Newbies Trading in the Dark

Learn sports betting strategies and discuss key factors to consider when placing a bet.
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MAGTRADEUK
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Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 12:55 pm

I have also watched many of the videos, one thing that struck me is that the entries always seem to be at the right to perfect time and the amount staked is very high, well for me anyway.

The price updates seem to be quite sedate, and even getting these amounts into the market with only 5 mins to go and also more importantly get out with a good profit and before the off, seems to be a monumental task for a new trader on the HR Betfair markets.

When I go into a market with 5 mins to go the prices are flying around, there is hardly any time to build a position before you have to start getting out, that is of course if the thing is going the right way. !!!!
Archery1969
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I wonder what refresh rate Peter uses because in his videos it sometimes seems to be in slow motion.
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Euler
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I use a fast refresh rate but that makes the market 'noisy' so I would actually suggest using a much slower rate when you are learning.

I've just had a lot of practice and seen almost every scenario, so that's why it looks uncomplicated. But trading is anything but uncomplicated. The biggest leap for me was changing my thinking. You often have to do the opposite of what you think when you are learning.
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firlandsfarm
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spreadbetting wrote:
Sun Sep 15, 2019 1:42 pm
... even averaging £10 a race can net you a three figure salary for the year. And to make £10 a trade could simply be a trade of £100 at 11 laid at 10, 2 ticks. Exposures of a grand will easily go unnoticed at all price points and you can stick thru many a race. So whilst you may trade MANY thousands of pounds on a race it doesn't need to be in one trade.
I agree your calcs SB but I've often wondered what is an efficient return per race/market. I appreciate actual trade size will vary with how the market is viewed but just as a wild stab in the dark what would be considered a reasonable return as a %age of average trading stake (not total staked ... average stake per trade)? So if your trading stake averages say £10 per trade would you hope to average £1 per race/market, £5, £10 … maybe more. I'm just curious because when you start trading it's difficult to know if you should be satisfied with your returns (accepting that you should be happy with any profit! :) ).
spreadbetting
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So much depends on your style of play, scalpers will generally be lower as they'll do more churning of stakes compared to a swing trader. Been a long time since I've done any number crunching on it but, with my bots etc,I'd definitely be running below a 1% return on the total stakes I put thru the markets.
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firlandsfarm
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spreadbetting wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:50 pm
So much depends on your style of play, scalpers will generally be lower as they'll do more churning of stakes compared to a swing trader. Been a long time since I've done any number crunching on it but, with my bots etc,I'd definitely be running below a 1% return on the total stakes I put thru the markets.
Thanks for that SB, that's interesting. So you are looking at less than 1% of turnover, a very small margin. I try to look for a 5% margin with mine … I guess 6 BOTs at 1% is better than 1 BOT at 5% but at 1% I would be worried that the slightest change in how the market behaves could become a 1% loss.

I was more interested in the relationship between the average set stake (stake per individual back/lay trade not total staked) and the average race profit. I have no idea but just putting some numbers on the table would traders hope/expect/target to achieve an average profit per race of 10%, 50% maybe 100% or more of "average set stake". I appreciate that will depend on the number of trades made in the race but just looking at averages.

I believe in "it's never wrong to take a profit" and am tending to adopt a "stop at a winner" tactic for manual trading because I found that sometimes by continuing to trade after making a profit I could lose it! So I was just wondering what is an average profit% of 'average stake per back/lay' just as a target/guide to compare with.
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ShaunWhite
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There's two components, the edge from raw numbers you can automate (such as how SB and I trade and I agree with him about the size of that. Even 1/2% is perfectly fine when you trade over 1000 selections a day) and then there's the edge you can add to that as a manual trader by using your skill and judgement. Peter might add 10% and I might deduct 10%.during execution. But a 5% edge without your 'soft' manual input is very very unlikely.

But even then profit is a combination of edge, turnover and frequency of opportunity. A scalper might turnover £1000 and make £10 on every race or a swing trader might turnover £100 and make £20 on every second race.
spreadbetting
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firlandsfarm wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:59 am

Thanks for that SB, that's interesting. So you are looking at less than 1% of turnover, a very small margin. I try to look for a 5% margin with mine … I guess 6 BOTs at 1% is better than 1 BOT at 5% but at 1% I would be worried that the slightest change in how the market behaves could become a 1% loss.
I find it the oposite to be honest, the lower the percentage the more reliable the results become as you're playing such a large numbers of markets the eventual outcome is more predictable.

firlandsfarm wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:59 am
I was more interested in the relationship between the average set stake (stake per individual back/lay trade not total staked) and the average race profit. I have no idea but just putting some numbers on the table would traders hope/expect/target to achieve an average profit per race of 10%, 50% maybe 100% or more of "average set stake". I appreciate that will depend on the number of trades made in the race but just looking at averages.

I believe in "it's never wrong to take a profit" and am tending to adopt a "stop at a winner" tactic for manual trading because I found that sometimes by continuing to trade after making a profit I could lose it! So I was just wondering what is an average profit% of 'average stake per back/lay' just as a target/guide to compare with.

I'd be very surpised if people were returning 10%,50% or even 100% average profits from their stakes. If we consider prices around 2's you're looking at 10 ticks just to return 5%, back £100 @ 2's close by laying £105.26 @ 1.9 and that's not even factoring in the fact you'd have losers.

I'm sure there are probably people making double figure returns on average but like everything it comes down to the amount of work you're prepared to put into your original bets and the markets you play. There are situations where I'll be confident of double figure percentage returns but because I take the approach of betting on anything I think will give me a positive return in the long run my overall average is always going to be small especially when botting volume via bots.

At the end of the day you have to take your own approach but should never lose sight that the ultimate goal is to return a profit not a percentage. Churning over your stake is a big plus for a trader because there are so many small opportunities that are around to take a percent or two but not so many opportunities to take 10% or more.
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firlandsfarm
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ShaunWhite wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 2:54 pm
There's two components, the edge from raw numbers you can automate (such as how SB and I trade and I agree with him about the size of that. Even 1/2% is perfectly fine when you trade over 1000 selections a day) and then there's the edge you can add to that as a manual trader by using your skill and judgement. Peter might add 10% and I might deduct 10%.during execution. But a 5% edge without your 'soft' manual input is very very unlikely.

But even then profit is a combination of edge, turnover and frequency of opportunity. A scalper might turnover £1000 and make £10 on every race or a swing trader might turnover £100 and make £20 on every second race.
spreadbetting wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:14 pm
I find it the oposite to be honest, the lower the percentage the more reliable the results become as you're playing such a large numbers of markets the eventual outcome is more predictable.
Shaun/SB in comparing the returns we are not comparing like for like strategies. I agree with your comments re your strategies and the difference manual input makes but my 5% active trading, manual or automatic … it refers to making selections from what I refer to as statistical advantages, like the now well known draw advantage at Beverley of a few years ago. My BOTs run in conjunction with my database and seek to find value by comparing prices with possible historical/trending edges and placing individual bets on selections … B2L and L2B would be further examples but this is not what I wanted my question to refer to. Maybe I confused the topic by mentioning the BOT %age I look for without thinking of the different types of BOTs being used. I'm actually not wanting to explore your 1,000's of automated trades either, I am thinking of manual trading!
spreadbetting wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:14 pm
I'd be very surpised if people were returning 10%,50% or even 100% average profits from their stakes. If we consider prices around 2's you're looking at 10 ticks just to return 5%, back £100 @ 2's close by laying £105.26 @ 1.9 and that's not even factoring in the fact you'd have losers.
Thanks for your continued interest guys but I think my point is being missed. I'm not asking the %age of turnover (total stakes) I'm asking that if someone usually trades with say average £100 stakes per trade would they want/expect/hope to have an average profit of say £20 per race i.e. the average profit is 20% of the average individual stake of £100 (not the total stakes). Yes, to make that £20 profit they will most certainly have to make multiple trades (of £100). What I'm trying to get at is a comparison of the profits of someone who trades at £2 per trade with someone who trades at say £100 (or more per trade). Some guys here post their profits from trading in the £'s hundreds but the readers don't know if they are staking £2 per trade to achieve their claimed profits or £1,000 per trade (or Photoshop! :) )!

The number of trades performed is obviously relevant but just as relevant is the average stake used. To make an average profit of 40 pence per race when trading can seem pathetic and demoralising but if you are only trading with £2 stakes that's equivalent to making an average profit of £20 per race if trading with stakes of £100.
spreadbetting
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firlandsfarm wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 4:15 pm
Thanks for your continued interest guys but I think my point is being missed. I'm not asking the %age of turnover (total stakes) I'm asking that if someone usually trades with say average £100 stakes per trade would they want/expect/hope to have an average profit of say £20 per race i.e. the average profit is 20% of the average individual stake of £100 (not the total stakes). Yes, to make that £20 profit they will most certainly have to make multiple trades (of £100). What I'm trying to get at is a comparison of the profits of someone who trades at £2 per trade with someone who trades at say £100 (or more per trade). Some guys here post their profits from trading in the £'s hundreds but the readers don't know if they are staking £2 per trade to achieve their claimed profits or £1,000 per trade (or Photoshop! :) )!

The number of trades performed is obviously relevant but just as relevant is the average stake used. To make an average profit of 40 pence per race when trading can seem pathetic and demoralising but if you are only trading with £2 stakes that's equivalent to making an average profit of £20 per race if trading with stakes of £100.
If you're looking for comparisons you really need to have some reference standard and the easiest one is always going to be the return to your total staked thru the market. Many swing traders will simply do one trade thru the market whereas a scalper may do 10, staking 10 times the swing trader so comparing their market return to the same stake isn't really relevant. Plus the majority of us don't play to set stakes, it's more about taking advantage of what you thnk the market can take when the opportunity of an 'edge' arises. Like others I'll have various stake boxes set up and may click them numerous times in one trade if I think I can manually and botting stakes get adjusted depending on the available liquidity.

I do get where you're coming from as we all want to know where we stand in the trading 'league table' but you're always comparing apples and oranges because we all play differently. The simple truth is we're playing into near 100% books so any little edge you find can give you a decent living if you can constantly exploit it.

I'd guess most of the £2 traders on here will return a much healthier percentage than I would playing with the same stakes but when it comes to upping those stakes for worthwhile amounts it's a whole new ball game for a variety of reasons. My approach has always been about sticking volume through the markets so you'd probably need more swings traders to comment and give you an idea of the figures you're looking for.
TraderFred
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A league table of traders would be a great idea. Would be very interesting to know where you sit.

Personally, I’d say I was in league two, hovering just above the relegation places to the national league!

Had a spell in the championship a few years back, though was quickly relegated back into league one, then back into league two.

Lots of premier league traders on here though to aspire to !
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firlandsfarm
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spreadbetting wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 4:53 pm
If you're looking for comparisons you really need to have some reference standard and the easiest one is always going to be the return to your total staked thru the market. Many swing traders will simply do one trade thru the market whereas a scalper may do 10, staking 10 times the swing trader so comparing their market return to the same stake isn't really relevant. Plus the majority of us don't play to set stakes, it's more about taking advantage of what you thnk the market can take when the opportunity of an 'edge' arises. Like others I'll have various stake boxes set up and may click them numerous times in one trade if I think I can manually and botting stakes get adjusted depending on the available liquidity.

I do get where you're coming from as we all want to know where we stand in the trading 'league table' but you're always comparing apples and oranges because we all play differently. The simple truth is we're playing into near 100% books so any little edge you find can give you a decent living if you can constantly exploit it.

I'd guess most of the £2 traders on here will return a much healthier percentage than I would playing with the same stakes but when it comes to upping those stakes for worthwhile amounts it's a whole new ball game for a variety of reasons. My approach has always been about sticking volume through the markets so you'd probably need more swings traders to comment and give you an idea of the figures you're looking for.
Sorry SB but I can't agree it should only be based on total staked … yes that is one measurement but %age of average stake is another. I have never accepted ROI based on total staked as a fair measurement for comparison partly for the reason you raise … some will spot more opportunities but someone who trades more frequently could have a lower ROI but higher profit than someone who trades less. There is more than one way to skin a cat and likewise there is more than one way to compare returns. Comparisons are not always black and white often it involves a number of comparisons and an injection of evaluation. I'm not saying the %age of average stake method is the only one just that it is one. And to take one point you make, if a £100 stake is split into 10 x £10 then the stake is £100 and the method is to place it in 10 batches.

BTW I'm not looking for nor suggesting a league table, that is the last thing in my mind, I was just asking for a market feel.

Anyway it seems it's a number that is not available.
TraderFred
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ROI or % on turnover etc has always been a grey area in trading due to there being so many different styles and ways of trading, and so many different ways you can record it.

The only figure that really matters is your PnL. That tells you where you are at.

% figures can be misleading, as said above it can be far easier to maintain a high % with small stakes than you can when putting through the kind of stakes that you need to get a decent return.

A league table would be a good idea I think. Obviously, MemphisFlash would be top, though it would be interesting to see who was in second and third and so on.
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ShaunWhite
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TraderFred wrote:
Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:36 pm
A league table would be a good idea I think.
A league table of what? Who's earned the most, or who's worked the least, or who's enjoyed their job most?

Let's hypothetically say ..
SB made £2k this week and worked 16hrs whenever he chose to.
You made £5k this week but been at your desk 7 days, done 50hrs and missed the rare sunny summer afternoons.
Person X made £3000 trading manually 5hrs in the afternoons mon-fri, but doesn't like working weekends so doesn't.

Who's top? As far as I'm concerned anyone except the guy on 6k. I'd have SB at the top of my table in that situation, damn good wage, minimum hours, maximum freedom.
TraderFred
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I take your point ShaunWhite. A league table would be almost impossible to compile. Couldn’t even use your BF earnings as lots of people claim to have arbed all their profits away elsewhere.

I guess the only comparison you can truly make is with yourself, how much you’re making, how long it is taking out of your life, and how much you enjoy it.

I’ve never played poker myself, though I remember when it was really big during the 2000s that there was lots of stats available on the players, money earnt, tournaments won etc. Remember being jealous at the attention and recognition poker guys got, and their sponsorship deals etc!
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