I would suggest taking a break away from trading for a day or two. Spend a bit of time doing something totally different that you like to do to relax then spend some time thinking about where you were mentally when you succeeded and where you were when you have been losing.
I doubt you have become a poor trader overnight, I suspect your mental attitude has just changed and now as you say you are in a spiral downwards - so you need to figure out how to break it. For me it was a matter of taking a break. At first it was a day or two, then eventually got it down to going for a cup of tea and then eventually I found I could just instantly switch it off and carry on back in a positive frame of mind.
It is all about finding what works for you though I would suspect just plugging on hoping for it to change (when I suspect deep down you have a little voice saying, I hope I do lose just to prove myself right that I knew I would lose if I carried on - been there many a time and I am sure others have!) will not be what works for you or just about anyone!
Good luck and don't neglect the mental aspect of trading - it makes up about 80% of it for me if not higher!
P.S. there is a good example of trying to manage the mental aspect on BBC1 now in Murray!
Today's Horse Racing
LOS
Normally the way I get out of negative mindframes after a bad loss or two is just to get on with it and keep it simple for a while to make sure I get a few wins under my belt, which soon builds confidence again and then you soon forget about the trouble you had before.
If you're not yet in a position to do that or you don't have enough experience then probably the best thing to do is to take a couple of days off.
In any case though if you are losing substantially at the moment then you should just stop, or at least down your stakes massively.
I don't see the sense in using anything other than minimal stakes until you are completely sure that you have properly cracked it. Doesn't hurt to step off the gas for a while if you're relatively new either.
Long term it pays to develop the mindframe of just pushing through the hard times, even if it does hurt, but you can't neccessarily expect that from yourself early on in your trading career
Normally the way I get out of negative mindframes after a bad loss or two is just to get on with it and keep it simple for a while to make sure I get a few wins under my belt, which soon builds confidence again and then you soon forget about the trouble you had before.
If you're not yet in a position to do that or you don't have enough experience then probably the best thing to do is to take a couple of days off.
In any case though if you are losing substantially at the moment then you should just stop, or at least down your stakes massively.
I don't see the sense in using anything other than minimal stakes until you are completely sure that you have properly cracked it. Doesn't hurt to step off the gas for a while if you're relatively new either.
Long term it pays to develop the mindframe of just pushing through the hard times, even if it does hurt, but you can't neccessarily expect that from yourself early on in your trading career
Luckily I had a constant eye on the financials and was happy to be more patient than I currently would be on the racing markets. Some markets I didn't even attempt to put an order through. On the markets I did trade some of the price action was all over the place.
The funny thing is I see a lot of what I saw today(price action/order flow) on the financials!
The funny thing is I see a lot of what I saw today(price action/order flow) on the financials!
Its going ok! Ive had a few set backs in the last few months by having to change my trading package several times but now after a lot of trialling/messing about/hours in front of charts/testing data feeds etc I have a pretty good set up. Before I had a major disadvantage with latency but now I am definitely on a level pegging with the big boys. The account management is done by your broker and all the brokers are in the us so previously when I put an order in I would have to go via america to verify my account and these markets can move faster than betfair markets so 4-500 milliseconds is a major disadvantage. Now I can get an order in the system in milliseconds (faster than I can get on betfair!!) and the most important thing is I understand why a lot of things happen and can pre empt a lot of moves. I'm not making a fortune!! Not by any means! But I haven't lost anything and as long as I can stay profitable and improve confidence the scalability is pretty much limitless as far as money I'd ever have to trade with!
There are a lot of things in common with trading betfair and financials but there is zero information out there on how to do it and where to start!!
There are a lot of things in common with trading betfair and financials but there is zero information out there on how to do it and where to start!!
Hgoddon and Andyfuller
Thanks for the advice. I'm aware it's not the first time I've posted up asking for help so it's appreciated.
Something happened last week where I had a day that I made substantially more than I've ever done before, an amount of money that I could easily live from day to day, and I work with 50p per tick at the moment. I consistantly won all day and I know why it happened; good frame of mind and good decisions. Perhaps I'm now trying to equal that each day and piling the pressure on.
Looking back on today the favourites were heavily backed all day, and I was constantly biased to lay them each time to get the crossover points. No good having a tick size increase if the market is going the wrong way!
Straight up, my worst loss prior was £5 over 27 markets, today was around £16 in 17 markets so bit of a shocker.
I'll try and find something different to do tomorrow!
Thanks for the advice. I'm aware it's not the first time I've posted up asking for help so it's appreciated.
Something happened last week where I had a day that I made substantially more than I've ever done before, an amount of money that I could easily live from day to day, and I work with 50p per tick at the moment. I consistantly won all day and I know why it happened; good frame of mind and good decisions. Perhaps I'm now trying to equal that each day and piling the pressure on.
Looking back on today the favourites were heavily backed all day, and I was constantly biased to lay them each time to get the crossover points. No good having a tick size increase if the market is going the wrong way!
Straight up, my worst loss prior was £5 over 27 markets, today was around £16 in 17 markets so bit of a shocker.
I'll try and find something different to do tomorrow!
Its called Drawdown, nothing to worry about every trader has one even the profesionals. One thing to know is what your trade systems worst one can be mine is 30%. Drawdowns dont bother me that much, if i lose 6 in a row i dont switch off, if i get 10 in a row i switch off, why because i trade about 10 races a day using a 1-2, 1-3 strategy, and say one football match (Premier league when they start). You may lose tommorow and theres nothing you can do about it, some people do the cardinal sin and put in a chunk in running to get a winning trade, you know how i know because in my early days i use to do it and lose the whole bank. When you trade and i mean trade your mindset should be trained to accept losses, drawdowns, cutting a trade when it dont look right even if its in your favour. Its a journey but keep with it the gains will returnL.o.S wrote:Bit of a question..
Has something changed in racing recently? Whatever is going on, I've had about 5 straight losing days, after things were starting to move forward.
Much of the heavy backing on Wednesday was due to the mad bomber. When he is around, it isn't safe to lay favourites. All you can do is take speculative back positions on the favourite (of course, everyone else is doing this, which drives the price down - this must make the mad bomber really mad!). Or else you can focus on laying vulnerable non-favourites.
