Headache

Well what a headache I have! I came back from Germany on Monday evening from the Nurburgring absolutely exhausted. The freedom working for yourself is amazing, allowing you to take whenever off as long as you've worked hard when you need to. I was slightly rusty on Tuesday's trading and the same today. I managed to lose my biggest ever sum on one race today, £970! I literally backed at the bottom of this trend and it went all the way back up miles, and I simply thought it was going to stop but it never did. I still managed to finished up just under £1,200, but boy do I have a headache - I'm still a bit clogged up from that fever draining through into a summer cold.

Exchange Secrets is coming on well, Dave and I are giving out sound advice through analysing fewer races that we feel more confident on. Our members are very happy, a few members writing their joy with the service over the last week's worth of advice. Today I predicted a potential drift from 2.82 to between 3.7-3.9. This did happen and that one race alone would have covered more than the cost of membership. Anyway that's just one example - the service has been shaping up nicely from the advice we were initially giving out, which was too many races and less detail. I'll get a link up soon with all the historical advice we've given out soon and a few of the great comments we've been left from our current members.

I was gutted about yesterdays Sedgefield delay because I'm really trying to finish this months total over £20k. So far I've only traded 8 full days, with 3 left before the months up. I missed out on a lot of York but instead of looking back I'll look forward.

One reaason why I think I've been rusty is because while I was driving round that track in Germany, I thought how much more intense driving at high speeds was, and I thought that it was about 4-5 times more intense. Now I realise trading's not quite as easy compared to driving fast because I really had to up my concentration levels to come back from losing that grand - I have to say, I was pretty frustrated with myself after doing that - I don't really use my boxing bag in the room anymore because I accept mistakes I make more easily now, but I had to that time!

Back to blogging

I'm back to writing about my daily ups and down of the life of trading on Betfair. I've been fairly inactive in the markets at the moment; there's something really intriguing going on at the moment because I'm again not feeling very well. It's not a common cold or anything, it's the same thing I get all the time, which just seems to be a temperature and achy - anyway I'll figure it out sooner or later. Normally I just trade through it, even if the results aren't very good. This time I have decided to just rest and see whether it helps me recover more quickly, annoying thing is, even when I plan on doing nothing - things always need to be done! August is going to be a poor month based on records - but not for average per day, which out of 7 days traded is not bad. I'll be able to fit in another 5 hopefully before the end of the month is up.

It's great the football season is back up and running. I really enjoy playing the fantasy football (I play the official free one; the budweiser one here. I've just used my wildcard and think I've got a quality team! Last two years was easy as long as you had Ronaldo - so tougher this year.

Over today I'm going over many comments and emails, I have plenty to get through - apologies it's taken a while. I let them build up and all of a sudden there's loads! My internet is down today so I'm on the small laptop with backup mobile broadband.

Speculation

There is a lot of speculation out there at the moment - and I just want to set things straight. Exchange Secrets (ES) is a new idea that has never been done before, and when Dave approached me with the idea a couple of months ago, I thought this could work because whenever Dave was with a client teaching 1-to-1 trading, we would often give out predictions as to the direction of the markets. We wouldn't get every race right, probably 50-65% of the markets we predicted were fairly accurate. Anyhow, our intentions are not to scam people, rather to help people; if you're not happy with the information then we are not tying you down to a years subscription or anything like that. If after a couple of months we find that the information isn't really helping people, we will do our best to adapt the information to help people the most, i.e. try and be more accurate in some areas or word things differently. If people aren't happy at all after a couple of months of the site being up, we will not waste our time or anyone else's time! It is genuinely out there to help people rather than deceive people and become a business adventure for myself, and see where it takes me.

From a personal point of view, if while I am providing this service it effects my trading to the extent that I'm losing out more than I gain, I probably won't continue, but there's only one way to find out! Money will always be flowing through the market no matter what advice is given out, so that neither increases or decreases someones ability to make money in the market and that's the reason I went ahead with it.

To verify my results there is a guy at Betfair who I spoke to on Sunday evening called Christopher Thomas. He sent me this email with the following P&L from 1st Janauary 2009 and said he can verify it; he's also sending the same thing via post, which I should get in the next couple of days.

I also reiterate that I don't work for Bet Angel in anyway. My link with them purely came from me sending an E-Mail to Peter W asking if it was okay to put up a link to my blog on the Bet Angel site in exchange for having the blog themed for Bet Angel - seeing that I already used the software and didn't have any readers I couldn't wait. The blog was not set up with the ES in mind, it was set up because trading is a lonely existence. When I started I had no idea how well people were doing outside of me apart from pinstickers blog. ES also has absolutely nothing to do with Peter Webb, it was purely a business adventure taken by myself and Dave.

One things for sure is that I'm not going anywhere because I have nothing to hide and my intentions are good. I want to continue my blog because I enjoy it. There will always be people who question anything and everything that happens - it's just crazy the extent to which it's all guesswork!

Exchange Secrets

The service I was talking about is now up and ready to go!

www.exchangesecrets.com

"A brand new site designed to help people trade profitably on the sports exchanges. Exchange Secrets is a service providing its members with professional views on horse racing markets on Betfair.

This site is for like minded people who want to profit on sports exchanges. If you want to gamble, want large instant profits, then you are in the wrong place. We will provide solid professional advice, the same methods we use to trade the exchanges day in day out. It will provide you with the opportunity to not only make profitable trades but to learn a bit more about the markets and how they behave.

Membership allows clients to receive our daily assessments of UK horse racing. This assessment allows our clients to trade on the exchanges with more confidence which ultimately allows them to succeed at trading the horse racing markets. Clients also enjoy a private members section and a forum for discussion about anything related to trading."

• The service is perfect for inexperienced traders who have just started out. With the knowledge of knowing how to back and lay, the advice can help you climb the experience ladder and give you a clearer picture of how it's possible to make some decent profits through trading.
  

• If you're looking to improve your trading, our advice can give you the trading insight you need to turn a profit in the horse racing markets.

• If you're already fairly experienced, our triallists found that it solidified their view and gave them more confidence, leading to higher profits. Our view is that if you use our information correctly, you can more than easily make up for the monthly fee.

£55 a month is our initial starting fee, we were tempted to start off at £75 given the value of the information if it's used properly, so jump on board before we change the price!

We have left the site open to new ventures in the very high chance that we will expand the service into advice for our clients for trading other sports including football, tennis and golf, as well as other major sporting events. We've also got a forum for members to discuss trading and advice and for people to share their views on the day's markets.

Back to my challenge, trading has been okay recently, but I've had to really sit down and focus hard. Some days it's as easy as sitting down and clicking a few buttons, but that's rare. Most full-time traders will tell you of a day where everything went so smoothly, everything just drops into place. I think days like that are more down to luck than being in-the-zone though!

Awareness

I was driving on the motorway on the M25, you guessed it, in traffic. I was in a slowly moving queue for a while out of the three lanes, and thought, hey this isn't moving anywhere! So after I sat in the queue for a bit I jumped in the next lane where it appeared to be moving faster. Low and behold, as soon as I got in the next lane it slowed down and the queue I was in started moving again. Of course this is a school boy error, I knew the rule of thumb that you're better off staying in the same lane; but I couldn't help it because I was sure it would work out. It reminded me of trading, you see a great move - the price is going down, and it looks like a sure fire thing to carry on going. The minute you jump on it, bang, it goes the other way. It's happened to me many-a-times, and a slap on the knee to remind me not to do it again can only help so much! Learn from mistakes and hopefully next time you see the same thing happen, you'll think twice before entering the market for what you thought was a quick buck. Jumping on trends that have already been going for a while will eventually stop just like the traffic in the lane did; it will go the other way and you will lose out; the measure being money rather than time!

My Awareness Development website should be completed soon, and I can't wait to get it to everyone. There won't be much there except a couple of articles; I plan to write 1-2 articles a week. It's all free, exploring the fascinating world of emotions and thoughts, how we can develop awareness and in general why we do certain things that seem rational, but are in fact irrational after a closer look. How does it relate to trading? - The more you are in control of your emotions, the better trader you can become. This comes through awareness; awareness of your thoughts which fire all these emotions.

Going back to my trading. Yesterday I had a sloppy day, I wasn't focused at all, so after a couple of races I quit; I don't do this too often because it's failing. Anyway I went back home and strolled around the greenery of Buckinghamshire, it was very relaxing and I'm glad I did it - I was very focused today.

Ever get that feeling?

Have you ever had that feeling that someone knows what you're doing and is purposefully going against you no matter what? or just for any reason whenever you decide to get in the market it goes wrong? Well snap out of it! I occasionally get those feelings a few times in a month, I have to overwrite them because it's simply your brain seeking reasoning for survival as to why it's not working out for you. There are hundreds of traders out there and so much going on, with people in numerous types of positions, which means that you got yourself into it because you pretty much just got it wrong. The best way to step out of it is to just compare yourself back to when you were in the zone and felt like everything was going right for you.

Comments

I've just gone through a months worth of comments and replied to them, so check back to see if you left a comment; I should have replied. Also, apologies if you've posted a comment and it wasn't accepted. I tend not to accept comments that antagonise other people or users who post comments. I tend myself not to get involved in arguments unless it's merely a discussion, as they literally are pointless!

I was up to lean sheet of about 40 races today from two days ago and I'm pretty sure that was my record for the most number of consecutive races without loss. I sent a message to Peter W asking what his was, to see if I could aim for it and beat it. Guess what? I lost in the very next race! As Peter said, it's always the case! I'll just remember next time to not mention it to anybody, even myself!

A couple of recent P&L's:

Today

Yesterday

Today was a fairly poor day, no excitement. Yesterday was a breeze I was just completely in the zone the whole day and I wish every day was like that! I'm 65% through my last updated challenge at £227k. I predict a very tight finish to it, especially since I have a month's holiday to take, spread over the remaining of the year. It going to require me to remain focused every day.

Back in action

I've just come back from a long weekend in Mallorca; I nearly couldn't go with the bombings out there and the closing of the airport. Thankfully it reopened and the flight left on-time! I've been fairly rusty today - it's also been a shock coming back to rain from the consistent sunshine of Mallorca. I can't believe that Chepstow got abandoned from the rain - it's supposed to be August! Anyhow it's hard to keep focused when you don't know if meetings are going to be abandoned or not because of the likelihood of trading on a race and not knowing whether it will run. Catterick also got delayed, and whenever there is a delay, the liquidity drops because the timing of traders and punters etc. all gets messed up. I also don't think it helps when traders like me put a negative on delayed racing because traders contribute the majority of liquidity. Anyhow, I managed to make £700 from 10 races, a poor start for my first day of trading August; mostly not down to my fault though!

July for me was painful looking back! It just felt slow and a bit of a drag to be honest. I made £25,260.02, which actually is a bit more than it felt like. I traded 317 markets averaging £79.86 per race. The average per race is definitely lower than the last few months because when I was ill I gave trading a go for a couple of the days without making any money, which was pointless; it would have been better to have just rested! Also, I traded a few of the evening races, and as the liquidity is lower, it's harder to pull consistently bigger results out of the bag. Hopefully this month I can hit over 30k.