Return To Normal Life

Hello,

first of all sorry for the lack of updates during the last month and thanks to Philip Oliver for his thoughts on betting on Roland Garros.

The last few weeks have been very busy at work. I also had to do lots of things to get a new car. I am happy to say that all this stuff is done and I can return to normal life.

During the last few weeks I also traded some sport events, but this was not a good idea. I was not 100% concentrated and produced the following result:

  
I started the trading month with a loss of -EUR50.47 in the match Bammer v Li, so the struggle of the last month continued. To be honest I can not afford to lose such an amount in a single match. My actual trading bank is ca. EUR383, so the loss of -EUR50.47 is 13% of my bank. You do not need to be an expert, but losing 13% of your trading bank in a single trade is not acceptable. During the last few weeks I had to take a stop loss or at least to scratch the trades in so many occasions. Here is an example of a trade of the last month:

During the match Domachowska v Kirilenko I could identify good opportunities, but after 3 successful trades (entering and then scratching) I took my stop loss too late and produced a loss
of -EUR3.39. It is not a big amount (just 0.88% of my trading bank), but it is still a loss. If you have ten of these trades, you lose -EUR33.90 which is ca. 10% of the trading bank. I had lots of such trades, so if I had a successful trade, mostly I cut my winnings, because I just want to have a single trade where my assumption of the match developing was right. Any successful trader would now start laughing, because this a common mistake of a novice trader.

Two weeks ago I started reading a book of Van K. Tharp about trading. The more I read the more I realised that I do not have a really good trading strategy for tennis. Also my setup is not that professional that it should be. As a software developer I should not be that difficult to create a setup for me, which helps me to trade without emotions.

In this book I could also find information about how to measure your trading strategy. I never measured my “strategy” in the past so it is quite funny that I set a goal for myself to reach a net profit if EUR1000 at the end of the trading year.

Maybe it sounds crazy, but in tennis I need to start again from scratch. I want to have a tennis trading strategy (or maybe a set of strategies) which is measurable and which can be applied without subjective decisions.

Mostly when trading on tennis I am watching for big odds movements. I am also thinking about looking for smaller odds movement, f.e. to look for a movement of 25 ticks in my favour with a maximum risk of 10 ticks against me. This may lead to having more trades, which is also in my favour, because it is a little annoying for me to watch matches without getting involved.

I also started to put money on my laying selections on the horses. The results are promising, so I will give it a try. I am also following the tips of Horse Racing Tips and Nose Ahead. I am tracking all the bets via Excel so I will give a complete overview during the next few days.

 
The MLB Baseball season has already started and a mate came across with a nice idea to bet on those matches. So give it a try too. Yesterdays result where really good, 4 out of 4 winners. I use Betfair and Betdaq to get my selections at certain odds matched.

It is quite funny: I started with the idea to trade on sports and now I am beginning to turn to betting. I am still convinced I can make money on trading on tennis, but I need to get an approach which suits my personality. Haven’t found it so far.

There will be also some changes to the blog too. I do not want to post the profit/loss figure on a daily bases. It does not help any readers and it does not help me. Often I try to force a trade to turn a red figure into a green figure to avoid posting a loss on the blog. Losing is a part of the game. If you have a measurable strategy (trading or betting, does not matter) then on long term the profit will come. So I will just post my profit/loss on a monthly bases.

Total loss this month: –EUR24.50

Cheers, Loocie