How do you become a winning trader then

[FattyGoLucky]

I'd advise newbies or struggling traders to record their screens along with your own commentary, describing what you're thinking and why you do what you do

It won't be long before you see trends, both good and bad
It will certainly help identify your weaknesses, or mistakes.....and why you fell into those traps

Thanks, I'll give it a try

[ShaunWhite]

Who cares what people think

In my experience the world is easier and more pleasant when you're being respected rather than when you're not. It's purely practical rather than egotistical.

[Archery1969]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Maybe I am wrong or missunderstood what a handful of people are doing but I seem to remember a few comments whereby some are not studying form, stats, tipsters or even the market and have come up with something that overall will always make a profit, barring a system crash ofcourse.

Those few individuals are not ones to tell pork pies and in most cases are not even using BA.

So, going back to the original post, what are these people actually doing ?

Obviously, nobody is going to reveal such information and I dont wish or need to know but you can see how newcomers or alike will think its easy money or at worst some kind of consipiracy etc.

I think the best quote i heard on this forum was when Peter said "More than not, prices will return to where they were x period ago" or something like that but he didnt go into any further details. If true and I have no reason to doubt it, then wouldn't that be classed as a magic bullet, secret sauce or holy graiil, assuming you knew or worked out what x period was etc ?

Be nice in replying as I got covid and it maybe making me post rubbish, as above.

[Derek27]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Maybe I am wrong or missunderstood what a handful of people are doing but I seem to remember a few comments whereby some are not studying form, stats, tipsters or even the market and have come up with something that overall will always make a profit, barring a system crash ofcourse.

Those few individuals are not ones to tell pork pies and in most cases are not even using BA.

So, going back to the original post, what are these people actually doing ?

Obviously, nobody is going to reveal such information and I dont wish or need to know but you can see how newcomers or alike will think its easy money or at worst some kind of consipiracy etc.

I think the best quote i heard on this forum was when Peter said "More than not, prices will return to where they were x period ago" or something like that but he didnt go into any further details. If true and I have no reason to doubt it, then wouldn't that be classed as a magic bullet, secret sauce or holy graiil, assuming you knew or worked out what x period was etc ?

Be nice in replying as I got covid and it maybe making me post rubbish, as above.

There is a secret sauce to trading, but unless you're a good cook you'll use it in the wrong recipe.

I hope you recover from covid quickly. I've heard my brother-in-law has it. There's quite a lot of it going around in London.

[alexmr2]

1. Buy Caan's book
2. Set stake to 100% of bank
3. Back at crossovers
4. ???????
5. PROFIT

[wearthefoxhat]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Maybe I am wrong or missunderstood what a handful of people are doing but I seem to remember a few comments whereby some are not studying form, stats, tipsters or even the market and have come up with something that overall will always make a profit, barring a system crash ofcourse.

Those few individuals are not ones to tell pork pies and in most cases are not even using BA.

So, going back to the original post, what are these people actually doing ?

Obviously, nobody is going to reveal such information and I dont wish or need to know but you can see how newcomers or alike will think its easy money or at worst some kind of consipiracy etc.

I think the best quote i heard on this forum was when Peter said "More than not, prices will return to where they were x period ago" or something like that but he didnt go into any further details. If true and I have no reason to doubt it, then wouldn't that be classed as a magic bullet, secret sauce or holy graiil, assuming you knew or worked out what x period was etc ?

Be nice in replying as I got covid and it maybe making me post rubbish, as above.

The secret sauce in my view is, human behaviour and how it creates/moves a market. What you then do with the data is the magic bullet.

As you say, there are a few members on the forum that seemed to have got the measure of this, although it's a moving feast as punters come and go. So it's important to review/test and in some cases tweak to keep the outcome/profit fairly consistent. This invariably requires a little extra know how and therein lies their edge.

There is still room for form, stats, ratings and opinion, as this can be more appealing to some, and it some cases very profitable.

[Archery1969]

What I meant was that some on here have found something that they can apply to any preoff market and make a profit without caring what the market, selection, form or stats show.

To me at least then I would say that is the magic bullet, secret sauce, edge or holy grail.

[Archery1969]

1. Buy Caan's book
2. Set stake to 100% of bank
3. Back at crossovers
4. ???????
5. PROFIT

I thought the normal advice was to lay at crossover points ?

[Trader Pat]

I think the best quote i heard on this forum was when Peter said "More than not, prices will return to where they were x period ago" or something like that but he didnt go into any further details. If true and I have no reason to doubt it, then wouldn't that be classed as a magic bullet, secret sauce or holy graiil, assuming you knew or worked out what x period was etc ?

Thats true, a lot of the time a price will end up where it started. The trick is to be able to read when that won't happen not when it will. Lots of people fall into the trap of just hoping the price will come back and while it happens a lot of the time, the time it doesn't is when you get a large chunk of your bank wiped out.

The 'secret sauce' imo is the ability to get out of your own way. Starting out the biggest battle is with yourself not with the market. In a lot of ways it is a journey of self-discovery. By nature I'm fairly impulsive and I lose focus easily, not a great combination for trading but I've managed to work around that. You need to know your own strengths and weaknesses and work on them.

Hope you feel better soon.

[ShaunWhite]

There's a lot of ways to do it. Using fundamentals, looking for market moves or, as Archery1969 is alluding to, techniques (mostly lifted from HF trading) that rely on market mechanics and are applicable to any market. The key to some of those is realising how to exploit a zero sum game. If a portfolio of bets accumulated by betting anything at any time (aka blind) has same value whenever it's disposed of, then the price of the set called 'selections' hasn't changed. If 'prices' doesn't move it then becomes a game of trying to obtain value at anytime knowing that any value to get will persist. And that 'value' has nothing to do with form or even where a price will move (because the set 'prices' doesn't move) its simply getting a price better then prevailing mid price. Or at its simplest level, offering at an offset and refreshing periodically. But this and other HF trading methods are theoretically small and practically microscopic so only work at large scale. Eg Martini trading, anytime, any place, anywhere.

It takes a change of mindset though, most traders focus on market moves, but many algos rely on this idea that when you consider the set 'all' selections, then prices aren't moving. The underlying mechanics mean sports markets will always be a zero sum game, that makes it an interesting area to consider because it ensures strategy longevity. And being free of filters it's impervious to virtually all changes in market behaviour too. When choosing an approach you don't want to spend a year working on something that will only last 6 months or not be scaleable, so even though its difficult and often needs bespoke software to achieve the scale and get the analysis, its a very popular and reliable approach.

Allow me to present Exhibit A, Mr Goat68. He spent 6 months "trading what he saw". Then I (and I assume others) spent a year guiding him through the theory, analysis and execution, and voilà. Trading moving markets is hard but as soon as you stop trading individual selections and think about trading the market as a whole then its less complicated. Goat's thread pretty much explains it although it would be hard sorting the wheat from the chaff in a 300 page thread. So in the spirit of passing knowledge forward then I hope he'll field any questions I certainly don't want to got through that again, he knows he's responsible for me having even more grey hairs

Bit of a long post, but Archery asked how other methods work and fitting an explanation of one into a paragraph when it could fill a book isn't easy. And I'm missing the precious sunshine to do it!

[Archery1969]

There's a lot of ways to do it. Using fundamentals, looking for market moves or, as Archery1969 is alluding to, techniques (mostly lifted from HF trading) that rely on market mechanics and are applicable to any market. The key to some of those is realising how to exploit a zero sum game. If a portfolio of bets accumulated by betting anything at any time (aka blind) has same value whenever it's disposed of, then the price of the set called 'selections' hasn't changed. If 'prices' doesn't move it then becomes a game of trying to obtain value at anytime knowing that any value to get will persist. And that 'value' has nothing to do with form or even where a price will move (because the set 'prices' doesn't move) its simply getting a price better then prevailing mid price. Or at its simplest level, offering at an offset and refreshing periodically. But this and other HF trading methods are theoretically small and practically microscopic so only work at large scale. Eg Martini trading, anytime, any place, anywhere.

It takes a change of mindset though, most traders focus on market moves, but many algos rely on this idea that when you consider the set 'all' selections, then prices aren't moving. The underlying mechanics mean sports markets will always be a zero sum game, that makes it an interesting area to consider because it ensures strategy longevity. And being free of filters it's impervious to virtually all changes in market behaviour too. When choosing an approach you don't want to spend a year working on something that will only last 6 months or not be scaleable, so even though its difficult and often needs bespoke software to achieve the scale and get the analysis, its a very popular and reliable approach.

Allow me to present Exhibit A, Mr Goat68. He spent 6 months "trading what he saw". Then I (and I assume others) spent a year guiding him through the theory, analysis and execution, and voilà. Trading moving markets is hard but as soon as you stop trading individual selections and think about trading the market as a whole then its less complicated. Goat's thread pretty much explains it although it would be hard sorting the wheat from the chaff in a 300 page thread. So in the spirit of passing knowledge forward then I hope he'll field any questions I certainly don't want to got through that again, he knows he's responsible for me having even more grey hairs

Bit of a long post, but Archery asked how other methods work and fitting an explanation of one into a paragraph when it could fill a book isn't easy. And I'm missing the precious sunshine to do it!

Thanks Shaun, don't get sun burn and take on plenty of beer.

[Kai]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Ofc not, its in market making and scalping, plus fast fix for inplay, these concepts work for preoff markets without a clear and obvious value trade or inplay markets without a clear and obvious value bet

[ShaunWhite]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Ofc not, its in market making and scalping, plus fast fix for inplay, these concepts work for preoff markets without a clear and obvious value trade or inplay markets without a clear and obvious value bet

Value: undeniably essential, either by design or as a happy accident.

[Trader Pat]

When people say "There is no magic bullet or secret sauce", is that completely true though ?

Ofc not, its in market making and scalping, plus fast fix for inplay, these concepts work for preoff markets without a clear and obvious value trade or inplay markets without a clear and obvious value bet

Welcome back Kai

I thought we'd lost you in Paris

[ShaunWhite]

Thanks Shaun, don't get sun burn and take on plenty of beer.

No rest for the wicked, I'm concreting round my pond. And having a little sit down after realising the big black tree root I've been yanking on with the digger is my 30amp mains from the street! That could've been spectacular, 2ft down and just a bare cable with no armour, thanks Mr 1960s builds inspector!