Chasing markets with a winning strategy

Trading is often about how to take the appropriate risk without exposing yourself to very human flaws.
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NickH
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:54 am

Let's say (example) that over the last 1000 races I have made a profit of 1 euro per race on average. Besides taking a look at the efficiency of the trading to get the (average) profit up, the other obvious one to increase the total profits would be to increase the amount of races traded. In the past I have read something about (financial) traders going mad, due to the fact that they identified a winning formula and kept chasing all the available markets to increase the amount of trades they executed (as somewhere in the world there would be a financial market to trade).

How do you all ensure that, with a proven strategy, you don't go crazy on chasing all the opportunities available throughout the day? As an example: when done racing in the afternoon, you would go to the gym in the evening, watch some football, etc. However, the feeling of missed profits keeps coming up on the back of your head, as you did not trade the evening racing.
Anbell
Posts: 2004
Joined: Fri Apr 05, 2019 2:31 am

Automation.
NickH
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:54 am

I fully agree that automation could, with certain strategies, be the solution. However, don't think in all cases and then the 'issue' remains.. Other have the same?
rik
Posts: 1583
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 5:16 am
Location: London

try to find the right balance. For sure automation is a good way to go if you have any talent for that, try to work on strategies that dont require supervision. You might still have the feeling of "missing out" if you dont constantly work on improving your automations, so maybe its your mindset you need to calm down and think more longer term.

For me I was lucky to have found a massive edge not long after starting on betfair but not spent much time trading as thought I have enough money for now and can do this forever, had more fear of missing out on life. Then one day to the next with introduction of cross matching my profits went down 95%.
A few years later I was getting worried about money and spent many months grinding away most of my time averaging a fraction per hour what I used to, just on autopilot not really enjoying, not looking to improve much but just making money as safe and fast as possible. At the time I was thinking for sure it would have been more comfortable to have bet more while I had a massive edge.

Still I will say unless you have to or making life changing money in short space of time, always focus most of your energy on improving, enjoy the process and forget about short term profits and make sure you have a good life outside of betting.
If you are good its likely youll outdo your current profits naturally by just having improved over time. Maybe you are quite new to trading, i think for most people enthusiasm will go down over time anyway and you start focusing just on the big events or whatever your best at/ see the most potential.
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Kai
Posts: 6092
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:21 pm

I'd echo what rik is saying, have to get over FOMO (fear of missing out) and you'll get used to being profitable when your mindset adapts, but unless you're making life changing money from the grind you have to drop markets that aren't worth your time and be sensible about it.

As you can imagine a lot of traders have the ability to grind all sorts of markets all day but most would not be worth their time, you have racing going nonstop during day and night and all sorts of other sports so you have to pick your battles and go with what you think is best time/profit ratio for you.

For example when I first learned how to scalp in 2014 I jumped on all markets that were liquid enough, from racing and darts to football and NBA but realized that the opportunities weren't great everywhere so dropping most things besides football. Then when I learned how to market make on tennis in 2015 I soon found out it was just too grindy for my liking and was taking far too much time away from trading football which I liked the most since I love the sport itself. If you don't focus on the best stuff and drop the rest of it you may never find time to improve further, some of my friends paid 100% focus on the grind and 0% on improvement and despite having a good run they are now mostly retired from trading.

That's one of the more subtle pitfalls for sure, seen many friends fall for it, if you get into a grindy trading rhythm that leaves no real quality time to work on a more scalable approach (maybe not even enough time for a normal healthy life outside of the market), until the grindy approach inevitably starts weakening over time once markets change and you eventually have to drop it to finally free up time to pursue a better one.

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NickH
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue May 21, 2019 7:54 am

Totally agree with both of you, really interested how others experienced the above as I think it is an issue that a lot of enthusiastic starting traders fall for (including me). From a personal perspective I have tried to get a strategy going for almost all sports (football, tennis, darts, horse racing, greyhounds, etc.), name it and I was trying to get a strategy going for each of them. Recently decided to start focusing on just horse racing, as I feel that I am most comfortable trading them (large volumes, pre-off, etc.). However, with in the back of my head that once I have obtained a sufficient level op trading (knowledge) I will slowly take a dip in for instance automating some football.
spreadbetting
Posts: 3140
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:06 pm

I think a lot depends on what your edge is and how sustainable it's likely to be. I've been in the same situation as rik, simple edge, winning plenty more than I needed, took my foot off the pedal thinking it'd go on forever and a few years later that edge eventually disappears for whatever reason. Looking back with hindsight I should have milked it for all it was worth but the time was more important to me than the money and I was winning plenty from it.

You'll just need to try to be as efficient as you and accept you'll never get it perfect, especially in hindsght.
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