My Trip Through Trading
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@ryan the issue with the split stake is that people are using it in the way everyone teaches it and its culling their profits. They can go for examples with matt trade here 6 small wins with pretty little reward only for 2 bad games to wipe that all out.
Its a way to try to mitigate the "value" part of a trade. You spread it out so that in the end you deem it to be a good average odds. This can be totally avoided by just selecting value in the first place. Many actually do this type of strat because their initial entry is not value and if placed as a standalone trade wouldnt work long term.
You find the correct games and get small rewards, followed by you adding money potentially to bad ones. This then mucks about with your needed s/r and this messes with people mindset in terms of was it a good strategy or not.
A split stake can of course be profitable, we can see examples of this. But time and time again i see the same flaws in it, and they are more damaging than someone who just finds the good initial value on the market. Iv rarely come across many traders who find split stakes work better than value trading.
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@darri the split stake is a great strategy for many to use though, it's simple and makes profit.
We don't all have to trade the same way to get the same result, what is key in all of this is trading the way which works for you.
A lot of the time a strategy isn't profitable is because of human error, what we are traders have to do is change our behaviour to match the plan - not change the plan (strategy).
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@matt-wood you know my feeling towards split stake are not good, maybe we can have a chat and take a look at whats going on trading wise? Ill be in touch later to see whats going on
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@matt-wood Happy New Year to you too bro. I think “Letting It Go”. Is the key realisation and what will hold you in good stead going forward in 2022. There’s so many opportunities that present themselves that when you can shrug your shoulders and say “Yeah whatever that could have been a green trade but I was doing something else”. Is a massive mindset that only benefits us.
I struggled with that for ages it’s definitely a turning point once you can let it go as opposed to hunting for something cause you can’t get that missed trade out of your mind.
The dispassionate unemotional side is key. -
Right a little late for the monthly round up, I will blame it on Christmas/New Years
First off I hope everyone enjoyed themselves over the festive period, my waistline shows that I did
Right Dec started off with a terrible run. This may just have been variance or could be that my head was also not in the right place after my dog being so ill.
Month round up: December (month 8 )
1.17pts lossTotal trades: 20
Fairly average amount.
Winners: 14
Decent amount of winners here but most were from an early goal so only part one of the stake was in play. Also there were no scratch trades from the losers, all 6 had zero 2HG in them. This is a first and is why the points were down despite a good number of winners.Mistakes: One proper mistake here at the start of the month. A lack of discipline which saw me jump on a new split stake I have been tracking. The data is simply not ready for trading so this was 100% a brain fart moment.
Towards the later part of the month I traded very few games (10 games after Dec 12) I know some winners were missed but it really showed me that I can just 'let them go' and not be such a slave to the pc. I think going forward this will allow me much more mental freedom when actually trading, I can feel I am starting to become completely dispassionate and unemotional about it all.
Will be working on this years plan over the next day or two as I want to realign my year in trading with the calendar year. It has been hammering at my brain constantly that I don't have a neat and tidy start/finish to a year.
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I think confidence is key here, it's like that old car you had when younger and something went wrong and you were stuck with it.
Then it got fixed and you drove it still but was tentative with it until the confidence with it. I think this has inspired my Youtube video today your post!
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@matt-wood said in Can I even trade...:
Thanks for the input gents its very much appreciated
@Eamonn-Hogan been testing since january. But only since November with tighter rules.
@Darri you are totally right about the emotional part of trading. I deff am affected by loses and I also suspect you are right about it stemming from a not quite 100% confidence in the filter/strategy. Paper testing it is
@Chris-Osborne Thats something I had not looked at yet, will have to go through this morning and see how the mid week games affected things, thanks
I would wait until you get some more results until you are confident in the strategy.
Confidence is definitely the key. -
Thanks for the input gents its very much appreciated
@Eamonn-Hogan been testing since january. But only since November with tighter rules.
@Darri you are totally right about the emotional part of trading. I deff am affected by loses and I also suspect you are right about it stemming from a not quite 100% confidence in the filter/strategy. Paper testing it is
@Chris-Osborne Thats something I had not looked at yet, will have to go through this morning and see how the mid week games affected things, thanks
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@eamonn-hogan Same with me, I've stripped down what I'm doing have been testing for a number of weeks made a few tweaks and only in the week or so have I started risking min stakes again.
@Matt-Wood Which games have you lost on, most teams who played in Europe during the week have struggled which is something I am going to take account of going forward
As we know @Darri speaks alot of sense most of it is repetitive but he needs to keep saying it. Its only starting to sink in with me now we can learn alot from him
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@darri said in Can I even trade...:
@matt-wood trading is all about how we can control our mindset. Confidence can go in strats very quickly only for it to rebound. Remember variance works in funny ways. A good strategy will likely see a return to the norm after bad runs. However we as humans dislike losses, its a negative emotion and something we run from if it persists. But actually in trading its more likely meaning your on the verge of a bounce back.
I would say that the reason your feeling this way is simply down to this not being fool proof from testing. Its needing hundreds of more games with your new criteria to feel safe. People invest in the s&p 500 because they see long term steady growth, rather than jumping on a new growth stock or crypto. Safety in your numbers is what is missing here.
Id say go away rest of month as you say and just track. In fact perhaps even set yourself a milestone of amount of games you want. We talk about months but really trades dont care what day/week or month cycle you are in its the strategy and your selections that contribute to the variance. Just build that picture before suing any money whatsoever. We are all eager to win but actually sensible money is just waiting till you are ready and then take advantage. Compounding is your friend and will make up for the time you spent just tracking.
I agree with Darri. I was always eager to get my trades on and never really set about having a solid strategy and was jumping about different strategies all over the place. Never did I fully test anything and it showed with my confidence.
I went away and started to test 2 strategies. Got one strategy to 200 results and decided to tweak it a bit and have now got it to 96% after 51 results. Im gonna wait until it hits 200 and then stake money on it confidently if the strike rate holds up.
Go and test fully as Darri repeatedly told me to do and it finally set in and I am doing it.
Good luck mate
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@matt-wood trading is all about how we can control our mindset. Confidence can go in strats very quickly only for it to rebound. Remember variance works in funny ways. A good strategy will likely see a return to the norm after bad runs. However we as humans dislike losses, its a negative emotion and something we run from if it persists. But actually in trading its more likely meaning your on the verge of a bounce back.
I would say that the reason your feeling this way is simply down to this not being fool proof from testing. Its needing hundreds of more games with your new criteria to feel safe. People invest in the s&p 500 because they see long term steady growth, rather than jumping on a new growth stock or crypto. Safety in your numbers is what is missing here.
Id say go away rest of month as you say and just track. In fact perhaps even set yourself a milestone of amount of games you want. We talk about months but really trades dont care what day/week or month cycle you are in its the strategy and your selections that contribute to the variance. Just build that picture before using any money whatsoever. We are all eager to win but actually sensible money is just waiting till you are ready and then take advantage. Compounding is your friend and will make up for the time you spent just tracking.
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How long have you been testing?
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Surely a bit hasty , 3 losses can’t even be classes as variance
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Rough start to the month for me, 3 losses on the shg. This is even after tightening up on the rules. Might be time to stop placing real money and just track until the end of the month. Come Jan 1st a long hard look at things I think.
Every time I feel like progress is made the wheels come off, I guess I know how Ole felt
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Right time for a monthly update. A bit late this time as the last 10 days have been some of the most crap days Ive ever had, outside of trading this is. My 10 year old dog became very sick and we honestly thought she was dying. It has been the most horrible thing to see a dog that was full of life and sprinting around happily a few weeks back to a dog that tries to squat for a poop and her back legs give out resulting in her just sitting down everytime.
I wont bore everyone with details but she has spent the last 3 nights in an animal hospital in Bath. Been very otherwordly for me as Ive not been apart from her for more than one 24 hour period in the last 10 and a half years. Fingers crossed we should be picking her up later today.
Anyway on with the trading...
Month round up: November (month 7)
2.28pts profitTotal trades: 14
A lot less this month due to a week away and the dreaded internationals
Winners: 8
Not a great amount.Of the 6 that didnt win, only one was a loss the other 5 were scratch trades. I'm going to look at alternative ways to tweak the trade (on paper for now) to see if there is a way to turn a profit from those scratch trades as if that is possible then I would really be in the green.
Mistakes: One if I'm being picky (which I should be)
I traded a Norwegian game in which only one of the teams had something to play for. I thought that would be enough for a result but perhaps games should only be traded if BOTH teams still have incentive to play.
On a side note, I also traded an ever so slightly tweaked version of Ryans split stake and this has turned a profit for 5 months in a row now. A small profit but green is green