Your first trading success!

[Realrocknrolla]

• Spend time looking for opportunities

Not enough people do that.

However, you need to know what an "opportunity" looks like...?
I understand the "concept" so I try and work out what I think an "opportunity" is (eg.price >6% above VWAP), then write a bot to find them... then lose money

Can’t help with the automation side of things as I am a child in that area.

With manual trading opportunities, look at your charts, look for value. Create a five step checklist.

This will help you relate

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/a ... p-test.asp

Discipline

[Derek27]

1. I moved from betting to trading and mixed the two so I think I was mildly profitable straight away. Can't be certain though as I wasn't keeping separate records.

2. I would tell myself not to bother with scalping or at least spend more time on swings and put more effort into staking in proper proportions for whatever strategy I'm executing.

[Realrocknrolla]

1. I moved from betting to trading and mixed the two so I think I was mildly profitable straight away. Can't be certain though as I wasn't keeping separate records.

2. I would tell myself not to bother with scalping or at least spend more time on swings and put more effort into staking in proper proportions for whatever strategy I'm executing.

I can’t scalp for shit. Swings are more fun.

And swinging

[alexmr2]

1. There are eureka moments, but for me success isn't a moment. It's the gradual process of improving your skillset which leads to longer periods of consistent results. Perceptual judgement can only be gained through experience where you learn to maximise profits and minimise losses to a point where you become profitable in the long-term.

Screenshot_20210514-025213_WhatsApp.jpg

You can see above the type of cycle I'm talking about where although I traded profitably for a good couple of weeks, it doesn't take much to lose focus and end up in an emotionally driven downward spiral (which could have been avoided). To me success would be once I can recognise the self-destructive trading, cut it early on and then come back to the good trading after a break. I'm not there yet but I'm seeing longer periods of consistency and nicer 3 month P&Ls so I hope to continue that trend into an overall positive equity curve.

2. I would tell my younger self that it takes longer than anticipated to get a good feel for the pre-off markets, so to manage my money better while learning to minimise my tuition fee

[wearthefoxhat]

1. I'd found some success with buying stocks and shares using the old share shop in the high street. It was in a bank called Midland (now HSBC). I then found out about the flutter exchange and back in the day they offered a FTSE100 market index. As I was tracking the FTSE 100 as part of the stock buying process, I liked the idea of predicting the how the index may perform and could take either side of the market. Liquidity was poor though and it wasn't long before horse racing/football markets were used too. So my first trade success was in the FTSE100 index market, then blew it in the other markets....

2. Advice to my younger self, would be leave your ego at the door. The market doesn't care that you may have "solved" a race before hand, you have to adapt and if necessary, accept a loss. Similar to playing poker, the money goes in, your oppo is drawing dead to a runner-runner, then bam, you're gone. Loss is part of the game, embrace it, it could be a driver for future profit.

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[Euler]

1. I'd found some success with buying stocks and shares using the old share shop in the high street. It was in a bank called Midland (now HSBC). I then found out about the flutter exchange and back in the day they offered a FTSE100 market index. As I was tracking the FTSE 100 as part of the stock buying process, I liked the idea of predicting the how the index may perform and could take either side of the market. Liquidity was poor though and it wasn't long before horse racing/football markets were used too. So my first trade success was in the FTSE100 index market, then blew it in the other markets....

I spent ages on FTSE up / down markets in the early years.

[tumby]

1. I started building a system for the football pre-off correct score market. It appeared to make a tiny profit but the noise was huge, I was really not sure there was much point continuing. Then for no obvious reason I decided to run my system on a golf major in-play. I made just over £300 and just couldn't believe my luck. Turns out my system needed volume and I was just starting in the wrong market. From then on I started keeping accurate records and designing variations of my system carefully so that I could gather enough data to test whether the variations improved or harmed the system (you need a lot more data than you might think to do this!). I found horse racing the best market to really test my system as there are so many events every day and great volumes.

2. Focus on risk management from the start, don't use the kelly criterion to decide your risk appetite, think about liquidity instead.

[footysystems]

I spent the 1980 and 90s backing horse was so much easier before the internet.
Turned to trading football 2004 thinking it would be easier how wrong was I ?
These days I trade the goals markets inplay using inplay data still a long slog and getting harder the older I am getting cannot think as fast lol

[Kai]

Turns out my system needed volume and I was just starting in the wrong market.

Well done, I feel that's an important part that warranted commenting on

Matching the right strategy to the right market etc goes without saying, possibly matching your mentality to the right approach, but for me most importantly matching your existing skillset to the right market/approach as well, which is something I'm still transitioning through as well (although mostly due to lack of effort on my part). But this work/transition is probably never done anyway, if you keep building up your skillset and adding to it over time then ideally you're going to do some market hopping.

IMHO always a good idea to explore different markets, like you've done there, since things you learn in a new market can deepen your understanding on your previous market and help put the bigger picture together quicker, even if the markets are seemingly unrelated. That being said however, going far too wide is not too sensible either since it obviously comes at the cost of "narrow specialization" and "specialist knowledge" which I'd say is an absolute must in order to penetrate that initial bubble of so-called market efficiency.

So when struggling it's probably worth taking a little step back to objectively see if your approach could be better applied elsewhere and to see if your skills are objectively better suited elsewhere.

And whether you should be focusing on maximizing your strengths or actively working on your biggest weaknesses is probably too big of a topic, but I'd lean towards the strengths part since you do have a chance to create something special that way, instead of just getting your weaknesses up to the average levels, although the weaknesses obviously do have to be at a certain minimum level to not drag the whole thing down and ruin it.

[Derek27]

I spent the 1980 and 90s backing horse was so much easier before the internet.
Turned to trading football 2004 thinking it would be easier how wrong was I ?
These days I trade the goals markets inplay using inplay data still a long slog and getting harder the older I am getting cannot think as fast lol

In the 1980s with just a handful of bookies, big overrounds and 10% tax, looking back I would say it was near enough impossible to win, although at the time I just convinced myself otherwise. Now, with over 50 online bookies competing, very tight overrounds it's never been better for small punters to get value, that is, until they stop taking your bets!

[rik]

I spent the 1980 and 90s backing horse was so much easier before the internet.
Turned to trading football 2004 thinking it would be easier how wrong was I ?
These days I trade the goals markets inplay using inplay data still a long slog and getting harder the older I am getting cannot think as fast lol

In the 1980s with just a handful of bookies, big overrounds and 10% tax, looking back I would say it was near enough impossible to win, although at the time I just convinced myself otherwise. Now, with over 50 online bookies competing, very tight overrounds it's never been better for small punters to get value, that is, until they stop taking your bets!

Overrounds might be tighter now but prices also more accurate with much more statistics/video etc available and can feed all sorts of information into programs to work out a price
Im sure what he meant is that it was easier to find the value prices in the 80s, 90s and I would assume thats true

[Derek27]

I spent the 1980 and 90s backing horse was so much easier before the internet.
Turned to trading football 2004 thinking it would be easier how wrong was I ?
These days I trade the goals markets inplay using inplay data still a long slog and getting harder the older I am getting cannot think as fast lol

In the 1980s with just a handful of bookies, big overrounds and 10% tax, looking back I would say it was near enough impossible to win, although at the time I just convinced myself otherwise. Now, with over 50 online bookies competing, very tight overrounds it's never been better for small punters to get value, that is, until they stop taking your bets!

Overrounds might be tighter now but prices also more accurate with much more statistics/video etc available and can feed all sorts of information into programs to work out a price
Im sure what he meant is that it was easier to find the value prices in the 80s, 90s and I would assume thats true

In the 1980s I wasn't smart enough to spot value and lacked the knowledge of horse racing that I subsequently acquired. But I'm pretty sure there were far less opportunities back then, especially with the 10% tax. You have tight overrounds now but that doesn't stop massive price fluctuations, steamers and drifters so you know there must be plenty of value to be had if you're a bettor.

[Crazyskier]

Mine was finding that if I could get matched at early enough prices (before the big late bookie money), I could lay the entire field to a set liability for a small profit.

Over the years this has refined through necessity as every man and his bot is trying to compete to be first in the queue at poor value prices and you'll get matched with 30 tick gaps, only to find the prices crash in to below what you've laid at! Story of my life! Haha.

In fact I make less now than I used to, even with last year's anticipated move from 2k to 5k transaction limit per hour before charges.There are some very sophisticated excel-driven and bespoke bots that are far more efficient than my 'fill or kill' bots now. Sad really.

CS

[rik]

In fact I make less now than I used to, even with last year's anticipated move from 2k to 5k transaction limit per hour before charges.There are some very sophisticated excel-driven and bespoke bots that are far more efficient than my 'fill or kill' bots now. Sad really.

CS

Less better than nothing at least, everything I done on my first phase on betfair been overtaken and useless by now, I guess why shouldnt get too lazy

[Kai]

In fact I make less now than I used to, even with last year's anticipated move from 2k to 5k transaction limit per hour before charges.There are some very sophisticated excel-driven and bespoke bots that are far more efficient than my 'fill or kill' bots now. Sad really.

CS

Less better than nothing at least, everything I done on my first phase on betfair been overtaken and useless by now, I guess why shouldnt get too lazy

Same here actually, a lot of my first phase stuff more or less useless by now and it's only been like 5 years or so.