Trading What I see !?

[beermonsterman]

That's an odd post.

cant be as odd as some of the stuff I've just read in here from yesterday very mixed bag of opinions

Sorry - I was referring to GOAT's post

[Anbell]

GOAT,

Rik isnt saying that there's one secret answer. He's saying that everyone of us needs to find a spot where the market is, to some extent, inefficient. I refer to it as 'my little segment of the market.' All of us long-timers all have our own segments.

Over on the slack channel someone posted a link to this article recently : "How to Win Games: Find the Hidden Rules" https://luckymaverick.substack.com/p/ho ... the-hidden

I found it interesting, and have been making my way through the other articles at the blog.

The Principle list is interesting, but beyond that is that idea that there are Hidden Rules, and we all have to find our own corner of the market where we've identified some hidden rules, and some way to exploit that. That's how/where all of us have found an edge.

[LinusP]

Tbh the only sensible way is just to put your big boy pants on and learn how to do it yourself. If you get something done for you you'll forever be asking for mods and in 2 years time your developer will go awol and you're left with something that doesn't do what you want and no way to deal with it. 2yrs time and money down the pan.

How long is it going to take to learn a few basics? At most about 50hrs of serious head down work if you do a structured online course? (eg on Udemy)...so just one hour a day and inside two months you'll be motoring. No paying peopple and the freedom to do pretty much anything you want. Even if it takes you 100hrs at 1hr a day that's you all up to speed by the middle of May, and you've got a new skill for your CV too in case trading goes tits up. You can't really just do the fun parts in any job, there's times when you have to do the stuff you don't especially want to do and if that's just 1hr a day then it sounds pretty good as jobs go.

Exactly, and if i want to create that sort of software I am perfectly capable with 30+ years as a developer

Then what are you doing here.

+1 on this, if you have 30 years of programming experience then you should be taking advantage of it.

I would disagree with Shaun on the langauage, it has to be python

[gazuty]

Over on the slack channel someone posted a link to this article recently : "How to Win Games: Find the Hidden Rules" https://luckymaverick.substack.com/p/ho ... the-hidden

I found it interesting, and have been making my way through the other articles at the blog.

The Principle list is interesting, but beyond that is that idea that there are Hidden Rules, and we all have to find our own corner of the market where we've identified some hidden rules, and some way to exploit that. That's how/where all of us have found an edge.

+1

Great post.

[Anbell]

Over on the slack channel someone posted a link to this article recently : "How to Win Games: Find the Hidden Rules" https://luckymaverick.substack.com/p/ho ... the-hidden

I found it interesting, and have been making my way through the other articles at the blog.

The Principle list is interesting, but beyond that is that idea that there are Hidden Rules, and we all have to find our own corner of the market where we've identified some hidden rules, and some way to exploit that. That's how/where all of us have found an edge.

+1

Great post.

Thanks. I had to find a way to improve on 'that was a dumb post' and tried to add something useful.

(ETA: Goat has been an admirable host of this thread since the beginning, and this thread will be useful content for many, for some time to come. And he does a reasonable job of at least listening to the amazing advice he gets here. That one post was oddly out of character)

[Anbell]

Goat - one of the problems that you, or just about any trader has, is that it is very difficult to test a strategy on betangel, because you keep changing the parameters and can't build a database with a sufficient sample size.

Betfair has a feature called customerstrategyref which allows you to test different strategies and to compare which is profitable over time. Perhaps if you open a suggestion here asking that BA implement customerstrategyref then you'll be able to test and compare, over time, every idea that you have.

[goat68]

Yeah sorry guys feeling a bit grumpy...

[Anbell]

Yeah sorry guys feeling a bit grumpy...

We've all been there. Good on you.

[goat68]

Yeah sorry guys feeling a bit grumpy...

We've all been there. Good on you.

Im going to go for a run and clear my head, have a great day's trading today chaps

[MAGTRADEUK]

A question on profitable a/c.

How much down in £ over how long did some keep going until they started to make money steadily, still at the stage where I have days where all goes ok, but then on 1 day a large move up or down against me wipes out the pluses or overall puts me in the red. Feel like I am on an escalator ... its all up then when I turn round back down again .. then up ... then down again.... which is ok in a way as long as you keep a slight bit in front, but to be honest its starting to feel a bit futile.

I'm slightly profitable over the last 60 days. I lost around £10k in the first 26 months of trading mainly using £100 banks. I know a couple of people that said it took them around 3 years and someone who lost around the same as me before turning it around. I've heard of a couple of people losing more than this then giving up which is why it's always a good idea to stick to small banks until you are consistent enough to be green at the end of the month.

Would be interested to know other people's experience as it's not often discussed. I don't like how a 6 months to profitability/making a living estimation is thrown around by some course sellers because it's extremely misleading. I feel like those that started earlier or that trade other sports probably lost less and done it quicker but now pre-off is one of the most competitive markets

WOW, 26 months and 10k, I admire your honesty, did you not even think of giving up, how long will it take to get that 10k back? Good luck to you, I think your right about small banks, makes you think every time you top up, or it should IMHO but I dont think I will bet getting up near those levels. Many thanks for your reply.

[beermonsterman]

I've burnt over 8k in the past 4 years of trading for me it was thinking i know what I'm doing then only to find out I didn't know anything then I would loose and bang I go full tilt I also had the illusion that if I used bigger banks I can Lay at higher odds but that ended badly also I dont personally do not feel bad for loosing 8k I see it as part of the process if i make it to the top then that 8k will come back to me if I dont make it back then at least I gave it a good go
I'm sure you pro traders love people like me because if newbies all used practice mode you wouldn't make as much money
So in a nutshell if I dont loose money this wouldn't work like it does
Feels like a polzi situation

[The Silk Run]

Love and respect to G. Keep up with the good work darling

[JasBarrow]

Nice to see you back in the forum Shaun, it's a much better place when people like yourself are here engaging!

That's kind James thx.

I've been keen to get into automation for a long time now and have looked at Udemy but wouldn't know where to begin.
What type of course would you suggest Shaun? VBA or something else?

VBA would definatly be a great place to start. One of the coolest things about BA imo is the way they've made it so open, you can send lots of info to Excel and Excel can send info to BA. When I first got BA it was with the intention of just letting it deal with the tricky interfacing to Betfair, and I'd handle the data collection, analysis, live stats, transaction creation & results reporting etc etc in VBA. It didn't quite work out that way but it wasn't because it couldn't be done. Basically the plan was to sit BA at the centre of a bigger system, using BA as sort of a front office product and I'd bolt on all the back office stuff.

There might eventually be a time when you'd want to get a bit more hardcore and do the API stuff yourself rather than through BA, mainly to get some better data collection going such as 'recording' the whole data stream for later replay, and then you'd probably want to look at Python or C#. But going from VBA to one of those is easier than going straight to that imo, and VBA is way more useful in the short/med term. VBA is a fairly forgiving and 'readable' language and will definatly give you a general understanding of how you'd approach things in other languages. Programming languages aren't much different to regular languages, just a story (list of instructions) told with verbs (actions) and nouns (things) and adjectives (characteristics of the things). Moving from one language to another is 'just' a matter of learning different words and slightly different grammer (aka syntax).

Actually I think there's VBA example routines you can download that will handle the API too, so moving to Python or C# etc might not even be necessary. I had a slight change of approach with my trading, a bit of an epiphany, which meant my original plan changed and I was better off in the long run learning C#. BUT I'd had a career writing VB (like a grown up VBA) so moving to C# wasn't too much of a leap, and I became productive in it reasonably quicky (about 2 or 3 months). Starting from scratch I'd 100% recommend VBA because you can something going reasonably quickly (via BA) and get a confidence boost, doing it with another language that isn't quite so integrated with Excel (and therefore BA) leaves you with a hell of a lot of learning and work before you see anything vaguely useful.

I can't advocate programming enough, you go from "what can this software do" to "I can do anything I can ever imagine" and that's really liberating. Sort of fun too if you like making things (every man loves shed right?). You make a few useful parts and then stick them together in whatever ways you want to make different things. I've been coding on and off for 40yrs now and I still get a little buzz when you press a button and something actually happens.

Thanks for the advice and taking the time Shaun I really appreciate it

[Trader724]

Im sorry but a number of the posts above by people really annoy me.. they are not very empathic to what others are saying. Imagine how you would feel if you had lost 1000s over years, and then someone comes along and says oh i was profitable from the start...?
Do you not think those people have been trying just as hard or harder than you?
Rik, just look at a few words you just said, trade "what you see that others don't"?
So go on, what is it that those that are busting a gut and 1000s £ not seeing?

You start from point A to point B, you are aware that for most it takes a long time to reach the same destination, for all of us the distance is the same if it were to go in a straight line but to go in a straight line does not mean it is the fastest route. You drive a sports car but you are not aware of it, and anyway you have already started to go in circles, sometimes even backwards. You pick up so much dust that it's hard to tell you're spinning in a circle. It's time to stop, let the dust settle, be aware of what car you're driving and how easy it is to get to your destination.

[Trader724]

Exactly, and if i want to create that sort of software I am perfectly capable with 30+ years as a developer

Then what are you doing here.

+1 on this, if you have 30 years of programming experience then you should be taking advantage of it.

I would disagree with Shaun on the langauage, it has to be python

Excellent choice