Crickey, a whole Pam Shriver

Racing

Racing bank at start: £35.41

Racing bank at end: £41.29

Unit stake for next session: £4.13

Average market P&L: £0.29

Yes that’s right I made just over a fiver on the racing, and don't worry I won't go spending it all at once! Jokes aside though, today was different. I thought yesterday that the first 5 or so races were good for swing trading (with odds on favs) but today there were swings on almost every race. I just couldn't justify scalping as the movements today were all over the place. I was quite happy to see this though as swing trading was an area I really wanted to work on. If I had scalped today I would have really struggled. I also hit £1 hedged profit on a couple of races, which felt quite good considering my stake size.

OK so there are some good points. Now for the rest of it. The ups and downs were neverending, I had to constantly focus on the market as things were changing all the time and it felt almost like if I blinked I would be at a disadvantage! And despite all this I still found time to fit in thoughts of 'this swing trading isn't so bad after all'. I think its fair to say that this style does need a slightly different mindset. I also missed many drifters today, this came as no surprise though, with my bias to back first and catch steamers was almost exclusively responsible for the profits. When the fav drifted I caught the steamer whoever that happened to be. I noticed that I used the market overview much more than usual, really useful for spotting that steamer from the pack.

On one race towards the end of the card, when things were looking good, I noticed an almost self-sabotaging behaviour that I had never seen before. Up until that point I was always acting within my best interests but on this race I caught myself thinking 'just enter the market here, it's probably going to come in, no need to check for any other indicators, you're doing really well anyway, doesn't matter if you lose here or not'. It was almost like I wanted to lose some money as things were going too well? Needless to say this attitude didn't last long, I closed for the loss and after taking a few moments, focussed really hard to turn it around before the off. I was quite tired at that point and I think my lack of energy had much to do with this attitude, but I was shocked nonetheless. When reading a bit about financial trading in the past, this was stated to be common amongst profitable traders trying to push themselves further. It was found that their limitations were all psychological and once they overcame this they succeeded in yielding larger profits. It also might of been a sign of overconfidence, it's hard to tell but if I ever feel like that again I certainly won't entertain it. I'm happy to have spotted it early and reacted well in the end.

It's been nice trading two days in a row, but this little run will regrettably have to end now as I do have a day job to get to tomorrow! One thing I have confirmed is the sustainability of progress is much easier on a daily basis rather than having larger gaps in-between trading sessions. I'll be trying my best to trade the at every opportunity before the winter truly kicks in.

Football

Football bank at start: £35.22

Football bank at end: £36.31

Unit stake for next session: £3.63

Average market P&L: £0.14

Tried to get the most out of the scheduled  football. It's a shame so many games start at the same time as my bank could only really sustain about 5 markets with a couple of positions open at a time. I picked 2 games from the 7.45 KO trading a total of 3 matches in the end. As I had a selection of games I tried to pick the ones where I thought my tactic would work best, and it seemed to go quite well in the end.