next few weeks while the weathers still a little temperamental. My rusty trigger finger will have to get polished off but a break from it all I've found in the past is never a bad thing. Fingers crossed to a few warmer months....OK maybe I'm dreaming.

The best advice I'd give over the winter is to reduce stakes and be less active in the markets. The moves can be erratic and the fill rate can be terrible! There is a huge percentage of traders fighting against each other for positions and the markets don't always react in a controlled manner. So being clever about when you enter/exit and control your staking is so important. Being patient and picking your opportunities wisely is the way to go.

Just remember loads of opportunities will be around the corner soon. It's a time to plod by and lower your expectations this time of year, preparing for the coming new year and having some epic snow ball fights!

Denman's Third Hennessy?

2010-11-27T11:58:00.002Z

I've always been a massive follower of Denman and he returns to action once again today at Newbury. He attempts to make history by winning his third Hennessy Gold Cup in the 15:05. Denman's a year older, 8lb higher in the weights but this year the preparation has gone very smoothly apparently. He will have to be at his best to beat a very competitive field today and with Sam Thomas back on his back (rightly so in my eyes) things are lined up for a fantastic race!

I've been watching the market over the past day and there's an interesting drift on Denman. It's traded at a low at 4.72, but around the 5.8 mark this time yesterday. It's currently trading at 7.4 and even touched 7.8. I believe this price could look massive at the end of the race as I think Denman's going to be back to his best fresh. Jumping in his relentless fashion and almost bullying his rivals into defeat. If he starts to find his rhythm, anything over 7.0 on Betfair is going to get smashed in price. Could be a nice back to lay in running but I'm personally having a cheeky double. Go on the tank!

I'm doubling Denman with Big Bucks, another horse who I have closely followed over the years and has done me well. Today should be a walk in the palk for him and he should be a class above his competition over 3m hurdles. He's very short in price though and currently trading at 1.30 running in the 14:30 Newbury. That's why it's worth a double and no single bet. He often hits a flat spot in his races but always finds more :)

As a trader I don't often have a punt, but now and again I like to get involved. Today seems a nice opportunity to get a decent double up.

Fingers crossed!

Ello Ello

2010-11-19T19:26:00.012Z

Howdy all, It's about time I get back to blogging and update a few things. I haven't posted in a while coz I haven't done much trading for myself recently. I've been busy finishing off the educational videos for SportsTradingJourney and it's taken me a lot longer than I first thought. It's the planning, editing and producing stages rather than the actual video creating that eats up the time. So the only way I was going to get this site finished before the end of the year was to focus 100% of my time on it. It's well on the way now and I'll be opening the doors up very soon. Thanks for your patience to everyone who has shown an interest.

Motherland Return

I moved back from Madrid a few months ago which was pretty crazy. I stayed there a little longer than first planned, but it was well worth it! I still have the travelling bug inside me and I can see myself jumping on a plane to another country sometime in the future. The experience was awesome and who knows where I'll be checking out in the years to come but for now my feet are firmly set in the motherland. I'd recommend to anyone to live in another country for the pure shits and giggles of it all, and I'm looking forward to doing it again someday.

Geeks Toy

Most of you in the sports trading world will be aware of a trading program called The Geek's Toy. But if you haven't heard of it by now where have you been?? Link here: Geek's Toy

It's taken the trading industry by storm and not just coz the software will remain free for 2011! It's due to the fact that The Toy easily competes against the other product vendors that charge a fee for their use. Recently GeeksToy.com have been running a charity fund raiser for charity need. This message is a bit belated I know but check out the good work thats been taking place as I'm sure he'll be running more fund raisers like these in the future.

I was beta testing the new release of Version 1.1 with Advanced Charting & Market Overview before the official release came out, as I've been thinking about using the Toy for my day to day trading for a while now. The only main feature the Toy was missing was the charting, and ladies and gentlemen it has arrived! There's a million and one settings in the Toy and all customizable to set up the software perfect for your needs.

I've used another product vendor for years now so I wasn't easily going to change over to a program just coz it's free. I wanted a program that added something extra and everything about the Toy makes it an easy decision to change products. After playing around with it for sometime I think it's actually faster, more customisable and generally a more slick product in general to use than anything on the market. The product being free is just a huge bonus and my hats go off to the Geek to creating this bit of software that is only going to get better!

"Probably the best Betfair Trading Software in the world!"

Back To It

I'm looking forward to getting down to business again and I'll be easing myself back into things as this time of year can be a bit tricky. Mainly due to the change of seasons - from flat to jumps and the weather will throw a spanner in the mix soon. But it's a great time to get stuck in the markets and learn the ropes for when the nice summer meetings come into action next year. In December there is some nice meetings on though, especially around the end of year so they should be some good trading fodder.

I've had a few bizarre comments regarding Sam Wilson I want to clear up. I don't speak on behalf of Sam but I want to mention he's definitely not an alias of mine I'm pretending to be. A silly bit of speculation that if you checked a few of his videos you will realise we are 2 different people. Makes me laugh really as I don't know how pretending to be someone else would benefit me.

People come and go in the blogging world and I know a few ex bloggers who stopped coz the amount of ridiculous comments from unwelcome anonymous contributors. My words of advice for these people....If you have nothing useful to say....pipe down and focus on your own trading.

On a lighter note I'm going to introduce something new to my blog next year. I've been thinking about what ideas I could implement to make things more interactive with people. I'll explain in more detail about this at the start of 2011 :)

Happy Trading!

Goodwood & New Vids

2010-08-02T21:01:00.011+01:00

Well I'm still in Spain even though my initial plans were to move back to London in July. I couldn't resist staying here till the end of the summer as it's scorching now. So come November I'll be back in the big smoke :)

I was lucky enough to be in the country that lifted the World Cup and wow what an experience! The streets were flooded with people all with a grin from ear to ear and it felt like a festival vibe with the city buzzing for days. It's safe to say the city has calmed down a little now, although you can still see the smugness a mile off. Who blames them, I thought Spain were the stand out team from the start and they didn't disappoint.

Glorious Goodwood

The markets last week were very nice trading fodder. The big meetings attract a lot more interest to the exchanges and this in turn generates a lot more liquidity than normal meetings. What is great though on major festivals is that the extra boost of cash flows into the other meetings on the card which creates opportunities all over the place. Big meetings like this tend to raise the bar day by day where you will see a build up to the top top races later in the week. But this doesn't always transfer into the way you profit from the markets. Bizarrely enough though this week it did, where I kept improving on my previous days profit by a hundred or so. So when the end of the Saturday came I felt a little tear slide down my cheek as I wanted Goodwood to last forever ;(

I think a lot of people struggle on the big meetings due to the fact the markets look and feel so much different to normal. You simply have to adopt an alternative approach to trading these and be willing to increase your stakes to get the most out of them. The reason why most full-time traders enjoy these times is mainly down to the market acting like it should most of the time. What I mean by this is a market is filled with enough genuine money to counteract the amount of traders and manipulators in the market. This means the market finds resistant points nicely which can be easily spotted/enough turnover to power through orders yourself/and many strong indicators can be found to back up your opinions. So really this makes things easier for the experienced trader and most of the time makes things become enjoyable and profitable.

Unfortunately the evening racing is coming to a close, and soon we'll be tackling obstacles such as bad weather and poor meetings. But for now make the most out of the next month where you can make a nice bonus on the day with the extra races on the card.

Here's Saturdays P/L:

New Vids

I took the day off trading today, but wouldn't have if I took notice of it being a Bank Holiday. There are always more meetings on the card and I always seem to do well on them. But hey I decided to create a few video's instead.

The first 1 is uploaded to my Screencast folder and is for everyone who reads the blog. It's using £10 stakes and shows you how you really don't need a big bank to chuck a few ££'s in the account.

First Vid: here

The Second vid is exclusively for people on the SportsTradingJourney mailing-list. Don't worry if you are not currently on it, it's free to sign up and all you need to join and receive the second vid is include your name and email.

Mailing-list: here

The Second vid is 20 minutes long and gives a little bit more info on what's happening with the upcoming online tuition site that's going to be launched. The vid shows you 2 races with audio commentary, expressing my thought process behind every decision.

The video will be sent out to your email over the next few days, keep an eye out in your Inbox.

I want to mention that no trader is perfect and even people who are full-time constantly make mistakes. The difference is the people who have found consistency are those who are willing to make mistakes and learn from them. It's part of the game that you will lose before you succeed. It's not about trying to maximise every opportunity while your learning trading, these videos will show you that you don't have to be clicking like a madman chasing yourself around the market to make a living from trading. It's staying patient and picking your opportunities wisely first, then after when you find a consistent edge you can start trying to maximise your returns and push yourself furthur.

Enjoy & Happy clicking!

New Courses Dates In London

2010-06-07T20:22:00.009+01:00

After several months of running separate training courses from home, Sam and I have organised our first joint courses held just after the World Cup Final. We are now taking bookings and for more info please click HERE

Market Madness

Trading is a funny old game, as you don't really know what each day will bring and what new opportunities may arise. All it takes is 1 bookie or big punter to put a decent order through the market and it changes everything in that 10 minutes worth of trading. Even though the turnover in a race can easily push over the 1 million pound mark in high quality meetings. An order for example of £10-20k can dramatically affect the overall price even in these types of races. There are many factors for this, but the main reason is that most of that massive turnover in a race is accumulated from traders and not genuine bets. When someone is willing to smash a large genuine bet in the market, some traders will instantly be caught out and needing to close their positions out. This accelerates the desperation in people's minds and you can almost feel people starting to panic. This ultimately leads to people not only scrambling to get out for a loss but also other people scrambling to get on the possible move.

Another knock on affect of large orders flying into a market, is if someone is manipulating the price to their benefit and holding a price where they want it. Then this can completely destroy the manipulators objective and force a market to react in other crazy ways when they either chase their own position, or alternatively keep trying to push a market back to a price which puts them back in the green.

From Thursday-Saturday (I didn't trade Sunday but it might have been the same behaviour) someone was willing to smash through large orders on nearly every race of the day and eve's. This proved an exciting few days in trying to make the most of of situations like these, and in my eyes if you see a big gambler like this around you have to base your whole strategies and styles around him. If anyone was trading and had a hard time of things, I'll explain a few basis ways to approach markets with a big player in them.

Be very careful leaving too much lay money sat around. The big punt can come at any time and can easily wipe your orders out leaving you no time to exit for a small loss.
Try get on the first move, but only if you are confident the order is genuine and they want the bet matched. If they do a common occurrence is they drag the bet down until its matched.
If you miss the first move, there is often a chance to still get ride the price down. But it all depends on how much of the large bet has been taken and how far the price has gone down already. React to the situation accordingly and if you think the order is still going to be dragged down don't hesitate and get involved.
Looking for the reversal can work nicely as well by watching closely for when the big bet gets taken, riding a possible bounce back move where the price adjusts to the over reaction of the large bet.
If the price is being manipulated anyway before the big bet flys in, be careful what price you hit and pay attention to what the manipulation is trying to do after the large orders comes.

These are a few things to consider if you see this type of behaviour again, and I assure you will do at some point in the future. Who knows today at Ascot could entice some large bets :)

Friday and Saturday were my best days last week, although unfortunately on a few occasions I didn't make the most out of what was going on. I was getting a little bit too aggressive on some of the moves and I annoyed myself near the end of the day time card on Saturday. You'll see on the p/l screenshot I got a bit carried away with putting too much money on at times where I really didn't need to. Especially when I was already 600 notes up. There was a lot of money to be made and it's hard to really nail all of these markets. But all in all I was happy with the overall profits in the madness of the weekend.

Friday

Saturday

Good luck at Ascot and keep an eye out for large orders!

The Secret Of Consistency

2010-06-01T18:29:00.014+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently, I've been busy finishing off my last courses in Madrid and planning out my move back to London.

I'd like to thank everyone who has attended 1 of my courses so far. It's been a very interesting experience for me which has changed up my lifestyle somewhat. After years of looking at the markets its a nice venture to go down by making my days different to just staring at numbers going up and down :) It's also been very rewarding and something that I will be happily doing with Sam for sometime to come. On that topic Sam and I will soon be announcing our first joint course dates very soon on my next post! We are going to be offering for the first few course packages of 1-2 days in mid July. I'll explain it all on my next post so keep an eye out over the next week or so.

When I first started running the courses I didn't expect that I would enjoy them as much as I have, even though I seem to have a habit of exhausting both the client and myself out by the time the course finishes. I hope you have gained a lot from them in offering you a chance to see what works for me, showing you an alternative perspective looking at the market and offered you a plan of action for the coming months.

The people who has sat beside me realise I have no golden ticket in controlling your financial future. I can show you the how to, but you have to be the one that clicks the button and react correctly to a mix of circumstances. This will come with time, but you have to be willing to give it just that - time. It's all about being able to adapt to each market condition and trying to maximise profit from the markets your reading correctly whilst minimising your losses from the markets that are difficult. There are so many more difficult markets on an average week that successfully cutting your losses is so important. It sounds simple I know, but you have to stick to strict rules in this game otherwise your fighting a losing battle. I think here lies a factor why people have many problems coming to term with consistent profits.

In simple terms what I regard a good market is 1 that not only has decent liquidity in volume but also has a good fill rate in the market. This is essential in being able to get out of trouble quickly if it turns against you as your order gets matched at a loss that is easily recovered. Also it ensures you turn over your own bank a few times which ultimately leads to happier rewards. Thinner markets are trickier due the fact they don't attract as much genuine money to them. Which leads to them being pushed around by manipulation and not bouncing to and from resistance points very easily. I often know when and where and market 'should' be at throughout a race, but when there isn't enough genuine moves occurring, then situations don't always happen as they 'should' do. I always tell people expect the unexpected at all times, because inevitably markets will do unexpected things more times than you could imagine.

So the secret of consistency I believe is down to being able to minimise your losses very well in many different scenarios. From swing to scalp trading it doesn't make much difference. Apart from in a swing trade I am willing to give myself a larger loss margin where I'm looking for a potential swing back in my favour. A small loss can turn into a substantial loss very quickly if you are not ready to execute your exit position. If you can be prepared to take the small loss before the price hits you, closing out for a loss becomes so much easier. Simply put you were ready to take the loss before the market even got there. Like programming your mind into expecting the market to do what you weren't expecting, and just take the recoverable loss straight away. If you don't do this it is almost too easy to panic when the a situation turns into a small loss, freeze, stare at the screen and 2 seconds later that small loss you could of taken is now a loss that isn't easily recoverable. Having a big loss affects not only a nasty look on your p/l, but makes it so hard to stay clear minded in the following races in the day. Depending on how bad the loss is even to the point of affecting your head throughout the whole week/month.

Hope that made some kind of sense :)

Here's the difference between a steady day of little losses, and smaller wins with more consistency.

Compared to a day with bigger losses and bigger wins meaning less overall profit on the day. It just shows how the small profits build up when you are not throwing away too much of hard earn cash.

SportsTradingJourney

We have had many discussions on where to how to take the membership site forward. It won't be a million miles away from launch but we want to make sure we get it right from the off so please bear with us. It will be more likely be launched when I'm back in London. Also we'll get some more free vids out to the mailing list very soon so check your emails.

Few thoughts -

The reason I think this is worth pursuing and how the idea came about is because it became apparent how much people learnt from analysing my own videos whilst on my courses. If we can get a similar kind of experience over the web then I think it will really benefit people.

The problem is that when I can talk over the videos in person. Where I pause, rewind and re- explain things. I can give a full understanding of exactly whats happening and why. Where expressing this online in a vid will be a little harder to get the full story across. With this is mind we want the membership site only to be available to people who have attended the course. Not only will this make it a very exclusive area where people can interact with each other, but mainly that people we are trying to help have met us in person and seen it all happen live. The way we trade, how we go about our decisions and how to implement strategies successfully. So seeing new fresh video's on a regular basis will really push their learning and understanding of the markets in the right direction a lot more. So we have decided to have the site like an on-going mentoring idea where we can easily get across everything we want to offer over a perfect teaching platform over the web.

Saying that we might introduce an area where people who haven't attended 1 of our courses can join up in another section. The interest looks good but we just really want to have the main aim of the site dedicated to the people we have met in person and can show them a clear path through our video's. The small group training courses are our main focus so the membership site will be a great way of helping these people out after they are thrown in the deep end and tackling the markets for themselves.

Chat & Forum

I've created a new chat feature to my site on a page at the top. I'll be on it when I can so feel free to come and say ello. But I won't be chatting away to myself so don't be shy :)
Sam and I will also be doing a Q&A session on the chat very soon where you can fire away questions at us for 30 mins or so. The date will be announced on the next post.

The forum seemed to have lost its momentum a little so I'll make sure I get some new posts on there and discuss a few things with everyone there. Sam and I will make sure we post quite often so again please don't hesitate to get involved.

Yikes sorry bit of a long post there, just had a few things I wanted to cover. Many thanks and please check back for more information on the London courses coming up in July.

Theres loads of opportunities around now with evening racing and some big meetings coming up Happy trading!

Betfair Travelling

2010-04-26T23:23:00.008+01:00

I returned back to Madrid from Barcelona on Friday night after escaping to the beach for 5 days and enjoying some time with a friend of mine. It's an awesome place to visit and I would recommend you not only check out some of the amazing architecture around, but also keep your wallet firmly in your trousers. It's renowned for having loads of dirty pick pocketers and there was a few occasions I had to give a few people the evils. It has a different vibe to Madrid and both have their charms. But I am definitely going to be searching for somewhere to live near a beach after my return back to London for a year or 2. Living the simple life is all I want really, and as much as life in Madrid has rewarded me this, living so far away from the ocean is something I am craving for on my next adventure.

Some people have asked me why I'm moving back to London when I'm living abroad like a lot of people dream of. But there many reasons for my move and my return to the motherland is by far a run away home mission. I moved to Madrid not to settle down and soak up the sun for the rest of my life, I moved here for an adventure with a friend of mine and it was never going to be a full-time move. I'm still young and want to travel the world trading in different countries and Madrid was just my first step. I'm thinking of possibly Brazil in the future to take advantage of the morning working hours and enjoying the beach life in the afternoon. I know someone who is already there and says its unbelievable.

What I have realised though, Betfair trading is not the kind of profession you can easily take your laptop with you and earn money whilst exploring different countries. Due to needing a good Internet connection and feeling the need to be happy in your work surroundings. But to all those wanting to travel and trade all i can say is do it! Instead of thinking for months about the consequences and challenges too much just go with the flow....what's the worst that could happen!

But for now I eyes are set firmly on London, and when I lived there before I was so far away from the centre I didn't feel like I got the most out of it. So I'm going to be pretty central this time probably around the Camden area and enjoy the crazyness of London for a bit. I've got a lot of friends in which I'm looking forward to catch up with, and Sam and I and going to really get stuck into teaching and helping as many people out as we can with progressing their own trading.

Trading Courses

I'm running my last few courses in Madrid so if people are interested in coming for a nice holiday combined with learning how to trade send me an email. The course dates are on the right and due to them being my last over here I've reduced the cost of them. These rates will only be this cheap whilst I'm in Madrid due to the fact that clients have to pay for other costs - flights accommodation etc. So for people wanting a very reasonable but very substantial training for 3-6 days let me know. You will be automatically be entitled for a group discount as well so its a double bonus.

SportsTradingJourney

Thanks to all who have checked out the free vids on the site and have put themselves on the mailing list. The interest has been amazing and this venture is something we are really looking forward to getting started as soon as we can. It looks like it will properly be launched when I'm back in London and Sam and I are currently building a huge amount of some great content for the site. The main emphasis of the site is just that - content! And clients will get a constant supply of new, fresh exciting videos on a regular basis that shows you a massive range of examples of how to trade the pre-race horse markets.

A few people have informed me that the first video is out of sync with the audio so apologies for this. I've rendered a new 1 and the correct vid will be on the site tomorrow. Many people have asked when some more videos are coming out and the wait will only be a few more days. Those who have subscribed to the mailing list will be getting 2 new free videos to get stuck into whilst you wait for the proper launch of the site! So keep an eye out this week in your email.

If you want to see some more free videos simply register on the mailing list @ www.sportstradingjourney.com and you will receive another free vid. With 2 more getting sent out to you over the next few days.

Hardest £9 Ever Earnt

After returning from Barcelona and having a week off I wanted a nice steady day on Saturday to get me back into the swing of things, but trading is never as straight forward as you want it to be. I started well building up a decent amount only to be stung badly in the 14:30 Sandown. A whopping -844 to be exact. Ouch! It was one of those freak times that you do something that 90% of the time would have worked but this time didn't. I layed Twist Magic at the off for a big stake as it was at the back of the field and looking like it was going to get a terrible start. Only to suddenly kick on from a running start whilst every other runner was left standing still. The price collapsed horribly from 3.0-1.80 straight away and left me pretty screwed the say the least. It was a combination of bad luck and getting way too involved on something in running that is generally the devil when it comes to pre - horse trading.

So I went on an almighty comeback after that, knowing I was trading well before that blip and continued in the same fashion there after. I got it all back with a crazy roller coaster day only to chuck 200 away on something very silly. I simply should have stopped when that big loss back but naturally wanted to kick on after seeing the green. So i plugged away on a few evening races and yet again managed to sneak in the green for £9. My hardest ever £9 earnt.......I'd probably say so.

The markets were fantastic on Saturday and it should have been a great day, but you have to keep your head and battle through times like that when luck sometimes isn't on your side. But I'm very happy to make the loss back and I feel now the markets have gathered momentum and the good times have come :)

So a conclusion is still this -

In Running = The Devil!

SportsTradingJourney

2010-03-30T11:50:00.019+01:00

Fellow traders and fellow want to be traders!

.....

I'd like to announce a project that Sam Wilson and I have had in the pipeline for a while. After many hours of idea swapping and brain wrestling we are introducing a membership in the name of:

www.SportsTradingJourney.com

If you click the link above it takes you to a temporary sign up page in which you will see my small stakes video I added on my forum to the left. When you add your email to the mailing list to the right, a confirmation opt in link will be sent out to you. Simply follow the link and it will take you to my second small stakes vid I've created using £5-£10 stakes. Also check out Sam's small stake's vid he's recently added on his blog - http://samwilson82.blogspot.com/.

If you like these training vids, you will love the membership site we are working on....It's everything you need to take your trading journey to the next level and show you the styles and techniques we use on a daily basis.

I think there is a common misunderstanding from pro traders that if you give away your secrets and your own styles behind your successful trading, your own edge will be lost. But I don't think this is the case and Sam and I intend to show you a very honest membership site with no hidden secrets. We are willing to show a full journey of trading material using videos with in-depth audio, and regular webinars to interact with our clients. Feedback and reviews of how to read a market accurately and a huge amount of trading content that will open your eyes up to how pro traders react and think in a wide range of examples. Progressing from small stakes in the region of £5-£10 - increasing them over time to £100+ stakes.

This site will be the only 1 of its kind anywhere in the world!

We have been approached by some big players in the sports trading industry, who wanted to fund some interesting projects with us. However there ideas and systems didn't fit within our philosophy of teaching trading. Ever since I started doing personalised training courses, I wanted to show people a very honest approach to really what's going on in the market. So this is why Sam and I have decided to create our own site dedicated to helping people in a long term trading journey.

We don't have to offer help, as we are both comfortable with the amount we are earning to live the life we choose. However we really think we can help traders who have a serious aspiration to become full time mentored by us. We are fully aware that there is a very very small percentage of people on the exchanges that make decent money from trading pre-horse markets, and I think a big reason for this is that there really isn't much good advice currently on offer. We want to improve this success rate and help take clients to live the flexible free living life trading can offer.

Sam and I have been on these markets separately and combined for coming on 5 years now and witnessing tens of thousands of markets we have experience and knowledge people are searching for. There are too many questions being asked on this some what mysterious profession as a full time exchange trader, and far few decent and genuine answers being offered back. Having this project we can organise all these answers in 1 centralised place.

This won't be a site about betting systems offering you simple trading tips, it's going to be guiding you down a path of how 2 pro traders make money from these extremely tricky markets. Get your name and email on the mailing list, and we will releasing a few more free videos until the site is all ready for kick off! Also please send me any requests and ideas that we could possibly introduce to our membership site. Many thanks!

Hasta Luego!

I Smell A Rat!

2010-03-12T16:26:00.007Z

Well after only a week of launching my new forum there's someone up to mischief already! Unbelievable really but something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. There's always going to be people who have nothing else better to do than try and spoil the friendly help given by other people. We are all here to make money and learn from 1 another, but this anonymous person either has too much time on there hands or has some alternative motives. Whatever the case I'd like to apologise on behalf of this unwanted poster and please have confidence that I'm on the case straight after writing this post in banning and removing all their posts/usernames they have decided to create.

The reason I wanted to create a forum where people can post as an anonymous user is to get anyone and everyone posting. It looks like this can't be the case unfortunately ladies and gentlemen so what I'm going to do is provide a forum only available to people registering. But this only takes literally a minute to setup and will get around this problem which is the last thing I and the people using the forum want. This joker has even pretended to be myself and it just shows when you offer anything in life, there's always going to be a select few who decide to take liberties on your kindness. But the forum is still viewable to all unregistered users, it's just you have to login to post.

So I'll explain the simple procedure to enjoy my forum in peace:

Click the forum link at the top of my blog.
Click on register to the right of the forum and open a free nabble account. Type a username/password, where a confirmation will be sent out to your email.
Follow the rest of the simple instructions and just make sure you login every time you view/post on the forum in future.

Easy Peazy! :)

I won't tolerate this kind of abuse and spam on my forum and simply won't hesitate banning users who decide to adopt this kind of behaviour. You've been warned!

Thanks for all who have posted so far (excluding this obvious fool of course) and it looks like the experiment of a forum on my blog seems very worthwhile me continuing. So long let the community grow and continue to be a big help for all involved!

I'll continue moderating the forum for now, but will be looking for a trusted moderator soon to keep a close eye on proceedings. It could be someone posting regularly on the forum or someone who has attended 1 of my courses. I'm not too sure yet but there is already some contenders on the forum who could be perfect for the job :)

Just a quick reminder that the members section on the forum is exclusively for people who have attended 1 of my courses. Simply register on the blog and send me out an invite so I can let you in to chat to other like minded chappies.

Please continue to use the forum now this issue has been sorted.

New Forum With New Vid

2010-03-06T21:06:00.005Z

I'd like to announce my new forum which I've added to my blog, where like minded traders can exchange ideas and any thoughts on the subject of trading.

Thanks go out to Alistair Hamilton from BetYourLifeSportsTrading for explaining the tricks of the trade as it were and helping me put the forum together. It's an awesome blog so check it out! Alistair like myself are just experimenting the idea of a forum on a blog. Please don't be shy ladies and gentlemen and start conversing.

If you go to my forum and go in the horse racing tab, you will see I've uploaded a new video with audio! It is 30 mins long using small stakes and shows you a technique of using speculative bets as a method of making money. The video will explain more of my thought process than I can easily explain here, and it just shows you really don't need a lot in the bank to make a living from trading. Enjoy!

There is also a members section exclusively for people who have attended 1 of my courses. Here you can chat openly to each other traders about specific methods and strategies I shared with you on my course. Even possibly linking up like a trading/skype buddy like I do with Sam. If you can kindly send me a request, I'll happily add you on the list for a very exclusive area for just you. Many thanks

Manipulation

I think I have to mention a few things that's being happening in the markets of late, just to make people aware of how much these markets are being manipulated. Yes we see this all the time and people mention the fact just deal with it and get on with it. But as much as I agree with this philosophy, you have to be aware of these constant changes in conditions and trade accordingly. You simply have to try and read behind the numbers of what's really going on in a market. Don't just follow the sheep and get drawn into traps that are constantly being set. These traps are set to catch traders out thinking its going 1 way, only to be pushed rapidly against them. Try and read into their decision processes of what they are trying to do to a market, that can ultimately be the difference between winning or losing on a race. Big money rules and you have to take note of market behavior where big money is forcing the price around at their leisure.

With all that in mind strategies like this are very risky and as its an unbelievably aggressive way of making money. I know for a fact they lose from time to time and who knows to what extent these guys are winning/losing as well. All I know is when you get these sort of things wrong it goes very very sour for them quickly.

This is what I saw a few times today where massive money was forcing it 1 way, only to turn against them. But the amazing thing about the current behavior is that I've seen these people chase themselves out of losses. To try and force a market yet again when its going against them, only to chase another big bet. Even to the point of waiting till it goes in running and bailing out of their postitions.....this baffles me! It seems odd to say the least but this what makes it a great game to play....not 1 day is the same and it keeps you guessing and searching for new answers.

There methods used seem rather reckless but the fact I keep seeing this manipulation makes me think they have to be making money overall. Or is it someone with more money than sense, quite possible! But a sure fire money maker when you have a massive bank....no way in my eyes! 1 thing I will give them credit for is the size of their bollox, wowza!

With any amount of money you are playing with, you have to be shrewd and trade with control, discipline and remember, theres always a bigger fish in the sea. Watch out for circling sharks, as we wait for these opportunities.

Like an opportunity on the 16:45 today where I noticed someone had a large order to get out on the lay side, I stuck with my gut instinct and got a lovely move going up.

Cheltenham

Well thank f@%* its March :) as Jan/Feb is the hardest time of year to trade. With the poor weather and everyone with one eye on Cheltenham, it proves a tricky time for traders. But come March I start to get an excitement of good times to come. The roar and big liquidity that Cheltenham brings sets the scene for the rest of the year, and I'm heading to London on Tuesday to enjoy it back in the motherland. I'll be back in Madrid late March to enjoy my final 6 week stay here before returning back to London in May.

Hope to speak to a few friendly faces on the forum, so ciao for now

Betfair Get A Grip!

2010-02-04T19:25:00.008Z

First of all I have to mention how awful Betfair (the monopoly exchange) has been operating recently. I can say that after trading on Betfair for many years, this is probably the worst run of Betfair downtime there has ever been! Usually if Betfair goes down, they sort out their issues and have it running by the next day no worries. Then if we are lucky, we might be able to have about a month's trading before yet another un-surprising crash. But this is getting a joke now too be honest and I'm definitely not the only 1 with these opinions. I've lost confidence in trading on the markets of late as I have no clue when betfair might possibly go down. It's hard enough to make a good living out of Betfair, without the fear that your whole bank can be lost in a split second if Betfair decides to fail on us. If it's there servers not able to withstand the hammering we do to them, misleading information on exactly what the hell is going on their end, or just the lack of consistency in how they deal with the process when everything decides to shut down. Whatever none sense is happening, it's simply not acceptable! Who's running this hugely profitable business...hamsters in hamster wheels? You have to ask yourself where is all that profit going towards? Making Betfair's api run more efficient? Creating a solid backbone to the whole workings of Betfair to keep us clients happy? I don't think so.

So what do we do?

Not a lot unfortunately as Betfair dominate the market by a country mile, and the liquidity is without a doubt the only reason why everyone is still putting up with this Betfair scandal. But I assure you this will keep happening over and over again unless we make a communal effort to try and put a spanner in the works. What I suggest is making 1 small step towards making it better for us all and forcing Betfair to open their eyes up to the truth.

How about once a week, lets say on a Monday everyone migrates to the purple side of Betdaq and trades/bets/arbs on there all day/night??? www.betdaq.com

I am asking everyone reading this post to please join me in practicing what you are all preaching for and give it a go. Actions speak louder than words and I'm hoping if I get a following of people this could really generate some momentum and swing some justice in our favour from a multi-billion pound company. It takes a mass migration for change so take a small step with me in showing Betfair who is really king...the client! They are never going to improve as a service unless they have some decent competition against their monopoly empire. Please vote on the poll for people willing to make this step with me.

Back To London

On a more happier tone, I mentioned on a previous post I was planning to move back to London in 2011. But I'm going to move my plan forward to the start of May 2010! In 3 months, the time feels right to go Central London and be more accessible to the people I'm trying to help out trading. Even though this great city of Madrid will stay firmly in my memory for a years to come.

I've had an awesome time here and I've proven to myself I can take this profession as a exchange trader to any country I decide to live in. The freedom and flexibility I was searching for in a job, where you can travel and be your own boss is not a figment of my imagination. So really this creates endless opportunities I could only dream of when I first started.

Trading in another country has been far from easy from the word go, but after setting up a comfortable base to trade from there's no real difference to trading in the UK. Just with the obvious change of climate and culture :) My rough plan is to stay in London for a year or 2, then continue my adventure in another country after, who knows where yet but I like it that way.

It's not goodbye to Madrid just yet so I'm not going to get emotional on you all haha, but my adventure here unfortunately feels like it's jumping it's final few hurdles. London has its charms and It almost feels like home after moving there before I moved to Madrid, so bring it on is all I can say!

I understand for many people wanting to learn this black art of trading, the need to travel to another country is not ideal. But for the many people already attended my course, the holiday/tuition idea has suited them great. I'm here till May and still offering courses on the dates posted to the right on my blog. I will put future dates in London from May onwards soon.

Playing With Fire

We play with fire on a daily basis when trading on the exchanges, as the odds of succeeding are stacked heavily against us. I'm not just talking about reading the market effectively and making the correct decisions, I'm referring to many other factors that seem to be testing our bottle.

Betfair going down
Internet going down
Power cut
Computer crashing

These 4 are the main 1's and every point apart from the first we can save ourselves a lot of potential losses that might occur.

I was reminded last Thursday that having no backup for point 3 was my downfall. The whole flat lost its power and I was left up shit creek not knowing what position I was in. Having no working phone nearby and my laptop battery being dead I was simply not prepared for this. I kicked myself when it happened knowing I should always be prepared for the worst and luckily I lost £400. But this could have been a lot worse so I took this on the chin. So always be ready for unfortunate things to happen, because trust me sooner or later they will.

The Markets

Last week i dug myself out of trouble after a great Saturday, ranking in my top 10 best ever days. So finishing the week on a very happy £1050 after a potential disaster.

Here's my week saving Saturday + £751

The last few days I haven't traded many races but made a nice return on the few I've done. Seeing Betfair down just before starting today, I thought I would wait until Friday and see if the situation improved.

Ohh I'll get a new video posted up soon.

Experimenting

2010-01-20T00:22:00.016Z

With the markets being a little mad around this time of year, It's given me a chance to experiment using different techniques and trying out things I haven't tried before. When i say this it's sounds as though I've being planning out secret methods over xmas that will make me more money in the future, then implementing them when I dabbled in the markets again. But I assure you this is not how I am improving as a trader. It has come from a natural process of being active in the market and experimenting new things while it's all happening live. Mistakes will come on the way, especially when you are upping your stakes and trying to reach new levels. If you have a very hands on approach to change like this, you can tackle subtle differences in new market conditions.

The real work and idea process of experimenting comes from a very practical side I believe. You can think all day of new strategies and approaches to make you your fortune, but you simply have to evolve your own trading styles whilst your actually trading. The markets are constantly changing and no one can try and predict with positive certainty what will happen. When your looking at the markets day-in day-out, your brain picks up on slight changes in the market. Such as recent trends and adapting to how new players choose to behave. My advice is to not think too much about your trading style/methods/ideas or however choose to word it. Try and tune in more with your subconscious while your trading and really listen to your instincts. I'm beginning to get more aggressive in the markets and it's paying off for me, although I'm still taking some big losses on the way.

Week's Analysis

I started off on Tuesday this week and it was the first time I had a proper dabble in the markets in weeks. I was amazed to have such a good day on the Tuesday and my new found aggression seemed to work in my favour.

My discipline let me down at crucial times on the following few days which led to poor decision making and over trading. If your head isn't 100% focused when the markets are a bit twitchy, then small errors turn into large losses surprisingly fast. Ask yourself what you could have done differently if you could replay the day over? Address the issues where the losses came from, try and understand what went wrong and how you can change your style into stopping these mistakes happening again. I know exactly what I've done wrong if I've struggled on the day, and if you're willing to evolve you have a great chance of succeeding on Betfair. Camtasia is awesome! Record and watch everything back, you can't hide behind excuses when its staring back at you in your face :) Saturday came with a boom, but it was far from straight forward. I started terrribly and tried a bit too hard early on forcing a few positions which didn't go as expected. But an hour later i turned a -230 into a +230 on the day which was boosted my confidence.

Antepost

Saturday was a solid day's trading and it gave us all a chance to see some of the Cheltenham hopefuls. 1 of the horses I really like and I've been very impressed since seeing it run around 4 races ago is a horse named Diamond Harry. I have been looking to back this for a Cheltenham race for a while now, so when I saw it going for a chase debut I had to back it antepost for the RSA chase at 14.0. To me this was a great trading opportunity that was almost certain to shorten after an impressive jumping performance. This horse I believe could be something special so keep an eye out, and I think he's more physically suited to chasing rather than hurdling.

My antepost selections have worked out great this year for Cheltenham and I can't wait for March now. Big Bucks will take the world of beating in the World Hurdle and I was fortunate to get a tidy £500 on at 2.2 a few races ago. I might be very tempted to leave it all on, even though this was not my intention when I placed the bet.

This week's p/l from Tues-Sat:

Trading Courses

I'm really looking forward to getting back to teaching after my time off over xmas, and the first course of 2010 starts on Tuesday for 3 days.

I have had a lot of interest over the coming few months and to make it easier for all I wanted to set up specific dates I can teach groups.

I am still offering other packages, for instance if you wanted to come out to Madrid with a few mates or even a 1-1 course. But these types of courses will have to be booked up on certain dates when I'm free. Simply offer some dates and we can sort something out.

The dates are as follows for the organised group packages:

Fully Booked up until -

February -
23rd - 27th

5 - day course: 2 spaces available

March -
2nd - 4th

3 - day course: 3 spaces available

23rd - 27th

6 - day course: 3 spaces available

April -
1st - 6th

6 - day course: 2 spaces available

28th - 30th

3 - day course: 3 spaces available

May -
10th - 15th

6 - day course: 3 spaces available

25th - 27th

3 - day course: 3 spaces available

I have to stress that although there are most of the spaces still available. Many people have shown an interest and could be booking up on all courses over the next few weeks. I am only reserving the spot when the course is fully booked with me. I am filling up my packages very quick so feel feel free to reserve a spot.

Many thanks

Back In Madrid!

2010-01-13T16:48:00.011Z

2010 here we go! Happy New Year to all (a bit belated agreed) and apologies for being a little quiet on the blog and the emails recently. I promise to get back to everyone who has sent me an email over the last few weeks after this blog post. So expect a reply by the end of the day :)

First I'd like to thank everyone for showing an interest in my courses, or simply enjoying the read of the blog. I'm not going anywhere in a hurry and plan to help as many budding traders as I can in years to come. I have a few ideas lined up this year which I'll announce nearer the time and as the interest has come mainly from the UK, I have made rough plans to move back to London come the start of 2011 :)

Little Break

I've taken some much needed time off from the world of trading, and trust me from late Dec - late Jan is the best time of year to take it. Regardless if we have crazy amounts of snow on the ground or not. It's been a great time catching up with friends and family but time for me to get back to it. As a full-time trader you have to look at the year like a marathon, and be willing to fight through the tricky times to be rewarded when the good times come around again. From late Dec - end of Feb Is without a doubt the trickiest time of year to trade, and it's mainly down to the weather. I wished to see snow when I arrived back in the UK and wow I was not disappointed! I saw it everyday I was in the country haha! Crazy indeed and it's completely thrown the markets out of sync. I'm gonna be careful what I wish for in future!

You have to know when to immerse yourself in the markets though, and know when to take a step back from them. Everyone who has traded even a few weeks on the markets, quickly realise it grabs u by the balls and leaves you wanting more. A kind of addictive game of wits and money where your in a constant battle with yourself to improve. But having time off is a massive part of being a consistent winner on Betfair. Go and jump off a bridge with a bungee strapped to your ankles, go and swim with dolphins or simply sit in front of the box watching back to back films sipping on 10 cups of tea. It really doesn't matter what you do, just enjoy it! But don't beat yourself up about taking some time off, you will thank yourself when your trading 7-8 hours a day in summer when there's an overload of opportunities. Ask yourself this....would you prefer a job where you don't have a choice if you work or not?

All About The Money?

When you first start learning the black art of trading, it's all about money money money. But ask yourself what you want the money for? My goal is to make money for a life of freedom and enjoyment. So really the true benefit trading has given me is being able to experience life as I choose to live it, and long let this continue. We are trained from a young age to search for a safe, secure job offering a nice pay-check at the end of the month. Without realising you are numbing your thought process in looking for freedom, flexibility, and new sources of wealth. As human beings we are scared of failure and this forces us to search for security. So in turn we live below our means and live by the pay-check we have worked so hard for. But working crazy hours a day we don't have the time or energy to enjoy it. As consumers, when we get a pay rise all we do is spend more and wonder why we never have any spare money...and the viscous circle continues. This is called the rat race, and over 95% of the population is in this system. But instead of thinking 'oh this is just how it is, think how can I get out of this'. Trading is 1 alternative and there are many more, so I hope you see where I'm trying to go with this. It's not the search of more and more money that is important, it's how the money you make changes your life for the better.

This time of year is a time to remind yourself why you are a trader, or why you want to become one. As its the drive inside you that makes us successful, not how long it takes or how many losses you occur in the process. You have to find your own drive that will keep you going and ultimately make u prosper in this competitive game of trading. For me it was the drive for freedom that led to my success, and it's still the drive that keeps me going today. Having the flexibility to do what I want, when I want to do it is so important to me. I hope all that are learning can look beyond the potential monetary gains, and seek another drive within them that will make 2010 a fulfilling and enjoyable year.

Bring It On!

After a long break away from the markets I'm itching to get back to it all. Gonna have a look at 2moro's card and fingers crossed I'll see some kind of action to get my teeth into. I plan to take it very slow and probably will drop my stakes down a bit. I'll be very patient and won't expect much from the remaining week. See how it goes though and I'll do an update after Saturday's card. Now's the perfect time to expand your trading into other ideas and plans for the coming year. Mine will be trying out the tennis which should be fun, although I need to get Sky sorted out before I tackle the tennis madness :)

Other Blogs

In the world of blogging, we are always going to have people come and go, and we've lost some good ones unfortunately. But I've noticed so many new blogs appear in the last few months which is great to see! I think there's a mini buzz around trading in general even though the weather has taken some joy out of things of late. So if anyone wants to be added to my blog links simply send me a request and I'll happily add anyone. A lot of mine on my list haven't updated in a while so please feel free to get in touch.

Please check back over the last few comments made on earlier posts. I've responded to them all. Many thanks!

Stay positive, its the calm before the storm :)

December Already?

2009-12-04T21:41:00.017Z

Today I've had to remind myself it's December! The last few months have flown by and it's crazy to think I've been in Madrid nearly a year now. Due to the Spaniards not blinging out the shops like the English do with xmas decorations, the festive build up has caught me by surprise. I have a lot planned out for 2010 in my own trading and other ventures and I'ts an exciting time.

I've now trained 10 people who have attended the courses (some 1-1 and a few groups) and I've got 2 more seperate courses with 3 people left in 2009. Then I'm flying back to my home town for a lovely xmas roast. Wow it's been too long without some yorkshire puddings and gravy. Can't wait!

Denmania!!

November threw up some crazy markets at times and everyday you are reminded of how tricky this time of year is. With the amazing amount of variation in the markets it makes for a rollercoaster ride. Stay positive, cut your losses quickly and don't try and force your profits is the best advice I can give you. The highlight for me in November was seeing Denman back to his scintillating best. After years of trading the pre-race horse markets, I've become quite fond of horse racing as a spectacle. With the odd little flutter now and again to keep things exciting :) Denman has been a horse I've followed ever since it's first run and was very happy to see his impressive performance in the Newbury Hennessey Gold Cup. It was simply awesome in my opinion carrying top weight, and when he's in a flow like that and pinging the final 5 jumps he is just unstoppable! It's going to be one hell of a gold cup I think as there is a chance that both horses could be the best they have ever been come March. I know who I'll be on, or maybe I already am ;)

It's great for horse racing in general to have superstars like this to keep generating an interest in the sport. As traders we need top class animals to attract the much needed money in the markets to trade effectively all year round. I have backed Denman most times he has run and couldn't resist leaving all my money I traded on him that day. Even though i took a hit from £525 to £255 late on, but it's impossible to complain. And thanks to Julian for cheering him on with me hehe.

I feel I have made the jump I was looking for this year in my profits, and have definately pulled in some great results on days that I simply wasn't producing this time last year. After a nice 3-day break Sun/Mon/Tues I've had a very solid 3 days being in the zone......bring on Saturday!

New Trading Vid With Audio

I have created a new video on camtasia that is made exclusively for the members at www.betseventytwo.com People with an account can now see a 1 hour video of 5 different races I've traded. With narration over 4 of the races and a few audio tracks to finish off with a great race in the market before the Breeders Cup. This will show various techniques on how to make money on the pre-race horse racing markets. Scalping/Swinging/Trading 2 horses simultaneously/When things go wrong, and how to minimise losses. It's a complete video with on-going commentary throughout my thought process. Hope you enjoy!

The Main Man

Last but most certainly not least I'd like to announce who I trade with on a daily basis. It's someone I've been working with for years and u'll keep hear me saying how much of a benefit it is to have a trading buddy you can take on your trading journey with. I made a post on how this is a great edge to have and something I would reccommend to anyone. 2 brains are better than 1. Cheers dude and let the adventure continue!

Sam Wilson @ http://samwilson82.blogspot.com/

We have a few ideas for 2010 so keep an eye out for some interesting news in the new year.

P.S I'll reply to your kind comments made on the last 2 posts v soon.

Change Of Lifestyle

2009-11-15T21:33:00.065Z

No I haven't decided to give up trading and work at McDonald's over the winter, the title was more referring to how much of a change to my lifestyle the courses have given me. I forgot what it was like to work more than 4-6 hours a day hehe, and I'm doing my best to keep up with the personalised emails so please bear with me. It was a strange thing for me at first having people surrounding me while I trade, answering questions and talking through live what I was doing. Being stuck in a room in solitude for years, then trading in complete opposite surroundings has taken me a little time to adjust. But the more people that have attended the courses, the more comfortable I am with being able to deal with doing 2 things at once. I'm definitely not female and multi-tasking wasn't in my toolbox a few months ago :)

Staring at the markets for double the length of time from analysing the markets with clients is definitely an eye strainer. So I'm not going to lie about it being a challenge for me to still being able to trade successfully whilst training, but its a challenge I'm enjoying right now.

I'd like to thank all the people who have attended up till now and I really do appreciate the kind words that people have given. I hope the clients have enjoyed the experience as much as I have, and I'm very happy to have met some great people. I'm now feeling very positive that I've boosted their ability to be able to read a market more clearly, and hopefully opened there eyes up to a lot of new angles to make money on Betfair.

I'm trying and get my website up and running soon, but unfortunately my flatmate who's building it keeps travelling around Spain working so fingers crossed it shouldn't be too long until the launch. The website will explain everything in detail instead of having me send out the word document to people who are showing an interest. The website will have a members section where people who have attended the course can chat openly about their trading with other like minded people. Having seen my style and techniques gained from my course, clients will be able to talk in detail whilst still being on the same wave length with everyone else. Discussing their everyday experiences on the markets, and possibly having Skype buddies to talk to on a regular basis - like I currently do with a mate.

Some of the people attended have happily given out their email to ask any questions about the courses from their point of view, explaining their experience and what they got out from the course.

Here's a few of there emails for now, but when the website is up I will have a testimonial section where people can easily see what previous attendees thought.

Nick Darlington - ndarlington@gmail.com

Gary Dufley - g.dufley@sky.com (http:/itwouldbeeasierhavingajob.blogspot.com)

Pascal Costa - pascalc23@gmail.com

(http://aboutdiscipline.blogspot.com)

Bit Of Paradise

The first guy who attended my courses told me about a property he's selling on the East coast of Spain. It's in-between Valencia and Alicante on a little mushroom coming out of Spain. The views are jaw dropping from the top of the mountain and there is nothing else to see for miles apart from the sea and the smile on your face.

Showing an interest he kindly invited me to stay out there for 5 days to check it out. I got back Friday and the place was paradise. I'm going to check it out again in Jan to have a second look and to have a place like this to escape to 3-6 months of the year is something which I've thought about for a while. I'll make a post if I take the plunge and get the place. Here's a few pics:

NFL

2 clients on my course told me about the potential NFL/american football has for trading. It doesn't attract massive amounts in all the boxes but the swings are just massive! I thought I would try it out tonight with the 2 guys on Skype and things went very well. I didn't have live pictures but was simply making money off the over reaction in a price move. Where people chased the price up in desperation, like I have mentioned before what happens in the horse racing markets. But the over reaction seems to happen in amazing frequency! 1 move I saw went from 1.25 to around 1.62 in about 10 seconds. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out on small stakes that comes to a nice return. Also the gaps in the prices all over the price ensures so many opportunities. Here's my surprisingly good profit made on my first NFL game. Something I'm going to look at a lot more seriously in the coming months.

Trading In General

I've had a lot of time off recently from actually trading on my own, and I've noticed I've been a little rusty. But I believe when you can make money consistently, you won't easily forget how your money making finger brings in the £££. Riding a bike for example where you just need a little warm up before things feel normal again. I know I'm back to being sharp as I took a bad in running loss of -434 on Saturday the second race, and clawed most of it back by the final race. Finishing on -38.55 which a fightback like this feels just as good as a big profit on the day. It's quite hard to have the confidence to comeback from such a loss, as you are forced to push a bit to make it back. So some losses crept in at the end when I knew I was close, but also It's amazing what positive thinking and the right mindset can achieve.

I'm also going to add another trading video from 1 of my races on Saturday which a quick £68 was made from being aggressive and jumping in front of a real bet. As races are going off so often, opportunities like this occur frequently when people are chasing out their positions. Click the link below:

LiveBetfairTrading Vid - 3 Minute £68

Swinging 2 Horses Trading Vid

2009-10-21T12:22:00.012+01:00

I've just uploaded 1 of my trading video's I recorded from a race on Friday 16th Oct. It was one of those markets that I saw quickly develop into a typical swing trade, and I managed to get on both moves on the top 2 favourites. I didn't get on too big either, just in case they turned against me. If you get it wrong on one, then your fighting a hard battle to get out on both selections. You can see me hovering over at certain points ready to get out at any time, but patience and trusting my instincts I held my nerve and got out for maximum profit on both.

You will see how I'm viewing the market pretty much opposite to the way the market is looking like it's going at first. Being contrary to the crowd is what I try and do as much as I can, this is where the real opportunites lie as if you are getting it right, you are making your big swings off the majority of everyone else reading it wrong. I felt the fav was trying to be held there down by some dodgy few 1k's, and the second fav wasn't going up in a hurry. I waited for some more signs and just felt confident I could see these both turning. When you see yourself in the green I know it's hard waiting for a bigger return, as profit is profit at the end of the day. But in my opinion if a market is looking to go further it makes no sense to me not to wait. If your wondering how some big profits are made on 1 race, I hope this gives you a small insight into how its done.

I'm possibly going to be offering something to clients where they can access my video's online whenever they want. Being able to look at a large amount of content I will always update on a regular basis. I'm researching ways to archive my recordings somewhere on a database that has a massive amount of storage. Also providing a webinar maybe every week to explain the video's in detail to the clients.

I'm not too sure if it's worth my while, so I'm looking for people to give me the go ahead If I see a demand for this. Please let me know via comments or by email.

Also If anyone knows of sites where several gigabites can be stored for good value please let me know. I'm currently using www.screencast.com It's a great site but can only store 25gb at any one time. This might be fine but I'm looking for alternatives??

I'll be putting random vid's on the blog maybe every few weeks so keep an eye out.

The link above doesn't appear to go full-screen so I'll look into this and try sort it out. Fow now the link to view it properly is :

LiveBetfairTrading Vid - Swing Trading 2 Horses

Rewarding Week

2009-10-19T13:43:00.007+01:00

Last week was a great experience for not only the client, but myself after finishing my first 6-day course. It was very rewarding to see the client improve on a daily basis and being able to read a market more affectively. Putting the know how with the doing it yourself is obviously a different ball game, but I believe I have definitely provided a very useful insight into how its done on a successful level. I'm looking forward to helping my next client out on Thursday 22nd.

Each client will benefit from the course in different ways, and this client benefited mostly from the analysis of the videos I was doing before and after the live trading happened. As mentioned on the last post it gives an invaluable discussion into why I was placing orders and certain times, according to factors in the markets that was making up my decision process.

I'm currently rendering 1 of my video's so I can upload 1 of the races onto my blog. So this will be my next post when I have edited it and given some explanations into what happened.

I started slow last week, reaching about £300 by Wednesday. But I finished strongly seeing some nice swing moves on the Thursday, and getting very stuck into some solid scalping done on the Friday.

Saturday was a tricky day, it just seemed to be a little poor considering there was some big races on the cards. I got a race very wrong and stupidly losing quite a big -222. But I think that just kicked me into gear where I went on a quick fightback and pulled in a respectable profit after the loss. With my style I am prepared to take a few losses in a day, as I know I am pushing on for big profits. Also looking for swings where I'm often trying to predict the turn in price in a market, I know I'm not always going to get it right. That in my mind I can deal with them with confidence knowing I can quickly turn things around.

It's nice to get back into trading 5-6 days a week again due to having so much time off with internet problems. It's a relief that it hasn't seemed to have affected my focus.

My Setup

2009-10-13T20:22:00.004+01:00

Finally I'm all set up in my new pad now, I've got a new desk and chair which you'll see on the pictures below. Things are ticking over nicely and I've currently got my first client on a 6-day course which started on the 12th October. I'm fully booked up now till the second week of Nov and have had bookings for Nov/Dec. So if anyone is interested in attending a course before the new year, just let me know via email and I'll try and squeeze you in.

I'm recording my trading now everyday using Camtasia. It's been an interesting experience looking over my trades and analysing them for someone else. Giving the client step by step guidance of what I was thinking at every moment. Giving an insight into my thought process behind each decision and discussing my entry/exit points to how I view the overall trends of a market. It's proving a very helpful tool for the client to learn from and I believe will only benefit my own trading. I will be putting a few video's on here soon of some of the more interesting markets I come across. Although the eye strain of hours in front of the computer is making my head a little spaced out =/

You will see on my pictures below how I setup my screens.

Left - Laptop I use for my secondary backup and it's where I have my Slingbox linked up to watch the racing channels. 5 seconds delay isn't too bad and having my trading colleague on Skype with live pics, he can let me know of anything important I need to know. This is plugged in via Ethernet cable to the router.

Middle - iMac 20" I use for my primary backup and it's where I have my Skype calls from. I also have a Betfair page open at all times in case of my PC ever going down on me. I use this on wireless.

Right - Dual screen 19" Wide screens I use for my main trading machine. It's a quad core processor, 4GB RAM computer that I only use for trading and keep clean of junk. ie. pictures, films, and browsing the web. It's a dedicated trading computer and I recommend this to anyone.

Right monitor - I have my 3 ladders up with the separate charting docked up beside that to the left. The bookies live prices underneath - www.thebettingsite.co.uk.

Left monitor - I have my unmatched tab on the right of the screen, with the cancel all button clearly on show. Then the market overview graphing coloured lines on the left. At a glance you can see visually what the prices are doing in correlation with each other. A tool I've recently started using religiously.

I also use guardian to be able to graph all the markets well in advance of the first race. The Betfair graphs can be misleading due to having no time information on them. With guardian you can easily see what the recent trends of the market are via the market overview screen. Instead of a long-term look at what that particular graph has done. This computer has to be connected via Ethernet to the router.

Phew!

2009-10-07T01:13:00.004+01:00

Bit of a late post, but I thought I'd let people know im back up and running at home. My internet line has finally been sorted, and I'm very relieved to say the least! I'm amazed how long it has taken, especially when I'm using the same internet service provider as before - Jazztel. I was starting to fall out of love with Spain from the stress this has given me, but I'm happy to say my passion has returned to this chilled out City I am lucky enough to live in. I try not to let things bother me that are out of my control, but they really were testing me with this! This is the life of a trader though, where we are faced with unfortunate incidients from time to time.

I must be living closer to the exchange where the signal gets sent to, as the speeds I'm getting are faster than my old apartment, which is a pleasant suprise:

It's great to know that trading is very much possible in most countries in Europe. It gives me options to live basically anywhere I choose, but for now I'm very happy in Spain. These are very impressive speeds through a phone line, and I dont think in the UK you could get these speeds through our old copper wires we still use. The demand for super fast internet is very high in the UK, but we are well behind the times with our old systems we still have in place. I know we have cable/fibre optic but we have got some cathing up to do with most of the world. Lithuania/Latvia and Sweden are rated the top in Europe. Check this out on the top countries per download I recently found http://www.speedtest.net/global.php.
Have a look where us British rate next to other countries in the world. It might open your eyes to what other people can get their hands on!

I think it's impreritive for you to trade successfully on a regular basis with a fast, solid connection. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but I know enough to know what you need to trade with no problems.

Downloads speeds aren't massively important, I think anything from 6 mb/s or higher is sufficient. Also anything from 400 kb/s or above on your upload rate should also be fine.

However ping is very important to us pre-race traders - This is how fast a signal is sent and received from the source. 100 m/s or lower is perfect, but again anything upto 200 m/s is fine. Obviously the lower the ping the better!

I use a website called www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk for quick speed tests.
Anyone reading this should test there speeds, and if they are lower than the rates I suggested, I would recommend you look into getting a faster line if you want to take trading seriously. There are many stressful things we tackle daily trying to make money on Betfair, don't let your internet speeds be an extra burden. Simply search for the best line you can :)

Also I really wouldn't recommend trading off a wireless connection if possible. Plug an ethernet cable straight into your modem/computer just to stablise the line, and reduce any drop outs that could occur. The line will be more solid and with a fast internet line you should not occur any freezes and refresh errors. If there is, it will be probably coming from Betfair's end and meaning everyones suffering the same as you.

Looking forward to getting back into the 'groove'

Quick Update

2009-09-29T12:26:00.005+01:00

I've answered all the questions on my previous post, so have a little gander at your replies. Many thanks again for all of your interest shown :)

Well the Spaniards at Jazztel have finally realised theres a problem with my line, and are sending a guy out to the apartment on Thursday to check it out. So fingers crossed by then my internet should be up and I can get back into a 'groove' again. Frustrating when you are depending on other people to sort out your problems, but that's unfortunately the life of a trader when your dealing with the internet and computers as your livelyhood.

Luckily I have managed to get some trading done on my mate's line. However it is a bit temperamental and feels and bit 'sticky' at times, but it's actually fine to trade from and beats all the internet cafe's I've tried in the past.

I'll post Sat's results below - I enjoyed the day, there felt like a lot of 'spoof' money around but enough genuine money to get some great swings. Reading people trying to manipulate the market is a skill, but often the spoof money is quite obvious to see. Look for the money actually getting matched, not the fake money queing up looking like it wants to be taken.

My results show 2 big losses where I got the market pretty wrong. But as I've mentioned before it's how you recover from those losses thats most important. I felt I was lacking a little discipline at the end of the day, but knew I was trading well and quickly made back the losses I made. I know its frustrating to lose money and that terrible feeling of 'getting it wrong'. But you have to give yourself a slap and get on with it. Trading is a massive mind game which you have to be in control of. The sooner you don't let the loss affect you, the sooner you will get the losses back. You really can afford to take a few losses in a day and still come out with a nice profit. Think of a loss as a sign to concentrate and focus more, not a sign to get annoyed with the situation and in turn affect your profits.

Quarter Of A Century!

2009-09-17T16:23:00.004+01:00

Today's my birthday and I've reached the big 25! If someone told me 5 years ago that I'd be living in Madrid, working as a full-time trader and earning a tax free living I would have laughed in their faces. I'd probably tell them to put the idea back up their ass where it came from. But I'm relieved to say the idea is truth and it's far from a figment of someone's imagination. I can honestly say trading has changed my life for the better and it's given me the confidence and freedom to enjoy the things in life I feel are most important. The list certainly does not include working for someone else, working long hours and having little control of my financial future. I'd struggle to find a job (if you can call it that) which outweighs the benefits trading offers. I'm in no rush to find an alternative method of earnings just yet :)

I've had a very busy 10 days and apologies for no updates to my blog. I moved apartment last Sunday and it's been a very eventful time. The funniest of happenings came when we had to walk 20 mins through the centre of Madrid with a sofa strapped to our backs. 4 of us tackled many hurdles on the way. Playing chicken with a car on a narrow street was hilarious, which somehow we won! Also the ballards on every street in Madrid came into their own when you have more important things to worry about. I've newly named these little bastards knee whackers, for obvious reasons.

As a trader working from home, it's imperitive to adjust to your new working environment as quick as you can. Also it's very important to have a solid internet connection installed instantly if possible. This area I haven't had much luck with :( I'm still awaiting my line to be switched on at home and these lazy Spaniards are frustrating me to say the least! I'm writing this from an internet cafe nearby, but unfortunately the connection isn't stable enough to trade on. From past experience I've told myself never to trade on a connection that is spiking all over the place. I've lost money in the past working in tricky conditions and I'm not making the same mistake again. So hopefully shouldn't be too long before back to trading.

The time off from trading however, has given me the opportunity to finish off the information regarding my training courses. I have written a word document which describes the courses in detail and gives a structured breakdown of all 4 packages I'm going to offer. Including the prices individually for 1,2 or more people who attend for each package. I live with a graphic designer who is going to help me get my website up and running as soon as our internets up and running. The website will have videos, screenshots and a lot more material to look at. The content is all there for the courses and I'm ready to start training from October onwards. The only reason I have hardly mentioned the courses, is because I want everything to be clearly presented on a nice professional website. But due to the interest shown I wanted to have something that I can send out to people to have a look at.

Here's a paragraph from my word document:

"I’m going to teach you how to control the inevitable losses you will make and control your money through money management advice. Also how to effectively turn small profits into nice monthly profits over time. With strict staking plans to ensure you are comfortable playing with gradually increased amounts. Planning out your journey over several months to reach the goals you are dreaming of. I aim to dramatically expand your knowledge of what it takes to go full-time working as a trader on Betfair."

My courses will be on a 1-1 basis, or with a small group of people. With large reductions individually for people attending the course with 2 people or more. The client will fly out to sunny Spain and get a very hands on experience. I want to provide a very intensive course where the client can understand what a full-time trader goes through on a daily basis. I will also briefly list here what the 4 packages will entail:

Work with a full time professional trader for 3-6 days. Intensive training course with a clear set out lesson plan. Adjusted for the clients needs.
Listen in and watch two traders working as a team on Skype, combining brains and ideas throughout the trading day. Ensuring discipline, control and confidence at all times.
A walk through of all the necessary hardware and software needed to trade efficiently on Betfair’s exchange. Looking at ways to improve your own home trading set-up, and making your desk space an on-going cash machine. Being happy with your surroundings can create a very successful working environment.
BetAngel or BetTrader: 6 months-1 years (depending on package chosen) worth of access to the best trading software out there.
Personalised Training DVD of the entire course from start till finish, with no editing. Made with Camtasia software, the videos will show every second I trade over the duration of the course. Providing the client with a priceless piece of training material to continually look over and study. The videos will have audio recorded after, with in depth details and explanations of all my days trading activities. This content could be anything from 10-35 hours worth of training videos!
On-going mentoring service - Providing the client with a mentor that has been through the mistakes a trader makes when learning. Trying to reduce the mistakes the client might possibly have in the future. Having someone at the end of the phone to chat to about anything. Guiding you through those tricky times of losses and how to overcome them. Also providing the client with continual training video's sent to them every month.

If anyone would like the word document sending to them, please just email me via the link on the right of my blog. Bit of a long post sorry for the long read =/

Prices Affect Prices

2009-09-04T21:00:00.002+01:00

Happy return to trading today after my time off. Theres always a doubt in my mind that having a few days off I wont be as on the ball as usual. Lacking the edge you get when trading day in day out. Sometimes a break does me good to refresh things, other times I lose my focus a little. Luckily today was the first case with some fantastic swing opportunities. The first few races were awesome if you caught them quickly, as they looked very likely to keep going for a while with nice monentum keeping on pushing them. Plus the layers were out to get Fallon today in which a massive drift developed on the first at Lingfield. £275ish after the first two I could afford to take the foot off the accelerator and ease myself into the day. Couldn't have wished for a better start and just took it easy after that plodding over nicely. It's good to take things a bit slower than normal if you have a good start. Protecting your profits is important as its almost too easy to get carried away with greed. Which in turn eats away at those hard earned pennies.

I have always looked at 3 ladders simultaneously, and I don't use the enhanced ladder. I keep the full-market depth open on all selections so I can easily jump on an opportunity on another horse with ease. Keeping an eye out on all ladders should give you a better understanding of the bigger picture. Although I'm always concentrating on the favourite, I am aware whats developing on the other 2nd and 3rd favourite. However most of the time I'm really mainly seeing how the 2nd fav will react compared to the favourite. Only because on the majority of markets there is 1 clear favourite, and the second favourite is the only selection that could have an instant affect on the favourites price. It gives me a great overview of how prices affect prices, and gives me clearer judgment of which way a price is going. Example if you see the favourite getting backed heavily, then suddenly change in direction. Theres a great chance another horse that is closely related in price is being backed as the market book overround is just levelling itself out.

It's not easy to look at more than one selection at once, but I would reccommend trying it. Just start off by glancing over across the 2nd and 3rd favourite every 30 secs or so. Getting a feel of how the price on 1 horse affects the price on another. Sometimes they don't affect each other at all it seems so be aware. Then develop it so you can flick your eyes over a lot more frequently.

Another advantage of seeing 3 ladders is being able to quickly change and trade on another horse. For instance if the 2nd fav has being backed into favourite and more interest is now on this horse, it might be a good idea trading the newly backed fav. It simply gives you more options and opportunites at your disposal. Plus having an overall view of the market gives you a great view on what is value and what is not.

Back To Business

2009-09-04T13:09:00.002+01:00

Returned back from the UK last nite after just catching my plane. There was a massive queue at Liverpool airport in which I had 15 mins to get through all the checks. Realising I was a little screwed I pushed straight to the front and somehow got back to Spain on time. I have worked out the best way to travel in my many trips back to the UK in the last 8 months. Wait for the wheels to leave the ground, shut your blind, straight to sleep, then wake up when someone says 10 minutes to landing :)

Leeds festival was awesome! Radiohead put on a show like no other. Everyone was in ore of their performance and the light show was the best I've ever seen. A must watch for anyone that hasn't had the pleasure of seeing them live. I'm just about back to normality now after a few days of recovering and looking forward to getting back trading after my break. But its not going to be straight forward as I'm moving house on Sunday. Not far from where I'm living now but getting my fast internet line installed should take a few days to be up and running. Also getting used to a new working environment takes little bit of time. Trading is very much about being happy with whats going on around you, as much as it is about reading the numbers affectively. I'm not too sure how many people realise this.....

If you have stress in your life of any kind it will affect your trading performance. Even if its good news sometimes even this can distract you from making money. I'm amazed how level headed you have to be in your own life to trade to the standard you are capable of. You have to clear your mind of all things that could possibly affect your trading, and get focused on those numbers and spotting trends. The best way to do this is emurse yourself in your computer and don't concentrate on anything else. Don't browse around on facebook and youtube inbetween races, its the last thing you want when your trying to seperate yourself from the outside world. Try and forget about any negativity and pump yourself up for battle. Easier said than done I know but you simply have to get your mind working at its peak if you want to make a living out of trading. Also your setup at home has a dramatic affect on your totals. Having ample space to work in, working in a quiet place, having a clean workspace, having the necessary hardware to ensure everything runs smoothly, not answering your mobile whilst trading. All these things and many more is what all full-time traders make sure of. You have to treat this like a job and realise that all these factors will ensure you stay focused and disciplined throughout the day.

I will make a new post regarding my new setup sometime next week when I'm sorted at my new place. Also I will answer the questions on my last post after todays racing.

Previous Week's Analysis

2009-08-24T18:47:00.006+01:00

First of all I'd like to thank Adam Todd for inviting me on Juicestorm for an interview. Was an enjoyable experience and the time flew by chatting about all things trading. I've been pleasantly surprised of how positive the feedback has been from it, and more thanks go out to all the friendly comments left on my blog. The feedback was very much needed for my own head, as it has convinced me that its the right thing to pursue and encourages me to make them available to all as soon as I can. More details about the courses will be available soon so just keep an eye out. But if you can't wait then drop me an email and I will pass you on more details I didn't have time to mention on the interview.

Regarding last weeks trading all in all it was a good week. With some solid focus needed on Tuesday to recover my unfortunate incident with my Internet that cost me -251.....as mentioned on a previous post. Then taking some steady profits throughout the week I got myself into a good zone after Wednesday. But looking back I was a little disappointed with myself of the amount of losses that built up over the week. Far too many crept in that took away some well deserved profit. But the reasoning being that the markets were strong, and on occasions i was pushing a bit too hard to earn some extra pennies. In doing so I left myself in a few unwelcome positions.

I feel most of the markets were perfect for swing trading and due to the high profile races it attracted in some nice liquidity. Which in turn offered some great opportunities where markets were not only turning in direction fast, but often the true value was pushed too far in either direction. The reason a market goes sometimes further than you think, is not because someone is watching over your screen and screwing you over the second you enter the market....as it feels like at times. The reason this happens is when people get themselves in situations in which they can't instantly recover from. Like when a trader, or a combination of traders think a market is going 1 way, then it quickly turns and ends up going the other. So when a market goes the wrong direction even further against them you can see the desperation in people needing to get out at the current price. So then more traders push the price as they jump in front of the desperate money wanting out, which accumulates to a market going way beyond where the 'true price' it should be. Purely because peoples reaction to a price has forced people in losing positions to exit there trades in desperation. Their emotions take over and they rush to exit at any price available. When the market then is forced past where it should be, you will see a large bounce back of people rushing on the other side. Seeing value at the high/low position the market has now been pushed to. Also backers/layers will see the market at this position and now it provides them with an opportunity to bid/offer a price at the current position they think as value. This is how a market can fly around so quickly and can lose a scalper all there money in 1 go. Beware of knowing when to scalp and when to swing!

With swing trading you can achieve some massive moves if you can work out where other people are needing to exit there positions. In desperation they simply have to push the price further. In my eyes these are where the odds are in your favour to make profit. These are the odds in which I want to be working with, not the 50/50 situations you see on a regular basis.

Its about reading other peoples reaction to a price movement, not just the numbers on the screen. These are opportunities where you have to be able to read not where the market 'should' be at, but where you think the value is 'now' at. I hope that makes some sense as i did go on a bit of a ramble there :)

I've flown out to the UK for 10 days and arrive in Madrid on the 3rd September. Come back for my local festival - Leeds fest :) So won't be that much going on as far as trading this week. That's why the essay of a post now hehe. I'll make my post that was suggested regarding my setup when I'm back in Madrid.

I needed a plane to catch on Saturday and only could fit in 1hr and 15 mins on the Saturday. An annoying finish to a good week trading Tues - Sat

Juicestorm Interview

2009-08-21T20:03:00.006+01:00

Adam Todd kindly invited me to have an interview with him on his Juicestorm radio show. He mentioned my blog last week and asked if I would have a chat on show 3. I got in touch and said Id happily go on. So tomorrow it is! Not sure of the exact time I'm on, but the show starts at 12:00 UK time Sat 22nd August.

If anyone hasn't heard of the show its everything gambling/trading related and is a good listen. Nothing too serious and all in good humour.

Hopefully people can tune in live tomorrow and listen in to me ramble on about trading.

If you can't tune in live its not a problem, the show will be recorded for Sat evening in the radio archive secition.

Little bit nervous but should be good fun :)

The link is :

http://www.juicestorm.com

Recovering From Losses

2009-08-18T20:19:00.005+01:00

I started the day pretty well, plodding myself to a nice total by 16:00. Then some terrible luck hit me when my Internet went down for a good 15 seconds. Jumping over to my laptop I hoped it was my computer freezing but indeed it was the Internet. Its stupid me having no backup at the moment as these things happen now and again. But due to me possibly moving I'm waiting to install the second line.

When the Internet came back my position was terrible! The market took £1500 with the price already 6 ticks against me, and drifting like mad. I chased the damn thing up and people noticed and were just jumping in front of me knowing I'm in trouble. Damn you traders hehe! =p Long long after I finally get out for a nasty -251 all. Taking me down to a slight minus on the day. Frustrated but knowing I was trading well, I quickly tried to forget about the unfortunate incident and get on with it. I got my mind focused and went on a nice run to finish on a healthy total for the day. Recovering from losses that are your fault, or in this case not your fault are a massive part of trading successfully. Move on and keep positive :)

Teamwork

2009-08-17T15:12:00.004+01:00

Finding an edge in trading is what its all about. In my eyes whatever makes trading easier generally makes it more profitable. If the edge comes from a super fast connection, an ultra disciplined mind or some balls made from gold. Whatever you can get your hands on or develop then it should increase the pennies in your Betfair bank.

I know only too well how lonesome trading can be. Locking yourself in a room with the blinds drawn down, trying to get yourself into the 'zone'. The computers are buzzing away, the mouse is clicking frantically and all you can hear are the same annoying voices everyday in your ear. The pundits on the racing channels I mean not the ones in your head :) Keeping your cool under these alien conditions of solitude is always gonna be a struggle. 1 of the ways in which I tackle this solitude is to talk to another trader on Skype. In the midst of battle whilst trading.
It would be interesting to hear if anyone is doing the same, or even considered it for that matter?

Ill write a quick list of some of the benefits, in theory 2 minds should be better than 1!

Combining knowledge to analyze the markets - Trying to pick out good entrance/exit points where good 'value' is in the market.
Keeping focused and disciplined throughout the day. Reminding each other the things not to do. Reducing the mistakes is where the profits come from. You will always make money but stopping losing it is where the challenge will always be.
Helping each other through tricky times. Like when your fighting back from a loss for example, if you have another person in your ear saying 'keep your head, forget about it move on' you overcome these losses quicker and come back stronger

But also its important to know when to be quiet and not ramble on, ensuring you don't distract the other person from making money. Trying to be a help not a hinder! I believe when working as a team it provides us with a good array of tools to tackle the markets effectively. Making trading more enjoyable and in turn more profitable. Having someone there to chat shit to in between races is always a good for preventing ourselves arriving at the market too early, when the market hasn't properly pick up yet in terms o f 'flow'. Friend I salute you and thank you for the random conversations we have haha!

I'd recommend to anyone starting up, or even the more experienced traders to give it a go. A lot of aspects of my trading have improved since we started using the tactic of combining heads.

Not much to report as far as last weeks trading, only worked a few days. Been looking for a new apartment possibly to live, and also enjoying some time off. But looking forward to York starting tomorrow.

2 day Break

2009-08-11T13:13:00.003+01:00

I find it very important to keep myself fresh for trading the day and evening races. To ensure this happens I have been taking Sundays and Mondays off for a while now. It's a very important process that you don't over trade....burning your eye balls out and frying your brain! =)

I've noticed that after a time-frame of 6-7 hours a day focusing intensely at flickering numbers, my eyes need a well deserved break. This 5 times a week is ample enough for me and 2 days off gives me the time to wind down. Try and look out of the window every 30 mins - 1 hr to extend those eye balls out and release any built up tension. Also I've started to do sit-ups/press ups in between a few races to keep that blood flowing and the concentration levels up. I believe you should be always looking for ways to increase your focus whilst trading. Don't be lazy!

Over time I've learnt how to distinguish my trading life from my real life, but this hasn't been easy. What i mean by this is when I'm finished trading for the day, regardless if Ive won or lost i wipe that clean from my mind and continue to enjoy my life in other ways. Separating work from play is very important. As much as it's an unusual job, for me its my work not my life. Its what makes me money and gives me a challenge, but its not the be all and end all of my existence. This helps me move forward with trading as i can overcome any losses v quickly, and also not get complacent when Ive had a good day. Keeping a level head is where consistency is born, thus increasing confidence.

For the first few yrs trading i was forever thinking about trading. Every waking hour of the day thoughts were whizzing around my head that were very hard to control. I swear i even had a few nightmares of numbers on ladders. Crazy but it actually doesn't surprise me. So many hours, financial injection and emotional energy goes into trading that's its inevitable that it will grab your attention levels well after the trading day is finished. But I think you have to try and take a step back from it all and don't let it get the better of you. Your the one in control....keep it that way! This emotional control of yourself is what separates the people who make money consistently from the people who don't. The brain is the most powerful asset we own....use it wisely!

First Post =)

2009-08-08T22:58:00.000+01:00

We all need a little focus in our lives once in a while. After trading for nearly 4 years the drive to continually improve my totals is never easy. I make a comfortable living trading pre-race on the horses but due to my work hard, play harder moto my trading totals do get affected. Its sometimes a bit too easy to settle for a profit on the day and stop and go out for a beer. I like to earn money but enjoy spending it more. Some of you might be thinking whats wrong with that? Well there isn't anything wrong with that but that's what I've been doing for several years now. Saying I'm bored of that lifestyle would only be lying to myself, but realising I'm hitting my quarter of a century next month...the big 25! I want to refocus and make sure I don't look back in 10 years time and say "where did all that money go!"

I've read blogs and forums on trading for years and I thought id finally get my azz in gear and make 1 myself. I have to say that the totals Adam Heathcote is hitting on a daily basis is very very impressive, and don't let it get you down that your not hitting anywhere near those amounts. You have to gradually improve your trading starting small, then with experience up your stakes to a bank you are comfortable playing with. This is a guy who is on top of the game, just keep positive at all times and consistent profits will come.

I hope to try and encourage people that although the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes seems impossible to reach, trust me with hard work and persistence you can make a living from Betfair. The traders mindset you need to profit consistently is that of ultimate fine-tuning. Like a formula 1 car being tweaked to run at its optimum performance. Its often the small differences you change whilst trading that makes the difference between winning and losing. You have to perfect the basics and then fine tune everything else to make the whole package run smoothly. In writing my thoughts, I hope to improve my traders minset and the mindset of others. The number 1 rule...discipline, being able to discipline your mind at all times.

I've had a very respectable week working from Tuesday-Saturday. Hoping this blog will keep my focus.