Am I progressing or standing still?

[DodgyKnee78]

Hi Everyone,

I've been trading pre-race horse markets for about 5 months now and wouldn't mind some feedback on how you guys think i'm getting on.

I have a pretty small bank (€200) and use €20 stakes regardless of the horses odds. I only trade the top 3 in the market and have learnt with experience not to let my trades go in-running. For the first couple of months like most people I suppose I bust a few banks but over the past 10 weeks or so I've been pretty consistent and either make a small profit a day or generally break even. For the past 20 days I've had winning days (again pretty small) usually about 5-10 euro, but I seem to be struggling to make the next step. Should I be profiting more than I am with the stakes I'm using? I still haven't mastered how to take advantage of swings in the market and miss quite a few oppurtunities. I feel I could carry on this way for months to come and not really progress!

I'm just wondering if this was how it was for you guys or if you just kept gradually progressing until you were able to make a decent living from it.

Also I'm toying with the idea of recording my trades and looking back over them to see what I could have done differently. Have any of you guys taken this approach?

Any advice would be very much appreciated...

[willooo]

Sounds like you are going in the right direction.

You should consider staking according to tick size though. I've been down this path myself and you may find that you are making many successful small trades at low prices, only to have it all wiped out by a losing trade at a higher price. For instance if all your trades were 1 tick scalps you could make 5 great trades in the 1.01-2.00 price band only to have it evaporate by one bad trade in the 3's. You should consider setting your staking so that every tick is the same value to avoid this.

Definately record what you do. I got a trial version of 'My Screen Recorder Pro' from download.com. I haven't tried others but it does what it says on the tin and is free to use as long as you don't mind having a watermark on the screen.

Apart from that, it's very tough knowing when you are good. I find with myself that as time goes on I find what doesn't work and slowly by eliminating those things I'm hopefuly left with what does work.

I also try to write simulation code in Excel. If I run a simulation a million times and it turns out +EV it gives me the confidence to step up my game. It's also reassuring because nearly every simulation goes through horrible down swings at some point or other but then recovers to a healthy net. It prepares you for the bad swings before they arrive and gives you chance to prepare a sound money management plan to carry you through.


Good luck with your trading,
Cheers for now

[DodgyKnee78]

Hi Willooo,

Thanks for your response.

I used to trade on tick size but I find that I'm more disciplined if I have a set stake. For some reason I didn't concentrate as much when trading on horses priced above 4. Not sure why this was!

I'm definitely interested in recording my sessions but do you find any lag or interference with BA when running video recording software?

I'm not familiar with simulation code or using excel with my trading but it sounds very interesting. Am I right in thinking that it would be sort of like having a dummy account on Forex allowing you to simulate what may or may not happen? Can you point me in the right direction for more information about simulation code and examples perhaps?

Thanks again
Pat

[willooo]

Hi Pat,

I haven't noticed any particular problem when recording my activities and my computer isn't anything special. I do try and keep the programs that are running to a minimum though so don't have any messengers or other stuff going on in the background.

The simulations I use are kind of similar to the Forex thing you mention but the main idea is that you can change input parameters to see what effect it has on your long term results. The best way to describe it is as 'what-if scenarios'.

Simulations are difficult (and arguably of questionable value) if you are the kind of trader who trades by 'feel' but if you have rigid rules and follow a mechanical approach they can be very good. I fall into the second camp so in many cases can assign a fairly good probability of something I do occuring. I do this for all my rules and then run a 'what if' scenario to see how close to the wire I run.

A good use for this is where there are things that happen that you can't work around. For me, I always find that there are sudden price shifts most days that leave me stopped out of a particular trade. I can change the simulated frequency of these events occuring to see what it would take for them to really start damaging my profitability.

Another example is that you can say what if I can't exit a trade (network problem for instance). The simulation can work out how this hurts you depending on the average odds you are trading at, whether you back first or lay first etc, etc.

I also change the type of staking I use in the simulation to see if it affects my overall profit. The results can be quite surprising.

That's the good side. Unfortunately it's quite a bit of effort to set up and you do need to have some understanding of Excel's formuals and functions. Definately worth pursuing though. Look up 'Excel What-If' and go from there.

[DodgyKnee78]

many thanks Willooo,

I see what you mean about the excel what if scenario, i've just typed it into a search engine and feel like i've opened Pandora's box

It looks very interesting though so I'll definitely have a look through all the various video's and articles and see what I can pick up. I do have some experience working with excel in a previous life so hopefully that will help.

Thanks again for your responses they've been very helpful and insightful.

Pat