My Trip Through Trading

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@lee-woodman I found the lack of trades , a bit of a learning moment .
When there are fewer good marktes or games.

People tend to be more selective. and spend more time on researching the markets.

It also opens opertunities , of looking at different sports.

Matt Wood

@lee-woodman I found the same sort of thing too. There is more pressure to take the lone filter result, even if it was one you would easily dismiss when the filter throws up 10.
Glad you got a hold of it

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@matt-wood I found last month to be hard with the lack of trades. It wasn’t so much when there was none but when there was just one and it was a game/league which appeared on my filter but wasn’t the strongest selection. So when I had say 10 selections I found it easy to pick out the best to shortlist but when there was just one it was hard to say ‘ok I’m going to leave that’ and therefore have zero. I’ve been more aware of it this month and I’ve done what’s necessary and it’s worked out better

Akiva Anderson

I take most of my money out of my Betfair Account and play with a nominal amount. It's a coping strategy as I find myself 'widening the scope' of an acceptable trade. I try and make parameters fit because of the lack of trades.

The money is reintroduced at the start of the season and its business as usual. At International breaks I use half stakes.

Ryan

@matt-wood

This is a good write up, good traders are made in the summer I think, I've always done well in the summer it's harder but when you look back and see why you did well - I was more selective and that helped.

The lack of trades for me I know there will always be another one and it'll be the right one for me - that's my thought process and if I miss a trade hey who cares, was it essential I got on that trade?

3 great q's....

What's the upside?
What's the downside?
Can I handle the downside?

Let's look at a real life example.....

There's no trades that day...... there's sport but they dont fit my criteria

Upside - I can look through my data without any distractions, I can look through the forum, I can learn, get ideas, relax and spend time with Isla (baby)

Downside - I don't get to do a trade and potentially add some profit to my bank

Can I handle that? 100% because the upside of not forcing a trade far outweighs that and means I'm ready come game day - this day could have been terrible if I'd have forced trades and effect the week and month.

Matt Wood

Key lesson learned for me this month. Not only learned, but also put into practice. Hopefully this means it will stick somewhat and become permanent in my leaking spongebag of a brain

PATIENCE!

'The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.'

I think July has been a great month for us footy traders to apply the lesson on patience (excluding the Euros). The lack of games and disruption to the footballing calendar has meant a drought of filter activity for a lot of us.

For me, I always could understand why the pros on here extolled the virtue of patience in trading, but I could never seem to quite apply it to myself and my actions. This last month I have finally been able to apply it and see how it benefits me. I am sure in the past I would have been hunting for a trade or feeling pressure to 'do something' after 4 or 5 days with nothing popping up on my filters. Undoubtedly this would have cost me money!

From the definition above it is easy to see that the first part applies directly to days when we have nothing on our filters to trade. We accept and tolerate the delay until the next suitable trade appears.

For me the harder part of this lesson is in the latter part of the definition. To accept these things '... without becoming annoyed or anxious'.
The annoyed or anxious feelings about not advancing my bank and 'doing something' are slippery little bastards that hide and never make themselves obvious. But they were, still are, certainly rattling around in my head costing me money when I listen to them.

In a way I am glad July has been so sparse for footy trading as it has allowed me to focus on these feelings during the empty filter days and really understand when they are a danger to my trading and therefor my bank.

How has everyone else got on with a lack of trades?

Matt Wood

@chris-osborne Nice idea

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@matt-wood said in Can I even trade...:

@chris-osborne Thanks Chris. That sounds like a bit of a crappy thing! I would say charge them interest but you wouldnt get much with rates as they are!

It’s a days salary they’ve deducted from most. The thought of taking an extra day off had occurred to me

Matt Wood

@chris-osborne Thanks Chris. That sounds like a bit of a crappy thing! I would say charge them interest but you wouldnt get much with rates as they are!

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Good luck Matt, I was going to do the same after getting paid tomorrow until payroll decided to make an incorrect pension deduction from all of us probably won’t be resolved until August salaries

Ryan

@matt-wood Looking forward to watching you progress with this one buddy!

Matt Wood

After getting all the advice here about a bit of investment into my trading bank, thank you everyone for commenting its much appreciated, I have decided to set up a Betdaq account with a very small (£50) bank. The purpose of this is to, for now, follow Keith's 1.5 lays and Darri's LTD. I may look to also include Stuarts LTD in this once the bank builds up a bit, however, I managed to somehow mess up his system in my paper trading efforts. So I have just been tracking the data for various things for now. Big thanks to those three members for sharing their successful systems

Should this small bank double I will think about investing a little more at a later date.

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@matt-wood I think there are 2 options and its quite personal as to what works best for you

Do what Darri suggests and run the separate trades using a separate bank and allow that to grow, like an investment fund if you like. This option is probably best if you dont yet have a working, profitable strategy of your own as you should see growth whilst working on your own stuff on the side
Add it to your main bank. If you do this i would only do it IF you are already making money, if the growth isnt coming with a small bank then it wont come by adding more money. I would personally only drip it into betfair. So lets say you make £50 or whatever in a month, then you could match the profit or half of the profit again from this offset money to accelerate the growth a bit but if you lose money then dont add anything. To add it in one lump is a bit gung ho. If you prefer this way but arent yet confident of making a consistent profit then just put it to one side until you are

Ryan

My only advice is that if you can't work with a smaller bank then why add to it?

The markets move the same, it could very tempting to do things you wouldn't with this money as its in the Betfair bank - discipline will have to be so strong here.

This also doesn't account for the emotional element of where this money came from.

Martin

@matt-wood I think with a low amount like that it's fine if you want to avoid min stakes.

Matt Wood

Much appreciated gents. Its a real boon having this place to bounce ideas off people and see the responses as someone will always think of something you don't yourself.

@Darri This is a great idea, thanks. Ive just read your fuller post about it on your blog. I think your would be right that it will return better than an index fund.

@Chris-Osborne Thanks Chris, drip feeding might be a safer option

@Dan-MacKinnon Thanks Dan. Unfortunately I was exposed to to a similar situation as you at a very early age. My best friend was killed in a car accident (nobodies fault) at age 13. Certainly agree its best to celebrate the person and no get depressed or upset about it.

Dan MacKinnon

I'd agree. You don't need to make a decision right now so follow Darri's advice for 3-4 months like he said and re-evaluate then. If you want to up your stakes then you know you can.

Something I read in regards to gambling addiction that struck a note with me (not that I'm saying this is you, but it's something a few people have spoken about on here before) is, do you put money into your account but never withdraw it? If so why? Just keep that in mind before you start adding large increases to your bank.

Finally, from a personal point of view, I'm sorry to hear about the circumstances you received this money. When I was in my early 20s a good friend of mine suddenly passed away and on the anniversary I would always beat myself up and get upset. A few years back I realised that he wouldn't want that and instead would much rather see me happy and celebrating the good times. Each month I put a little bit aside and on the Saturday closest to the anniversary I use that money to meet up with friends, have some beer, have a meal, do a fun activity, etc. and just really celebrate our friendship and remember our mate with laughter.
Just remember to take time to treat yourself and the Mrs and do something that makes you happy.

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@matt-wood I like @darri’s idea something I want to do when I have some available free cash

My suggestion would be to not add to betfair in one go but a percentage each month

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@matt-wood here is an idea, might help with your thought process. This new money you are coming into and using for trading, dont add it to your main bank. Set it aside. With this new money trade these following strategies.

Keiths 1.5 lays
Ryans split stake
Stuarts LTD
My LTD

These are all set and forget ready. Ryans strategy, Alan has kindly setup a bot for it, if this is a hassle setting up then just take that one out the others are more than enough. So you can place all of these early and just forget about them. Combined they will make more than index funds with the level of money you have for trading.

Then continue as normal with your main bank. Compare both over the next 3-4months and see what makes more money your trading or the BTC index fund

Matt Wood

It seems, sadly, that I will be coming into a small amount of money by way of an inheritance.

A good deal of this has already been accounted for but there will be a little left over. I have been thinking about putting it into my trading bank to bring it up to £400.

Pros:

No more messing about on BF with less than £2 stakes. (this is a big driver for me as it has cost me at times, either in missed trades or messed up staking)
Faster growth of the bank. Assuming I am trading properly and being profitable it would mean getting to a full trading bank sooner.
Stops me wasting the money on something I don't really need.

Cons:

Loss of more money. By this I mean, am I ready for larger stakes and more money at risk?
Could be invested in stocks ISA
Risk of loss of discipline. I might think Oh well, easy come easy go. Not very realistic but possible.

I am going round and round with this in my head a little so any comments or advice would be welcome.