Just to echo Shaun's point there are plenty of part time traders earning a decent second income from trading.
I haven't posted to the thread in a while but OP seems to be still guilty of overthinking and overanalysing everything. I said at the beginning if you have only an hour to spend a day on trading then spend it manually trading on the ladder rather then wading through data. The problem with back-testing is if you don't have a good understanding of the markets then how do you know what to look for? Some of my better automation came about by accident, usually manually trading one day and noticing something that may or may not be worth spending time on but that's where you can test it and see if its worthwhile.
The problem with looking for patterns in large amounts of data is you'll always find them, but that's doesn't mean they'll make you any money, that's where the understanding comes in.
So keep it simple?
Can you say be profitable with a WoM indicator and a handful of BA rule lines? That's simple, just need to work out the application....
So keep it simple?
Can you say be profitable with a WoM indicator and a handful of BA rule lines? That's simple, just need to work out the application....
Yeah the simpler the better, If you find one idea that works then you can build around that. But its been said many times you have to match the bot to the market.
Also if you're testing say 10 bots they shouldn't all be losers. You should have 1 or 2 losers, maybe 1 profitable one if you're lucky then a bunch that are roughly break even but you need to allow enough time and markets to rule out natural variance. It's much easier to turn a break even bot into a profitable one by adjusting a couple of parameters than it is to build one from scratch.
I'm enjoying the thread though.. I'll give you 10/10 for your perseverance and attitude.
Things are pretty simple. You can get trading value whether the price is betting value or not but it seems like not everyone knows that.
One question.
So you trade your way to a free bet (or 8 free bets if you hedge)
When is a free bet NOT a value bet?
And besides, all "trades" are just a series of straight back and lay bets that all run and all settle separately according to my Betfair PL, so I don't even know why this is debatable. How do you make money straight betting?
Things are pretty simple. You can get trading value whether the price is betting value or not but it seems like not everyone knows that.
One question.
So you trade your way to a free bet (or 8 free bets if you hedge)
When is a free bet NOT a value bet?
If you make a profit from trading and you don't lock it in so that it doesn't matter who wins the event, you don't have a free bet, you are gambling the profit you just made by trading.
And besides, all "trades" are just a series of straight back and lay bets that all run and all settle separately according to my Betfair PL, so I don't even know why this is debatable. How do you make money straight betting?
Trading profit results from price movements while betting profit depends on who wins the event. For this reason trading and betting cannot be considered as the same thing.
Things are pretty simple. You can get trading value whether the price is betting value or not but it seems like not everyone knows that.
One question.
So you trade your way to a free bet (or 8 free bets if you hedge)
When is a free bet NOT a value bet?
If you make a profit from trading and you don't lock it in so that it doesn't matter who wins the event, you don't have a free bet, you are gambling the profit you just made by trading.
And in trading it's known as a "free bet" but we all know the reality is that it's unrealised profit left to run at SP. And hedging is 'gambling' unrealised profit on all of them....remember how hedging worked pre-exchanges? You better warn Dallas he's got his terminology wrong. viewtopic.php?f=53&t=11388.
One question.
So you trade your way to a free bet (or 8 free bets if you hedge)
When is a free bet NOT a value bet?
If you make a profit from trading and you don't lock it in so that it doesn't matter who wins the event, you don't have a free bet, you are gambling the profit you just made by trading.
And in trading it's known as a "free bet" but we all know the reality is that it's unrealised profit left to run at SP. And hedging is 'gambling' unrealised profit on all of them....remember how hedging worked pre-exchanges? You better warn Dallas he's got his terminology wrong. viewtopic.php?f=53&t=11388.
Hedging is part of trading and its role is to remove liabilities, while the free bet you are talking about is unnecessarily putting at risk the profit already made by trading.
If you make a profit from trading and you don't lock it in so that it doesn't matter who wins the event, you don't have a free bet, you are gambling the profit you just made by trading.
And in trading it's known as a "free bet" but we all know the reality is that it's unrealised profit left to run at SP. And hedging is 'gambling' unrealised profit on all of them....remember how hedging worked pre-exchanges? You better warn Dallas he's got his terminology wrong. viewtopic.php?f=53&t=11388.
Hedging is part of trading and its role is to remove liabilities, while the free bet you are talking about is unnecessarily putting at risk the profit already made by trading.
If your not bothered about variance in the long run you will win or lose more or less the same amount of money if you don't hedge, i still class it as a form of trading and more fun for some participants.
And in trading it's known as a "free bet" but we all know the reality is that it's unrealised profit left to run at SP. And hedging is 'gambling' unrealised profit on all of them....remember how hedging worked pre-exchanges? You better warn Dallas he's got his terminology wrong. viewtopic.php?f=53&t=11388.
Hedging is part of trading and its role is to remove liabilities, while the free bet you are talking about is unnecessarily putting at risk the profit already made by trading.
If your not bothered about variance in the long run you will win or lose more or less the same amount of money if you don't hedge, i still class it as a form of trading and more fun for some participants.
You're gambling money on the outcome of a race, game, or other unpredictable event, this is defined as betting.
By trading you try to make a profit regardless of the outcome of the event.
Hedging is part of trading and its role is to remove liabilities, while the free bet you are talking about is unnecessarily putting at risk the profit already made by trading.
If your not bothered about variance in the long run you will win or lose more or less the same amount of money if you don't hedge, i still class it as a form of trading and more fun for some participants.
You're gambling money on the outcome of a race, game, or other unpredictable event, this is defined as betting.
By trading you try to make a profit regardless of the outcome of the event.
Hedging is just another step of trading, but if you open a position in the market and then exit before the market ends you have to class it way closer to trading than betting.
[/quote]
You're gambling money on the outcome of a race, game, or other unpredictable event, this is defined as betting.
By trading you try to make a profit regardless of the outcome of the event.
[/quote]
Sorry for intruding. I am not too experienced in trading/betting, and I figure that this is quite an age-old diatribe, but, in the end, aren't the two things the exact same? You trade the change in price based on your understanding of how the market is behaving, but you are still trying to predict the unpredictable. Otherwise each of your trades would be winning trades. In the end learning to read the market is the same as identifying value bets, or not?
I don't understand the supposed moral authority of trading over betting.
I have followed this thread on and off for a while now, I just wanted to add some thoughts of my own and where I am heading. To be upfront I am neither an experienced or profitable (yet) trader but I'm only 6 months in to taking it seriously albiet part-time around the 'day job'.
I obviousl believe it can be done part-time but you have to accept that there are aspects of learning which are relative to time spent learning. Most of us learn to drive over 3-4 months, a couple of lessons a week. Some opt for 1 week full time intensive courses.
Discipline and Patience
Have a trading plan, write it down and stick to it.
Record your results, analyse if there is any reason or pattern to times you make a profit vs times you make a loss.
No trade = No loss. I've found the days I've spent 2 hours in front of Bet Angel and the TV but placed zero trades are very beneficial mentally, knowing I had a plan and nothing has met the criteria.
Understand the Risk/Reward ratio
My trading strategy is safe, low volume, high strike rate. On this basis if the price goes against me after entry then my entry was wrong and therefore I must exit. I can always enter again if my criteria is still met but this is a seperate trade. I would typically green at around 10-15% of the trade liability, my biggest mistakes are hanging in a trade thinking I have seen something and ending up with a full liability loss, this will take me 10 good trades to recover.
Use multiple indicators
If there are 2-3 justifications to enter a trade then if any one of those changes you still should be able to exit without too much impact.
Start simple and be realistic
There are a lot of people claiming there are riches to be made from trading but at the end of the day it's a job and you don't start any job with no experience on the top pay scale.
Most markets are scalable to a decent level, don't lose money learning, don't think about making money, just learn the process.
In my day job my 'saleable value', or the 'value of my intelligence' is from £30-50 per hour and thats with 20 years experience, there is no reasonable justification to say that by trading sports I should be making 6 figures a year, it might be possible some day but it isn't some magic job that's not aligned with the rest of the world.