I've had a sobering look at my P&L for the last 3 months (primarily cricket) and the thing is in almost a straight diagonal line down, expect for one big win and one big loss.
I'm wondering if there must be something fundamentally wrong with how I'm trading, technically.
About 80% of the positions I take on are contrarian- that is, taking a position against the market in expectation of an event occurring.
I'm wondering now if I should just do the opposite. Yield to the flow of the market and take those contrarian movements as bumps along the road.
That would require a fundamental shift in the way I look at the market and so far I am finding it difficult to get out of the old mindset of thinking the market will turn around into my favour.
Has anyone else experienced this and were you able to overcome it?
Thanks.
Just do the opposite?
Doing the opposite may seem a good idea but it has its flaws. For starters you may not be able to lay at the price you backed at if you've taken the price. Issues like overstaking and being forced to shut down your liabilities, for example, could surface even if you do the opposite.abgespaced wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:34 amI've had a sobering look at my P&L for the last 3 months (primarily cricket) and the thing is in almost a straight diagonal line down, expect for one big win and one big loss.
I'm wondering if there must be something fundamentally wrong with how I'm trading, technically.
About 80% of the positions I take on are contrarian- that is, taking a position against the market in expectation of an event occurring.
I'm wondering now if I should just do the opposite. Yield to the flow of the market and take those contrarian movements as bumps along the road.
That would require a fundamental shift in the way I look at the market and so far I am finding it difficult to get out of the old mindset of thinking the market will turn around into my favour.
Has anyone else experienced this and were you able to overcome it?
Thanks.
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abgespaced
- Posts: 176
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- Location: Australia
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abgespaced
- Posts: 176
- Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2020 2:25 am
- Location: Australia
I think it would be better to just assume the favourite will win and just try to get the best price for it I can. This contrarian approach isn't something that can be applied to every game.
Here is a post from 2012 by a Jeff. "I've nothing against the contrarian approach, but simply betting more and more money on an eventual reversal which may or may not happen is a road to the poor house..."
Shame I could only find one comment about this
Here is a post from 2012 by a Jeff. "I've nothing against the contrarian approach, but simply betting more and more money on an eventual reversal which may or may not happen is a road to the poor house..."
Shame I could only find one comment about this
Were you profitable generally, before the last 3 months? What kind of strike rate are you expecting? I don't know much about cricket, or your trading history so apologies if this sounds too basic, but it must depend on the odds, surely? If you have an edge (regardless of if you're with, or against the market), then it'll come out in the wash over time. So, the only question to ask is, does the position you're taking actually have an edge? (i.e. if you think the market is too optimistic, can you justify that?)
From what I understand, it's pretty common to have a successful trading approach initially (especially prior to ramping it up, e.g. 2 days a week to 5 days a week), where every entry is being carefully considered (whether that is based on a hunch, or analysis of some kind) and then it starts getting applied everywhere, to markets it's not appropriate, even when your entry is something that has no advantage over the market.
Obviously it depends, because if you're taking very low % positions, then the variance is going to be extremely large, because most of the time you will lose, until hurrah! Pay day.
When it comes to doing the opposite, it reminds me of how e.g. something can be good value to lay, yet the opposite outcome is still poor value to back. It seems counter to what I'd expect, but often holds true.
If you're taking up more positions then perhaps you need to ask bigger questions, like, do you need a less flexible trading plan, or even a more defined plan to give you confidence in that initial position, since maybe you're understaking on good entries and then trying to compensate?
From what I understand, it's pretty common to have a successful trading approach initially (especially prior to ramping it up, e.g. 2 days a week to 5 days a week), where every entry is being carefully considered (whether that is based on a hunch, or analysis of some kind) and then it starts getting applied everywhere, to markets it's not appropriate, even when your entry is something that has no advantage over the market.
Obviously it depends, because if you're taking very low % positions, then the variance is going to be extremely large, because most of the time you will lose, until hurrah! Pay day.
When it comes to doing the opposite, it reminds me of how e.g. something can be good value to lay, yet the opposite outcome is still poor value to back. It seems counter to what I'd expect, but often holds true.
If you're taking up more positions then perhaps you need to ask bigger questions, like, do you need a less flexible trading plan, or even a more defined plan to give you confidence in that initial position, since maybe you're understaking on good entries and then trying to compensate?
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The Silk Run
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- Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 12:53 am
- Location: United Kingdom
abgespaced wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:34 amI've had a sobering look at my P&L for the last 3 months (primarily cricket) and the thing is in almost a straight diagonal line down, expect for one big win and one big loss.
I'm wondering if there must be something fundamentally wrong with how I'm trading, technically.
About 80% of the positions I take on are contrarian- that is, taking a position against the market in expectation of an event occurring.
I'm wondering now if I should just do the opposite. Yield to the flow of the market and take those contrarian movements as bumps along the road.
That would require a fundamental shift in the way I look at the market and so far I am finding it difficult to get out of the old mindset of thinking the market will turn around into my favour.
Has anyone else experienced this and were you able to overcome it?
Thanks.
Good advice all round and in reality it shouldn't make a great deal of difference either way which side of the market you are on if the price is relatively efficient. However some years ago I read a great little book called "Secrets of Professional Turf Betting" by Robert Bacon. A bit dated now but some great words of wisdom in it and free pdf versions can still be got online.
In that book iirc Bacon remarked on how some punters lost so badly above and beyond what the market should be normally taking from a -EV system that it was almost like the player was "doing it on purpose". Really it was his way of discussing "betting efficiency". So my question to you is are you messing around with various strategies and ditching them after a short while if they are losing or are you messing around with stake levels as well because such flipping can have a bad impact on profitability.
Some years ago when I was heavily into blackjack, I thought I was well theoried in that game, I knew that with perfect basic strategy then the house edge could be reduced in the UK to c-0.5%. That is with perfect play without card counting. Bad players can stretch the house edge to between 1% to almost a worse case scenario of 3% as many playing decisions are the same even if the player is good or terrible. However when I was working in gaming, I was stunned to find out that the casino where I worked was making 18% on turnover on blackjack lifetime. The other casinos in the group were between 18% and 22%. I couldn't understand these figures at all until I discovered that betting efficiency is different to playing efficiency and that those percentages were far from automatic in the same way that just losing to the overround is far from automatic.