Hi there Goat,
I thought I would also take this opportunity to join this thread, to offer you some insight into my experience and also maybe some advice. This is my first ever post on the forum, even though I've been reading the forum for probably over 5 years (yes I'm a lurker
, apologies for that but I rarely post on any kind of forums ).
Firstly, about myself and my own experience - I have a similar path to that of Alex in the other thread. I made a few grand matched betting about 5-6 years ago, then like others, the natural progression was to trading, and I stumbled across Peter's channel like I'm sure a lot of others have done. Also similar to Alex, I've watched Peter's pre-off videos probably about 20 times each, and I've also I think read almost every single horse racing thread on here, in the hope of gleaning some helpful information (for which I am extremely grateful to all contributors).
For about the last 12 months I have been trading at weekends and evenings when I can, and at this point I would say I'm probably a 'break-even' trader. At the start I was messing around with different things, and my discipline was really poor, but I've never used a large bank and so my overall losses probably amount to a couple of hundred pounds. Now I'm using a very small bank (about £50), and focusing on trying to improve and eradicate mistakes. Today I made the princely sum of £2.27!
So the first piece of advice, and echoing others, is to say that you definitely need to reign in expectations. The chance of becoming consistently profitable after only six months is just extremely low, almost impossible I would say unless you happen to be a 'natural' and have the complete skill set that is required. I'm not having a go at you - I was the same and I'm sure many others have been the same. I remember thinking that I could master it in 3-6 months, scale up, and then be making 5 grand a week as easy as you like! I guess I was at the start of the Dunning-Kruger curve! It's embarrassing now to admit it, but that's genuinely what I thought. I think what makes it an easy trap to fall into, is that trading is so
simple on the face of it. Prices go up, down, or sideways right? How hard can it be, especially if you are an intelligent and well-educated person, which you appear to be. Also, trading requires no real physical skill (see Mark Douglas), except for maybe fast reactions, but you're just clicking a mouse button at the end of the day. Why is it therefore so hard? You have probably asked yourself this many times by now.
The second piece of advice from me, is that you need to make a decision I think. If you have any spare time after your job at evenings and weekends, I would set yourself the goal of dedicating the next 18 months of your life to learning and experiencing the markets. If your personal circumstances don't allow that, or you just don't want to do it then fair enough of course, but at some point you just have to put the time and effort in, and even then you may not be successful. From your previous posts, it seems like you were near break-even anyway, so maybe you're closer than you think? Even though I'm still not profitable, I'm a far better trader than I was 12 months ago. As an example, I used to be actually
fearful of entering a stake into the market, even a £2 stake! Again it's embarrassing but it shows you the psychological effect trading can have on you. Obviously I was scared of making a loss and also being wrong. I'm a lot more comfortable now and don't have that fear, though of course I'm still using small stakes. But the point is you will improve some aspects of your trading, even if they not immediately obvious I think. The more I trade, the more I think mastering psychology is the key aspect to becoming profitable, but I'm sure plenty on here would disagree!
Lastly, I also don't think it's a great idea to now suddenly switch markets, unless you are willing to start again from the bottom like others have suggested. I don't trade football (but intend to try at some point) but I can't imagine it would be any easier to find an edge, and in fact it may be be more competitive given the amounts traded on the big matches and the real big players/syndicates that they would attract. You've hinted at trying automation, which is something that could be worth exploring, but I don't have any experience in that so can't offer any opinion sorry.
I hope you don't think I'm being overly negative, just trying to realistically state what I think is required in terms of time and effort spent before you even have a chance of making consistent money from this. It's something I personally want to give a real 'go' (nothing ventured, nothing gained), but you will have to decide if you feel the same way, and if your circumstances allow it.
Best of luck
