Impossible

[freddy]

For the record im not particularly struggling to make money at the moment, so it's not that,
it's just that trading for me is quite an instinctive thing, you just get a feel for the markets having watched them for many years, and i feel they have changed quite alot recently.
i know thats not very specific, but i dont have any data to prove or disprove anything,
but as euler confirmed fill rates are slower so im not going mad after all .

I wouldn't be at all suprised if xm had been cranked up a notch or that betfair have found new ways to profit from the markets, they are just a bookmaker at the end of the day so they can do almost what they want with regard to matching bets ect.
There are a million ways they could be profiting.

[Euler]

freddy, I've studied traders for a while and the successful ones seem to be good at pattern recognition which is basically what I think you are describing. But the good thing is that you can learn that through practice. The harder you try the better you get!

I think I sound too negative sometimes. It's just that I have been going for 11 years and explored every area of the market. I'm always finding new and interesting things to look at, but I have to be reflective on a lot of others. Thats a side effect of having pushed most things to their limits.

[Innertube]

There are a million ways they could be profiting.

I think they are skimming profit from different currencies rates and rounding 'errors'.

[SamWilson82]

For the record im not particularly struggling to make money at the moment, so it's not that,
it's just that trading for me is quite an instinctive thing, you just get a feel for the markets having watched them for many years, and i feel they have changed quite alot recently.
i know thats not very specific, but i dont have any data to prove or disprove anything,
but as euler confirmed fill rates are slower so im not going mad after all

Similar story here Freddy. I'd been very "used" to just watching the markets and trading purely on feel/instinct. I was always tweaking and modifying my strategy but the foundations of my trading relied heavily on fill rate. The recent "shifts" have made it pretty difficult for me to adapt as the patterns & triggers seemed to be buried deep into my head over 4 years of trading. Frustration with this lead to a lack of confidence and Ive had to do a hell of a lot of work mentally whilst reinventing my core strategy's pretty much from scratch.

It was a tough period but I can honestly say that its made me a much stronger trader and has opened up some avenues that were previous blind to me.

sam

[freddy]

Yep, you've got to constantly evolve in this business, stand still for too long and you get eaten alive .

[RideTheLightning]

I don't know if it is just me but liquidity seems awful the last hour and a half, fill rate very poor.

[rhysmr2]

I'm finding today much harder then yesterday?

[SpikeyBob]

I thought liquidity has been poor all day tbh.

[Euler]

SP has been terrible. I just went from a decent positive to a firm negative because I took a small order to SP. Shouldn't be possible really given how much was at SP and in the market and it was a jumps race as well, so no reason to discount a good start.

That said, some of the later races have suited me, so a better day than yesterday. Some interesting evening racing up a bit later.

[Innertube]

Easy to get a loss today

[Iron]

Do you think that it's possible that you lost in some races because you lost in others? For example, after the 4th consecutive loss, you may have been feeling pretty frustrated, which may have thrown you out of your usual rhythm and caused you to make decisions you wouldn't normally make.

Jeff

I wouldn't normally say much, as every now and again you have good and bad runs / days. But losing all six I estimate is around a once a year chance or 1/15625 trails. Very unlikely, but not impossible.

[rubysglory]

XM or not - not sure, never will be. What I have noticed over the last month though is that a larger percentage of my Orders are being placed almost instantly. This is happening on trades where my stake far exceeds the available. I know that the speed of market change might me than there are Orders queued that I do not see on my screen, but it is happening far too often. No complaints though. Just an observation. I like Innertube's theory on skimming though - my kind of thinking !

rg

[Iron]

If you want a quick answer, the rate at which you order fills has changed.

I don't dispute that's the case, but it's hard to see why it's so.

I wouldn't have thought many people would be into cross matching - unless you want to put a massive sum through the market, it's simpler to back Horse A than to lay the rest of the field. So IMHO you wouldn't expect cross matching to be that popular, and to have a big impact.

Do any of you guys regularly use cross matching as part of your trading?

Jeff

[rubysglory]

Sorry Jeff. Been a long day trading UK and Aust, but don't understand your question re: regularly using XM as part of trading. Do we have a choice ?

rg

[Iron]

Hi RG

From my understanding of XM (based on http://bdp.betfair.com/index.php?option ... &Itemid=62), it only comes in handy when the liquidity of the selection you want to back or lay is insufficient, given your bet/lay size. And even if you use XM, you're still relying on orders being filled.

Or have I misunderstood XM?

Jeff

Sorry Jeff. Been a long day trading UK and Aust, but don't understand your question re: regularly using XM as part of trading. Do we have a choice ?

rg