Just an update!

Profit/Loss : 211.39€
Total Profit/Loss : 1825.57€
Current Bank : 2560.79€

First of all, I'd like to point out that I've skipped the post from last week simply because I had a very busy weekend so I didn't have the time to post last week's update. Many things happened during the last 2 weeks ( this one included ) which kept me quite busy.

To start this post, I'll first write about last week's weekend and then I'll write about this one.

So, last weekend I bought a laptop and had to install all the usual software, setting everything up took me almost a day while still trying to do some trading. I wasn't very comfortable to trade using the new laptop so I wasn't expecting to beat a record or something. It was an uneventful week, just followed my basic plan, taking a tick here and there without too much risk.

This weekend was another busy weekend. I used to advantage the fact that I didn't have to go to work on Friday to speed up things a little bit regarding the software I'm currently developing to trade on Betfair. It's something that I'll start to write about as well, so that I can keep track of the development too.

Yesterday I made a couple of mistakes that irritated me quite a bit. First, I did something that's not usual which was to lay a team that scored the goal just after the market reopened. I layed Udinese ( against Livorno at home ) at 1.05 expecting to back at 1.06/1.07 but I wasn't that lucky and I had to back at 1.03 giving me a redbook of around -14€. I felt stupid really. Then after this stupid mistakes I lost 2 ticks in 2 consecutive half-times, not that I've done a stupid mistake here, it was just normal trading. That gave me 3 losses in a row, it's not very normal for me, fortunetely! Ended the Saturday with a loss of -9€.

Today it was a much better day, didn't catch anything special but picked up several little opportunities here and there, tick by tick I made a daily profit of 71€. I couldn't resist to put some money on the Tennis final between Fish and Dojkovic but well, I'm awful at trading tennis so I ended with a loss of -6€. I still have everything to learn about Tennis, watching the game live on betfair ( livevideo ) and watching the odds moving was a good practice to me, I'll give it another shot on another match sometime soon.

I thought I'd post here a picture about the current state of my software, it's in the early stages so it doesn't allow me to do anything except to nagivate through the markets menu, opening a market and watching the prices being updated with an interval of 8 seconds or something. The visual interface is still rough, I'm still doing lots of tests. Just bear in mind that everything is temporary.

( The market information shown in the picture has nothing to do with the market in question. )

Momentum kept! Let's keep it again...

Profit/Loss : 326.41€
Total Profit/Loss : 1614.18€
Current Bank : 2349.40€

I never thought I could be making this much on a single week but I am. If I'm able to keep this pace I'll be achieving my ultimate goal of 1000€/month very quickly, obviously it's good but a bit disappointing because I thought it would be tougher.

Unfortunately my winning streak since 24th of February was broken on 5th of March with a loss of -8.48€ and lost again on 6th of March an amount of -3.25€. Haven't lost any since then.

I must confess this blog is becoming boring but I've done it just to keep track of my progress, this is not supposed to be fun, is it ? Although, if you have any suggestion to make this any more fun, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Keeping the momentum

Profit/Loss : 145.00€
Total Profit/Loss : 1287.77€
Current Bank : 2022.99€

Another month comes to an end and I've established a new personal record. It's quite normal that I keep beating my previous records simply because money makes money. Here's the P/L screenshot from February.

This week was one of those good weeks where everything I touched was transformed in profit. Made no mistake, just good trading practices. I wasn't expecting this week to be so good just because the weekend was very busy for me in contrast with what's usual. Had some visits on saturday and on sunday so I wasn't totally focused on trading but I found enough time to get myself locked in my room for some tradings.

At the moment I'm trading with 950€ chunks and there aren't many markets out there capable of accepting such an amount. It's becoming more difficult to enter in some kind of markets I used to participate which leads me into thinking that establishing a maximum chunk size might be a good ideia, 1000€ is probably a good value. Unfortunetely this destroys my current plan which relies on continually growing stakes without a pre-defined maximum. It's something that I'll have to think about.

I'm on a winning streak since 24th of February, just hope it continues for a few more weeks.

Have a nice week!

Best week so far !

Profit/Loss : 241.59€
Total Profit/Loss : 1142.77€
Current Bank : 1877.99€

What a week!

My expected profit for this month is 158.96€ and only this week I made much more than that. Marvelous !

Only 2 redbooks during the whole weekend and only 1 mistake.

Sorry but I can't go into more details because I'll have to go to bed, it's too late! If you have any questions, just post a comment and I'll be glad to answer.

Cya!

Mental fragility !

Profit/Loss : 24.03€
Total Profit/Loss : 901.18€
Current Bank : 1636.40€

At the moment, my mental fragility is coming up to the surface, I have no doubt about that. I'm finding it hard to keep a good mental attitude which leads to some stupid mistakes, fortunetely this time without major consequences. This is the time when I start to feel that a big loss is just around the corner, I can smell it ! It's time to lock the gates and keep every penny behind closed doors and let the storm go away.

During the half-time of Zaragoza - Barcelona the market was trading at 1.29 to sell ( back ) and 1.30 to buy ( lay ) with some sets of 10k on each side waiting to get matched. I was in a good position at 1.29 to sell and about to put my sell order at 1.30 so I could make a 1 tick profit. What happened next was nasty. Someone came in with 340k ( yeah, you read it well, 340k !!! ) and changed the market to 1.28 to sell and 1.29 to buy and obviously I got matched at 1.29 in the blink of an eye and was left in a bad position, I had to leave with a 1 tick loss. This was the third loss in a row. I was totally pissed off! How can someone join a market with 340k ? Isn't it dangerous for him ? These are the kind of situations that puts me on a mental state that leads me to many mistakes. There was no way I could have predicted that those 340k were coming in against me and that doesn't make me very happy. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!

I made a terrible mistake that made me laugh for some time. Bayern Munich was playing at Hannover and scored the first goal. I thought about trying to enter the market to get some nice odds so I thought that 1.39 could be a good price. As soon as the suspended screen dissapeared I submitted my bet. My bet ( 650€ @ 1.39 ) was sitting in there with no more bets in the market, I was there all alone. Obviously, I immediately thought that there was something very bad happening and then I saw my money getting eaten away at a slow pace. It was only then that I noticed that I was on the "next goal" market and not on the "match odds" market. Fortunetely, only 125€ got matched but I was left in a very bad situation, tried to get out at the best prices possible, 2, 2.10, 2.12, 2.14 and so on. It wasn't easy to get out as there was almost no money in that market. I was green on Bayern M. to score the next goal and red on the other outcomes and guess what happened. Bayern M. scored a bit later and that stupid mistake gave my 20€. How that happened ? Well, I don't really know what happened but during the suspension my software changed from one market to the other, I haven't noticed it because the suspension screen is equal on all markets. What a lucky bastard I am !

During the Saturday I had 4 losses in a row which is my new losing record. It doesn't make me proud but it's just to let you know.

My Trading Plan

Several weeks after I've promised to write about my current trading plan, here it is. It's not a waste of time to write about this kind of things. It also helps me to remaind my own rules.

For those that don't know what money management is, in a few words, it's what prevents you from going broke in a couple of bad shots. It is what allows you to survive as long as possible to keep fighting to achieve your goals. It is your survival kit. I'll define my scheme here and hope to follow it religiously which sometimes isn't easy as you might know.

So, my money management is quite simple and obeys to very basic rules.

The amount I'm allowed to lose on a market is predifined by a percentage of my bank established at the beginning of each month. If my previous month ends on a profit then a new maximum allowed loss is calculated based on that %, if my previous month ends on a loss then I keep the same maximum allowed loss from that previous month. I'm currently "allowed" to lose 2% of my bank on a market. I may change this to 1% as my bank reaches higher values but for now I'll keep at this value. It's important to say that I don't wait for my trades to hit this 2% loss to get out, I leave as soon as possible if things aren't looking good but if for some reason a bad trade hits this 2%, an alarm raises and I'm forced to leave no matter what.

Maybe I should also define a maximum value I'm allowed to put in the market just in case something goes wrong with Betfair. Imagine that Betfair crashes and I have 75% of my bank in the market for a trade, not a good scenario, is it ? Obviously, I'm not expecting Betfair to crash but I've heard some saying that it already happened and some have lost some large amounts because of that. Has it happened to you ? What mechanisms do you have in place to minimize the consequences of such situations ? I'd love to hear what do you think about this.

Initially I thought about establishing a maximum bank size of 2000€. I was thinking about withdrawing everything above that value on a monthly basis ( can't wait for my first withdrawal eheh ) but I've changed my mind simply because such a low bank isn't very compatible with my current low risk strategy, it would generate low profits. My main goal is 1000€ per month and using my current strategy I need a bank size of much more than 2000€. I'll need a bank of around 6000€ to make me 1000€ per month.

Here are a few screenshots from my spreadsheet that I use to calculate me everything that I need to know.

What these tables tells me is quite simple. The rows are the % of my maximum allowed loss per market. I'm currently on the 2% plan, so I forget the other rows except the 2%. The columns are the number of ticks I think I may lose on the market in case things go wrong. Combining both the row and the column gives me my tick size. A tick size is the amount you win/lose with just one tick. During the most of my trades I think I may lose a maximum of 4 ticks, so according to to the first table, my tick size must be 0.005% of the starting bank of the current month. The table below tells me how much € is that, 6,96€. I usually round down this value to multiples of 0,50€, so in this case I trade with tick sizes of 6,50€.

This table is used to keep a record of my profits and to establish a comparison to a simple forecasting given an expected % profit per month. At the moment I'm expecting to make 15% per month, I think it's quite an achieveable value.

This image is a kind of main page that sums it all up. Cells surrounded by a black box are values that must be edited by the user, the others are outputs. I think all fields are self-explanatory. Just note that the starting bank in the picture doesn't match the starting bank of this blog because the spreadsheet is for 2008 and I started this blog in 2007.

Feel free to throw some question at me. I'd be happy to answer. I'd also be happy to read about your trading plan.

Think I'm leaving now, it's too late, bed is calling for me. Cya !

Eventful week !

Profit/Loss : 179.82€
Total Profit/Loss : 877.15€
Current Bank : 1612.37€

What an eventful week ! Everything happened this week. Bad trades, perfect trades and even some stupid connection drops during some busy times.

Saturday was an awful day. Made some very bad trades which costed me around 20€. Fortunetely for my bank I made around 165€ on a single football match ( Atalanta vs. Fiorentina ) by taking a good price on the draw just after an equalising goal at the 90th minute. It was a green day but not a happy day. I'd have preferred to have a 20€ profit with good trading practices instead of what I got. Went to bed thinking about what went wrong and didn't take much time to come to a conclusion, because it was getting too easy, I was rushing in to make a profit at all costs instead of waiting for the right moment to step in.

Sunday was a different day, changed my behaviour slightly and everything went according to the plan. Ended with a profit of 57€ on the day. Pretty simple when you follow your plan.

Here's the screenshot, a bit shorter this time.

Remember my first post ? A loss of 819€ on a single football match made me create this blog to help me stay focused and disciplined in trying to get it all back. It took me around 3 months but it's finally back in my pocket!

I'd just like to point out that my bank is at the highest value I ever had. I'm having bigger profits than I predicted so I'm not expecting this to continue much longer.

Cya!