Feedback on expectations about trading
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Hello guys,
I have read tons of materials, checked numerous youtube channels, blogs etc. But I still don't have a broad picture of what I can expect in football trading. I'm specifically interested on football trading, but it would be nice to see answers from other sports.
Could you guys broadly share your answers to the following questions? I was doing value betting (VB) before, so I'll share the equivalent numbers for that as a way to establish a comparison.
- How many trades per day / week / month on average can one expect? I understand it depends on how many strategies you have, how many hours you can allocate to trading, the time of the year, etc. I'm just looking for a rough guideline on what's too little and what's too much. In VB, 400-600 / month was too little, and over 2k bets / month was crazy. I targeted 1k-1.5k trades per month. In poker less than 40k hands / month was too little, 80k was good and over 100k hands was crazy.
- What is the average ROI and success rate for a profitable trader? In VB the average would be about 2.5% of the total turnover. Anything over that is great. Success rate would depend on the average odds, I targeted even odds, so I had close to 55% success rate.
- How much variance is there involved in trading? It definitely will depend on volume and the average edge, but I'm trying to understand if on average, edges are big enough so that variance is not madness. In VB, variance is sick since edges are around 3%, so 10-20% bankroll swings within a month are (in my experience) not too uncommon, and you need over 10k bets to start seeing your true ROI (close to a full year of work). Is it that wild here? How many losing weeks/months would one expect to have per year?
- How long do you spend on pre-game research? If filters are properly set on the BTC stats software, do you guys analyze the stats for each match or just export the fixtures and assume they fit your criteria so you can move on to other things such as checking team news? Right now it takes me hours of cross checking BTC stats and SoccerStats, and I'm not even sure I'm checking the right stuff.
Thank you in advance, it would make the picture much clearer if I got a few replies about it. Right now I don't know if 100 trades per month is too little or too much, or if 10% ROI is attainable or insane, so it's hard to set up realistic goals that way
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@sipox11 Excellent stuff here.
If you want a cocky answer to "how long is a piece of string?" You can always respond with: "Twice the distance from the middle to one end"
Joking aside though @Martin-Futter is certainly correct with that. Although from my own experience as a total beginner I would say to err on the lower side of trades per day/week. Its easier to see what is happening and understand. Many, if not all, of the pros/profitable traders on here advise that sort of thing whilst learning.
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Thank you guys for the responses!
I'm getting a better picture now
@Martin-Futter I loved that expression "How long is a piece of string?"
Never heard it. It's true, very person-dependent I guess.I see that it's consistent the average of 5 minutes per game across traders for pre-game analysis. It's been taking me such a long time in the beginning, sometimes more than 20 minutes. I guess practice makes perfect, I need to be methodical in what I look for and stop checking random values each time. I'm still learning so I like looking at as many stats as possible, probably most of them useless.
About variance, 70% winning days sounds about right what I was expecting. I guess it depends a lot on strategies and trader's skill, but I was wondering if it was normal to have a 21 days in a row loss streak for instance. Doesn't seem to be the case fortunately (as long as one's profitable).
@Darri Thanks mate! Brilliant post, super insightful for me. I discovered your blog and started reading it from the beginning, it's amazing to see your great progress now that so much time has passed since your first post. I still have a long way to go until I catch up with the present.
The key concept I'm gonna take from your post is:
I like to find reasons not to trade a game. If I can't find one then I'll trade it.
I've been doing the exact opposite, trying to find games that give me reasons to trade them, and the problem is that there are always reasons, so I tend to ignore tiny red flags and trade them anyways. I'm gonna start following your approach and look for reasons not to trade them. I will use that as a measure for "success" in my research, so if one day I can't find a single game to trade, I'll take it as a success since I avoided bad opportunities instead of seeing it as "I missed the opportunity to trade today".
Knowing that traders like you make good profits with 50-60 trades / month alleviates a lot of pressure from my mind. I come from high volume environments, where without volume variance kills you. 80.000 hands in poker / month, 1.5k bets in value betting. That's why 1-5 trades / day seemed to me like I was doing something wrong and there was no way I could be profitable. Now I know it's ok to just trade the highest quality opportunities that I can find. Thanks
I started paper trading yesterday in addition to my actual trading to backtest all potential games I've had in the past 2 weeks. I learnt so much that I prepared a post for my blog to document my findings. I discovered it's indeed a powerful tool to test stuff out and get answers to most of my many questions I had.
Thanks again to everyone, more points of view are greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
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Cracking post mate, welcome to btc. I really like it when newer traders get stuck in an ask questions. The biggest trait for trading is problem solving and asking questions in pursuit of answers is how I got to my stage too. Don't be afraid to ask.
Martin is spot on its about the individual and what he/she is trying to achieve. So I'll run through your questions from my point of view. Hopefully other traders will also answer to give you a good variety to see what might fit your style.
How many trades?
I trade 2 strategies in football. One data driven the other late goals which is more odds/opinion based. I'm a typical month not december, I will trade around 40-60 games. This isn't me limiting or forcing trades to fit in that range just seems to be an average number of trades for me. I trade second half goals only looking for one goal to profit. Over time iv realised quality trades over quantity is my key to success. With that improves discipline and skill in choosing games so overall you improve with each month.Average roi/strike rate
Depends on the strategy and odds. I started by paper trading then moved to minimum staking. From that data I got my actual strike rate and served that as a benchmark. So example. If on 70 mins the ov1.5 strike rate for my strategy is 80%, then I know 1.50 odds for that time of match fits my data only style. My late goals strategy which iv grown my bank to full time level from is a mixture of data, pre match and in play stats. What is say are detailed trades. That is probably why I trade far less to say the average. So find an edge and just get games that qualify don't worry about numbers. Otherwise you force it and trading doesn't take prisoners when it comes to forcing trades/bets.
I typically aim for 10% a month minimum. But in the early days break even, work on recording your trades and then after 100/200 take a look and see what could be improved. Then you'll start to make bank growth. Better to find something consistent from my experience the trader who consistently makes 5%-10% every month is sorted forever compared to someone who has wild swings. Get this right and it helps mentally too. Which as you learn will find that to be a huge factor.Variance
I'm not trying to sound big headed but my variance is small. I think of it this way. By doing consistent things you get consistent results. Yes I do see better months at times but over the course of a year it typically is the same roi every month. Try think long term. Less about what you make daily, weekly, monthly and more about what you make over 2,3,4 months. I aim for quarterly targets. A good trader called Charles got me into this way of thinking about how to measure success.How long to research
2-5 mins. I look for holes in my data. So I trade off the stats software. The lists I get I go through each game and see if there is a reason not to trade it. These are variables that data can't show. So examples, top scorers/assists/keyplayers. What I do is I look at overall team goals and find out who contributes most to those. If they are injured I'll leave that game alone. Why? Because my data is based on them having played without them my data would be totally different. Lazio last season for example of spurs this season. You take out kane, son, immobile, caicedo from either team that's more than 75% of all goals from that team.
Do research if you feel it adds to your trade. I do it for confidence but if you find a strategy that doesn't need it then just stick to what's working. I like to find reasons not to trade a game. If I can't find one then I'll trade it.Hope you get more replies mate get a good mix of his people approach it. It can be daunting the amount of approaches on show but there is solid methods to all the good traders whatever the approach.
Any questions just ask. All the best bus looking forward to seeing the progress. Nice to see a fellow detailed poster on here. I'm bad sometimes for how long and detailed mine get but I'm passionate about trading and love helping get others on the right path as it can be done. I'm writing this on a tablet as out and about today so hopefully the auto correct hasn't made my poor typing unreadable
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@sipox11
Can only answer for myself.
- How many trades per day / week / month on average can one expect?
Bit of a 'how long is a piece of string?' question, this will differ for everyone and depend massively on what type of trader you are. I get in and out of the same market quite a lot so probably a lot of trades but I don't count them all individually, so a cricket match for example I may enter and exit 50-100 times!
- What is the average ROI and success rate for a profitable trader?
Again this will differ across the board, a very simple rule of thumb I like to use is to win 5 days out of 7 on average.
- How much variance is there involved in trading?
Variance will be fairly high depending on your strategy, bankroll management is critical to making sure it doesn't hinder your trading.
This is well worth a read: https://betfairtradingcommunity.com/en/blog/betfair-trading-bankroll-staking-strategy-how-much-do-you-need- How long do you spend on pre-game research?
Once skills are honed about 5 mins per match, once the selections are filtered in the software this is actually very manageable. Maybe spend 1-2 hours a day on research on average.
