picking the right direction

[Krzysztof]

When putting an order into the market for a swing trade you have to be confident in knowing which way the market is likely to go or you could lose quite a few ticks before cutting out and may not be able avoid a red screen. There are definitely indicators and pointers on helping you decide where to place your order in these markets and its not the roulette you make it sound like.

Sorry if You understand me so. I certainly didn't mean roulette when I used word "opportunity". What I was focusing on, was mental approach, not entry rules.

I believe everytime You place an opening order into the market You need to have Your edge, even if You're edge is only to be aggresive for example. Therefore if You have Your "own edge" everytime You enter the market, then it allows You to be confident. But in my eyes, confidence has nothing to do with knowing which way the market is going to go (I wish Pinsticker could write something, as I loved his blog and the way he was writing about trading).

I actually love market when it's changing direction. So I can put a trade one way, few sconds later into the ohter way and so on. I just need to keep my level of confidence high.

There is nothing wrong to have a trade which goes against You, because losing few ticks it's not an issue when swing trading, because You're looking for a larger move. It is not knowledge of the way the market is likely to go that makes You find great trade. It's opend eyes and applying Your edge everytime You see right conditions.

[Alpha322]

interesting thread,

one of the major factors for success is discipline.
this means, being able to red out as well as green (something i still struggle with)
and the ability to not chase..

[/quote]
Hi MM i am getting over this slowly, i found when you dont do it your bankroll increases, i done it today and put a little hole in my bankrole, nothing drastic. I think its a momment of madness a pycological thing that we refuse to be wrong in the Market, i wont do it again, slap wrist

[Zapata]

I don't want to stir trouble but is it not easier to just wipe out the tiny overround on Betfair and place a back or lay bet. It was difficult years ago with bookies massive overrounds and betting tax but now all the information is available through Betfair/Timeform. (my databases go back to 1994)

What is worse, beating a 0.5% overround or taking on 100's of pro traders?

I have been gambling profesionally for a long time now and believe me trading is much harder so perhaps "picking the right direction" is not the only question to be asked for many would be traders.

[CaerMyrddin]

I like your views, although I don't necessarily agree with you. I like your fresh punter aproach. There are so many different points of view in the market and how they all add up and compose to form prices is amazing.

[Zenyatta]

I have to agree with Zapata -there's no faster and more efficient way to have smart sharks relieve you of your money than cold trading (trading based solely on the numbers rather than form-based knowledge). As soon as you enter the trading game you are exposing yourself to their mechinations. Even the pros have to put huge sums through to eek out miniscule profits that way - less than 1% ROI.

Cold trading is definitely not for me, and I only now do trading on a limited number of markets where I have clear form-based information about a selection and enter the maket a long way in advance. I only follow trends where I vetted the selection first far in advance.

Trading does have the advantages of being able to put more money through, turn over the bank faster and reduce commission, but it's actually much more complex than straight punting. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, you are likely to be relieved of your cash fairly rapidly unless you know exactly what you are doing.

[PeterLe]

I have to agree with Zapata -there's no faster and more efficient way to have smart sharks relieve you of your money than cold trading (trading based solely on the numbers rather than form-based knowledge). As soon as you enter the trading game you are exposing yourself to their mechinations. Even the pros have to put huge sums through to eek out miniscule profits that way - less than 1% ROI.

Cold trading is definitely not for me, and I only now do trading on a limited number of markets where I have clear form-based information about a selection and enter the maket a long way in advance. I only follow trends where I vetted the selection first far in advance.

Trading does have the advantages of being able to put more money through, turn over the bank faster and reduce commission, but it's actually much more complex than straight punting. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, you are likely to be relieved of your cash fairly rapidly unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Hi Zenyatta,
Just interested; How many races would you trade in this manner a day?? (Are you a full time trader??)

Regards
Peter

[to75ne]

just read this post and i assume the original poster is quite new to trading pre off horse markets. if so i really think he and anyone newish to it would be better off concentrating on scalping for single ticks; put any notions of swings on the back burner for quite a while.

Its not too difficult identifying when a good entry point presents itself and hence open a trade. If it goes your way take a tick, if not scratch or loss a tick or two. Your not just learning how to win/loss ticks but the speed at which you have to make a decision, both when to enter and when to close or scratch. Speed of decision making is crucial (to swing trading to).

After months of practicing this, you will also acquire other knowledge (just because your spending so much time looking at a horse’s price movements in a live market) such as when and how the money is coming in, whether momentum or weight of money is driving the market at a particular time. Whether one side of the book is firming up and the other weakening etc.

After several months of pure scalping your know much more about the ebb and flow of a price movements, and your start to sense/see when a trend may develop or a price might break out of its range etc. more importantly if your wrong, you should have developed the speed needed to scratch out.

Just my opinion .

[freddy]

I know nothing about Horse Racing Whatsoever
but make a decent profit trading,
i couldn't even tell you what courses racing was on at today embarrassingly or for that matter any of the horses i have already traded

I don't believe my lack of knowledge effects me in any way, in fact i think knowledge can be a hindrance.

[giulio2010]

Just follow the manipulator today, you will pick the right direction for profit...

[Exacta]

If you stick orders up and down the odds you dont need to worry about direction. Just timing.

[Alpha322]

I completely agree with Alpha..

Alpha can you post the link to Peter's swing trading video please?

http://the-racing-times.com/2009/05/bet ... bet-angel/

This is a swing with blues. I got one today

[Alpha322]

just read this post and i assume the original poster is quite new to trading pre off horse markets. if so i really think he and anyone newish to it would be better off concentrating on scalping for single ticks; put any notions of swings on the back burner for quite a while.

Its not too difficult identifying when a good entry point presents itself and hence open a trade. If it goes your way take a tick, if not scratch or loss a tick or two. Your not just learning how to win/loss ticks but the speed at which you have to make a decision, both when to enter and when to close or scratch. Speed of decision making is crucial (to swing trading to).

After months of practicing this, you will also acquire other knowledge (just because your spending so much time looking at a horse’s price movements in a live market) such as when and how the money is coming in, whether momentum or weight of money is driving the market at a particular time. Whether one side of the book is firming up and the other weakening etc.

After several months of pure scalping your know much more about the ebb and flow of a price movements, and your start to sense/see when a trend may develop or a price might break out of its range etc. more importantly if your wrong, you should have developed the speed needed to scratch out.

Just my opinion .

A good and percise one, when you put the time in it gets better and the signals come clearer, I have now made back my third bank i blew when trading in play, 3 more to go

[Zenyatta]

Hi Zenyatta,
Just interested; How many races would you trade in this manner a day?? (Are you a full time trader??)

Regards
Peter

Hi Peter,
I’ve been dabbling on and off with pre-race trading for 8 months now, but haven’t been able to get anywhere with it.

At the moment I’m just trying specialize in the longer-term swing trades and just looking to pick 3-6 good trades per day. This may work for me.

[James1st]

Hi Guys,
Can anyone tell me what main market indecators i should be looking for to tell me when i`ve picked the wrong direction when swing trading? i keep putting on 5 or 6 small winning trades then any profit gets wiped out by one trade that moves hughly against me? I trade on the ladder with graphs open but just keep getting this wrong?? I really hope you can help cos i`m on the point of giving this all up!

Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that I concentrate on swing trading as opposed to scalping and have a background in the Financial markets. Addressing the question above and reading between the lines, the author is "pre-selecting" a direction before the event, hence gets it wrong sometimes. Nothing much wrong with that strategy so long as the stop losses are commensurate with the winning profits. However, he is also looking for an indicator that tells him that he has chosen the wrong direction when all the time his green out figure is getting redder and redder. There are NO better indicators that will tell him that he has already chosen the wrong direction.

Whilst Swing Trading one can either choose a direction at random, use informed opinion or wait for the move to happen before jumping onto a trade, but each and every method holds the caveat that the chosen direction can be short lived or even reverse in the blink of an eye.

It is for that reason Stop Losses were invented.

On the other hand there are many races in a day that will pay 10 or more ticks and being able to define and follow clear and concise entry and exit points for ones strategy is clearly the advice the OP is looking for.