Gauging Success/Failure... Advice

The sport of kings.
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sclarence
Posts: 69
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:37 pm

Other than the obvious +green profit at the end of day, how do you guys gauge if your trading is actually successful/failing/could be better? For example today I opened up 2 versions of BA (In Practice Mode), one I used as normal to fumble my way through the day trying to trade pre-race racing favourites. The second I would randomly pick an entry point on the Fav and then guess an exit point several ticks away and then leave it until just before the off and see what happens, the idea being that if I can trade better than just guessing 50/50 surely I must be doing something right??

I'm not one for quantitative analytics, Excel spreadsheets and so on if I can avoid them, so what else could or should I be doing??

Thanks
dm1900
Posts: 71
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 10:02 pm

Track some metrics:
- strike rate Vs implied strike rate from the odds you've taken
- fill ratios
- pnl per bet

And on a longer term:
- your 'sharpe': AVG(daily_pnl)/STD(daily_pnl)
jamesg46
Posts: 3771
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:05 pm

Stick to that one strategy and record what you're doing, this will allow the irrational part of your brain to build a map, its important because your logical side wont react to what's in front of you before the irrational side does, ultimately you want to put your irrational side into a comfort zone, when it's not in that comfort zone it will make sure you act appropriately. Once you've mastered that strategy and have become comfortable with it from a psychological perspective then branch out to the next strategy.
jamesg46
Posts: 3771
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:05 pm

Quant traders have used their logical skills to master their craft, so basically only "system 2" is at play, manual traders have to balance both "system 1" & "system 2" if you are a little lost with my reply then I recommend Thinking, Fast & Slow - one of the best recommendations that I've had.
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