Rubbish racing

[rhysmr2]

Was there a specific point they you started to struggle this year? I am currently looking in detail at something in the market and would be interested to know if it correlates.

Jan and feb were bad months for me but in both months I had "in play" losses of over 1k.

March was ok

The last 3 weeks I've really struggled with.

[James1st]

Hi Jeff,

Trend traders tend to look for a single distinct move solidly in one direction and during the 10-0 minute session prices quite often have only one “tendency”. The objective with this method is to recognise just when the move will happen and how strong it is likely to be, so that one can get on at the bottom (top) and exit when the trade runs out of momentum. Normally the fav has a single tendency during the session but often enough due to course news there can be a change of heart regarding the horses chances and a reverse trend may develop. Trend traders tend to look at the bigger picture.

Swing trading, in my book and as can be viewed in Peter Webbs video on swing trading, relies on a sine wave pattern where the trader seeks to identify a “turnaround” or “swing” point/apex of the wave to enter the trade. Thus swing traders may typically have 4/5 opportunities to enter/exit trades during a session. The sine wave pattern usually develops because there is no strong concensus of opinion over the horses true odds and as backers and layers play tug of war, the odds often cross the median point.

It may seem like semantics to some but a traders approach to the market and thus the signals he looks for will differ according to his style. A swingers entry point is therefore often different to that of a trend trader.

Chart patterns play a huge part in the success of any method and when the patterns change, so must the style. Eg When strong trends develop, the scalper would have difficulty getting his trade filled due to the speed of the move, whereas in the context of a sine wave, the movements are much slower and more deliberate, giving the scalper time to get a trade filled.

James

[rhysmr2]

I'm still finding these markets impossible!

The last 3 weeks I've made about £0

[Euler]

Unfortunately your lack of success doesn't correlate to the data I am looking at, but there has been a shift in the market recently which seems to have affected some more than others. It's difficult to know precisely what you are experiencing without knowing your trading style but the shift seems to have caught traditional scalpers out more than swing traders.

[hgodden]

What shift are you talking about? Aside from a bit more volume I haven't noticed anything different personally and I scalp quite a bit

[hgodden]

Actually thinking about it the last week or so there has seemed to be a lot more movement than what we had during the winter. Jumping on that great steamer yesterday I remember thinking I havent seen one like this for quite a while and you used to find quite a lot like that last summer

[manonthemoon]

As Saturdays go, today's markets feel really tricky - anyone else think so? Things seemed to be getting better in the week, not sure why today is tough. Still a shifting tide? If I had a swear box in the room I would have made a lot more today.
Hope you're having a better one.

[hgodden]

It does feel a bit thin

[gutuami]

yep a bit tricky today. In the first half of City-ManU match I called it a day putting some fishy money on City at 5s. So City won and that whipped out bad emotions

[Iron]

I'm surprised the odds were that high.

In that kind of situation, emotions are running high, and anything can happen!

BTW, I was disappointed with Carrick. Had he been concentrating, he wouldn't have given the ball away. It was a schoolboy error (as was Scholes's tackle).

Jeff

yep a bit tricky today. In the first half of City-ManU match I called it a day putting some fishy money on City at 5s. So City won and that whipped out bad emotions

[gutuami]

the odds I took were 5.4 in the 30th minute if I remember correctly..

[Euler]

What shift are you talking about? Aside from a bit more volume I haven't noticed anything different personally and I scalp quite a bit

For quite a few years we have been carefully watching the market in infinite detail and there were shifts in Sep and Jan that changed the underlying characteristics of the market for the first time in quite a few years. The upshot is that it's generally harder to get an order filled without it going against you.

We will publish some data and further analysis when available. We are going into greater detail at the moment to fully understand it.

[hgodden]

Thats interesting. I do remember at the start of the year becoming frustrated by the fact that it seemed that suddenly almost everytime I used a large stake it would fly through me and push further away, almost as if betfair was somehow 'programmed' differently. Maybe its something of an optical illusion thinking in terms of betfair as just 'one thing' rather than taking into account all the different market participants but something did seem to change quite suddenly which took a bit of adapting to.

The markets feel okay to me recently though.

Rys - maybe you just have to get back your love of the game or at least the mentality you must have had earlier to learn and make it work. Maybe you're doing things differently from before in terms of your routines / preparations for trading? I do certain things in order to make sure I'm in the right mental and even physical condition before trading in order to get the best out of it, without doing those things I'd end up in trouble and of course once confidence goes a bit it can be hard to get it back straight away. Just a thought

[manonthemoon]

I do find scalping tough going. I've generally steered clear of it and prefer a ranging swing when I have enough hair on my chinny chin to hold the trade. But these last few months I've managed to convince myself that the price nips in the opposite direction more often than not when I scalp. Might be just bad timing, but I'd be very interested to see the cross matching data when there are findings to be shared.

[rhysmr2]

Rys - maybe you just have to get back your love of the game or at least the mentality you must have had earlier to learn and make it work. Maybe you're doing things differently from before in terms of your routines / preparations for trading? I do certain things in order to make sure I'm in the right mental and even physical condition before trading in order to get the best out of it, without doing those things I'd end up in trouble and of course once confidence goes a bit it can be hard to get it back straight away. Just a thought

Well I need to do something, £120 down so far today, I don't understand how I can go from making great money and not having a losing day for months to not been able to make money for weeks? and this happens a number of times a year, sometimes the odd bad week (which I can accept will happen to all of us) but for weeks or even months?

I'm relying on credit cards and my girlfriend to pay my mortgage and bills this month as I have before. It's times like this I wish I was never introduced to trading.

I either need a decent paid part time job or just try and get a good full time job and try and get away from trading altogether.