I had my first attempts at trading this weekend. I was able to pull out some quite consistent results from most races, but then as you can see, sometimes i'd get traped and the market would just run away from my entry, leading to some outsized losses. I was aiming to trade from 15-5 mins before the off, as the last 5 seemed a little too wild to do manually!
I'm just using the ASC trap trade servant and no stoploss or anything setup yet, also I was just trading pretty much every top 2 horse I could find with no selection process.
Any tips from a pro traders out there?
First attempts at trading
What is the 'ASC traped trade servat' ......These results would be impressive if you didn't have the 2 massive red losses.
Some people, me included, took a while before I could get so consistent. Surprising that you have done this on your 1st attempt.
Some people, me included, took a while before I could get so consistent. Surprising that you have done this on your 1st attempt.
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 10469
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
If your avg win was less than a tenner, then how the heck did you manage to get - 140 and - 280?
First impression is that you had a strike rate iro 85%. Looks too high, and I suspect it contained some risky loss chasing (hence the massive negatives)
Just look for a steady avg win size bigger than avg loss size, and you'll make money being right half the time.
First impression is that you had a strike rate iro 85%. Looks too high, and I suspect it contained some risky loss chasing (hence the massive negatives)
Just look for a steady avg win size bigger than avg loss size, and you'll make money being right half the time.
I used to trade futures in a past life, so I'm not newbie to a price ladder, it took me quite a while to figure out what side of the market I was on, especially when you have the back and lay colours inverted.
And like you say the large losses were me chasing the market that never really came back before the off.
So, tomorrows mission will be to figure out my max position size and start using a stop loss etc.
It was quite fun, it was like trading futures in slow motion, seeing the bids and offers fly in and out and picking them off was good!
And like you say the large losses were me chasing the market that never really came back before the off.
So, tomorrows mission will be to figure out my max position size and start using a stop loss etc.
It was quite fun, it was like trading futures in slow motion, seeing the bids and offers fly in and out and picking them off was good!
I used this one viewtopic.php?t=18732 mentioned in this video https://youtu.be/POSZ-_H0a6o?si=Q87j19TByKiad1Yi, seems to work pretty well!
The interesting thing about this kind of trading is that with so many new markets every day, the learning curve can be very steep, trading trad-fi markets, you only get one shot a day during the open, etc...I quite like the fast pace, in and out and on to the next one.
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jamesedwards
- Posts: 4040
- Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2018 6:16 pm
The key question to ask yourself is where is your edge?
If you have an edge then great, now how do you leverage it by making the wins bigger and the losers smaller.
If you don't have an edge and are just throwing trades out there and chasing losses to recover green then you will just lose in the long run. Eventually reverting to a negative mean of the average spread plus commission. You need to be consistently making value trades where you're getting better odds than true to win in this game.
At the extreme, anyone can lay 1000/1 shots successfully for a couple of weeks before they get hit with a big fat red that wipes them out.
If you have an edge then great, now how do you leverage it by making the wins bigger and the losers smaller.
If you don't have an edge and are just throwing trades out there and chasing losses to recover green then you will just lose in the long run. Eventually reverting to a negative mean of the average spread plus commission. You need to be consistently making value trades where you're getting better odds than true to win in this game.
At the extreme, anyone can lay 1000/1 shots successfully for a couple of weeks before they get hit with a big fat red that wipes them out.
Like the videos say, my edge would be mostly execution edge and the ability to read the market. Having traded futures for about 8 years, I became quite adept at watching price and volume and how they interact, so hopefully I have some transferable skills 
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ShaunWhite
- Posts: 10469
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am
#1 transferable skill is not chasing the market to -30x your avg gain. Unless your futures career ended badly and you didn't learn that one.
Or maybe you forgot the short expiry and the market turned in-running? Execution won't be an edge if you're trading manually.
Indeed, but like I said, I was just mashing buttons, I wasn't even sure what side of the market I was on 1/2 the time 
Surely most of the money in these markets is just punters and most of them aren't using software to place trades, so I feel there should be plenty of low-hanging fruit to exploit?!Execution won't be an edge if you trade manually.
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Lynskey888
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2023 7:51 pm
Across the exchange it’s common to find markets where very few people are punting. Most of the money is sharp. I’ve only dabbled with trading the horses, but I expect this is also true in lots of day-to-day racing markets.
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TupleVision
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Wed Feb 12, 2025 12:19 pm
Nothing, I made my wedge and moved on, all quite stressful, I moved on to options in the end. I still dabble from time to time, this is just a hobby really to keep a toe in the game, you never really get it out of your system, once a trader, always a trader.
And like I said above I was trading with no stops etc and a few times got caught off side, something i'd never do with real money!
And like I said above I was trading with no stops etc and a few times got caught off side, something i'd never do with real money!
