Trading What I see !?

[goat68]

I'm now on month 26 of my trading journey. Last month started well and I had my best week ever, but after couple of weeks of success I tried to scale up too fast which turned into a disaster where all logic went out the window. There are some things in trading that just need to be avoided altogether (mainly overstaking for me), and I hope I've finally learned my lesson from the pain.

I've been slowly building some profits up and only been caught out badly once in the last couple of weeks which took a chunk of my profits back. It's usually when everything points to a horse being weak and then 1-2 minutes to post it starts steaming in without a retracement. Those ones really catch me out now and then, I believe it just takes one sloppy entry and then a big spike to throw me off, or money piling in so fast that I miss dumping the position where I should have.

This will be my third year of trading so hopefully I'm going to improve and finish 2021 in profit

Good luck alexmr2 for 2021, sounds like you're on the right path.

[Tetras]

Moves in hcaps can be only small, and the ratio of noise to real moves is quite large, so there's a good chance you're trading noise! Which is random..

For sure, I can imagine a bot going for small moves with tight stops in handicaps would get hammered, unless the entries were pretty tight. I can't figure out a reliable way to trade a lot of handicaps manually, so heck knows how a bot would find an in. That said, their profiles are very different, some races are very nice to trade, some are stinkers.

Same here, I've not much success at manually trading hcaps, so I didn't have much confidence in this bot. Some will say too few trades, but it's not just that, I have no confidence in it, and it is demonstrating...
I'm going to concentrate on the better bot for the moment.

Your reasoning makes total sense to me, even when I didn't make any money, I knew what I was doing wasn't working, maybe an innate understanding of the risk I was taking on, or watching so many videos something went in. I think like Peter has said in the past too, my natural trading tendency is the complete opposite of what works, I'll try to take 1 profit ticks everywhere and let the losses spiral. I can tell when I'm doing it right because it feels immensely sensible.

[Trader724]

Yes, it's being consistent.

How many trades?

171

After 30 trades the confidence level that what you notice is the long-term expectancy starts to increase but you will have a fairly large margin of error and to halve it you have to quadruple the sample size. You need some knowledge of statistics, it will certainly reduce the time until you become profitable because I think you have a good chance to throw a good strategy or waste too much time until you realize that you get nowhere. This is part of the edge of anyone who is profitable and now you have it too, and many more have been offered. I wish I had received so much advice when I started, I would have nailed it in much less time than three months it took me. And I'm more stupid than you are.

[goat68]

So really good day, having disabled bad-bot, so just got the 1 bot now, it did really well:
10 races:
StrikeRate: 50%
Avg Win/Avg loss: 2.62
Net: +£4.48

First week of full automation result:
Markets: 161
StrikeRate: 47%
Net: -£3.83

So being a week of discovery, but very pleased given just 1 week. Today's result recovered over half my losses for the week.

[goat68]

How many trades?

171

After 30 trades the confidence level that what you notice is the long-term expectancy starts to increase but you will have a fairly large margin of error and to halve it you have to quadruple the sample size. You need some knowledge of statistics, it will certainly reduce the time until you become profitable because I think you have a good chance to throw a good strategy or waste too much time until you realize that you get nowhere. This is part of the edge of anyone who is profitable and now you have it too, and many more have been offered. I wish I had received so much advice when I started, I would have nailed it in much less time than three months it took me. And I'm more stupid than you are.

3 months to become profitable, wow, awesome!
The advice in this thread is of use to all newbies, it's helping me and hopefully others.

[Trader724]

The advice in this thread is of use to all newbies, it's helping me and hopefully others.

You know how they say If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

[goat68]

Bot doing awful so far this week, only 22% wins, but it's not traded much given poor races.
So see how rest of week goes..

[spreadbetting]

Bot doing awful so far this week, only 22% wins, but it's not traded much given poor races.
So see how rest of week goes..

If you can successfully code a 'trading bot' you'll be doing much better than most of us, goat. Not too hard to find value in the markets but trying to find it on both sides is a lot harder.

[goat68]

Bot doing awful so far this week, only 22% wins, but it's not traded much given poor races.
So see how rest of week goes..

If you can successfully code a 'trading bot' you'll be doing much better than most of us, goat. Not too hard to find value in the markets but trying to find it on both sides is a lot harder.

Peter's videos indicate it's easy, like a mighty oak!
Wasn't it you saying the other day you had a greyhound bot pulling 1k a week?

[goat68]

Bot doing awful so far this week, only 22% wins, but it's not traded much given poor races.
So see how rest of week goes..

If you can successfully code a 'trading bot' you'll be doing much better than most of us, goat. Not too hard to find value in the markets but trying to find it on both sides is a lot harder.

You know I say this again, Peter shows his bot graph 45 degree slope 0 to £70k. It can't be impossible!?

[goat68]

At least via bots i am ticking some important boxes:
- Discipline "tick"
- Money management "tick"
I just need a strategy & tactic combo that is +ev
Simple!

[goat68]

For example, it comes down to crowd psychology. If I think about a dumb trader scenario:
Breakout above range, technicals indicate breakout, volume increase at initial break. Sounds good? Better get on this bandwagon yeah?
So to me now, I'd wait for a reversal/stall signal and enter against the break, if it does reverse all those dummies will be damn keen to take any price causing a sharp drop.
Surely +ev?

[Tetras]

For example, it comes down to crowd psychology. If I think about a dumb trader scenario:
Breakout above range, technicals indicate breakout, volume increase at initial break. Sounds good? Better get on this bandwagon yeah?
So to me now, I'd wait for a reversal/stall signal and enter against the break, if it does reverse all those dummies will be damn keen to take any price causing a sharp drop.
Surely +ev?

Uhm, how are you going to write a bot to do all that?

[spreadbetting]

Bot doing awful so far this week, only 22% wins, but it's not traded much given poor races.
So see how rest of week goes..

If you can successfully code a 'trading bot' you'll be doing much better than most of us, goat. Not too hard to find value in the markets but trying to find it on both sides is a lot harder.

Peter's videos indicate it's easy, like a mighty oak!
Wasn't it you saying the other day you had a greyhound bot pulling 1k a week?

A greyhound 'value' bot yes, a 'trading' bot, no.

[goat68]

If you can successfully code a 'trading bot' you'll be doing much better than most of us, goat. Not too hard to find value in the markets but trying to find it on both sides is a lot harder.

Peter's videos indicate it's easy, like a mighty oak!
Wasn't it you saying the other day you had a greyhound bot pulling 1k a week?

A greyhound 'value' bot yes, a 'trading' bot, no.

Ah yes, I remember now, thanks