Struggling with the big races

[darkpunter]

Another two big races (The Oaks and The Derby), and whilst the big traders take hundreds out of the market I struggled to make anything!

The problem I find is that, with such large chunks of money going through the market, it takes ages to get matched on one price, let alone then getting matched again to get that profit!

What is the best way to trade these markets? Scalping didn't seem to work for me, so is it better to make a market, therefore having both orders in at the same time?

[drifter]

Not sure I have all the answers to these races but they do tend to move slower than most other markets. In general they also tend to be less volatile so some of the figures you are seeing achieved are from traders using much larger stakes than normal.

Look at the money matched at certain prices e.g. in the Derby most of the money matched on the favourite in the last 5 mins was at 4 & 4.1 so a strategy of making the market would have worked for that.

If anyone has any better strategies would like to hear them

[darkpunter]

Thanks to Drifter to being the only one out of 60+ who viewed this to reply so far...

I was trading Sea the Stars and there was more movement than I expected in it's price, due to the money coming in on Fame and Glory late on, which I just didn't see and therefore ended up on the wrong side with the method I was using. Making the market may well have negated that.

Cheers again!

[Squirtle]

I think a lot of people struggle with the big races, probably because they don't come around that often. I think you just need to throw caution to the wind and rely on the price not moving much?

[drifter]

I said favourite I meant Sea the Stars. It was the favourite before all that late money came for Fame and Glory.

[russxj6]

Yep, gotta admit that I got caught on this 'un in exactly the same way - thinking it was gonna stooge around at 4.00 to 4.10 all day only to see it head out just as soon as I got matched on one side. D'oh!

Even then, if I'd sat tight I think it would have come back for a push at least.

This is the judgement of course, should I emotionlessly cut my losses, or should I hang on in hoping for it cycle back? As ever, when there are two choices, I generally pick the wrong one!

Luckily I didn't go for the 'whole bank trade', as I think is sometimes suggested in slow-moving high-volume markets. But by my standards I'd put in a pretty decent stake. The saving grace, I suppose, is that with all this money dampening things down, the odds move so slowly that even a dim-witted oaf like me can only get caught for a tick or two.

Ho hum, live and learn. Even if rather slowly

I'll try the 'Make Market' option next time, perhaps, ta for the advice.

Cheers.

[Squirtle]

So with a week of big races ahead of us, what's the strategy?

[darkpunter]

Well, depending on stability and volume, I'm going to give making a market a try...

[darkpunter]

First race, finished in the red. Not a good start!!

[SpikeyBob]

Hi Darkpunter,

I also tried the make market strategy today and it worked pretty well for most markets. I only lost out on one of them which typically wiped out all my other race profits and I ended the meeting in the red. This was caused by the 2nd to last race where a favorite came in and left quite a few back orders unmatched.

I noticed that although I greened/redded up before the off in every race, all of my unmatched bets would have been matched in play due to the fluctuations in the prices once the race had started, despite the high number of favorites winning at Ascot. So I probably would have had quite a good profit on the day if I had let them go in play. However, the downside was not worth it. An interesting exercise though and I will probably have another go tomorrow.

[darkpunter]

Hi Spikey,

it just needs that one, doesn't it, to wreck a days work! I also considered the in-play option but have been caught oby that too many times, so I took heed of the big sign I have blu-tacked to my wall which states "DO NOT LET TRADES GO IN-PLAY!"

Unfortunately, I ignored the sign about accepting losses, and spunked £50 on the fourth race when No Hubris drifted from 6's to 8's.

From the above you can see I was not trading the favourite there, which was something I started trying after the loss on the first race. Until the 4th it worked well; prices were still stable, but with smaller amounts in the market, allowing you to get matched quicker.

And I really should not have lost what I did on the fourth - a combination of a -EV trade position, ignoring the market indicators and then not cutting my losses caused that.

I'm going to try the non-favs again tomorrow, this time with some good ol' fashion discipline, to see how it fares.

D

[Squirtle]

I've been doing much better at Goodwood this week than on other big meetings. I've found Goodwood pretty easy to read. No amazing results but pretty consistant and steady. It looks just like a smaller market to me but in slow motion.

How did everybody else get on?

[Joao]

As I said in the other post, I'm not making very well in the afternoon races. Can you experts tell me if this week the afternoon races are different from usual and if Goodwood festival is influencing the other afternoon markets as well? I said I was worse trading liquid markets, but I don't think it's that anymore, since I've traded good some very liquid markets at night. I think it's a market behaviour issue, as I'm not identifying the same patterns in the afternoon.
For example, today, from 14:00 until 17:30 I've turned 245€ into 235€ (not that bad, but not that good as well), some races traded with only 2€ stakes because I knew it would be a disaster...

From 17:30 until 19:45, I've turned 235€ into 301.5€, and the races seemed a lot different (lot easier). This scenario is repeating for me, all the last days. It's kinda frustrating, my confidence goes down and up in just a few hours

[hgodden]

it just needs that one, doesn't it, to wreck a days work! I also considered the in-play option but have been caught oby that too many times, so I took heed of the big sign I have blu-tacked to my wall which states "DO NOT LET TRADES GO IN-PLAY!"

D

I put those very words on sticky notes on the top of my monitor after getting caught so many times, yet it still kept happening at times as I was so absorbed in the market. I then remembered from my psychology studies that if you want to change a behaviour by using a mantra it must be a POSITIVE command and not a negative one, so I replaced 'Don't go in play' with 'Finish safely before the start of the race.' This change actually made a big difference. If you think about it, you never do really LET trades to go in play, but rather fail to ACT in time. If you want to send a message to your subconscious about how to act, you have to give it a clear positive command. Plus when you tell someone 'Don't do something' there is a tendancy for them to do it anyway. I remember a Derren Brown special a while ago in which he placed a perfectly sane girl in a room with a cat which was in a box that he told her contained a contraption that would kill the cat if she just pressed a button. Before leaving her alone with the cat, several times he repeated to her, 'whatever you do, DON'T PRESS THE BUTTON!'... a few mintues later, even though she was in tears and hated herself for doing it, she pressed the button anyway, along with a few other variables the command was enough to compel her to do so.

[Point2Point]

I've heard a few traders say this, "A hand came out and pressed the button". It wasn't me guv honest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ1fyOWsrFY