December Review

Horse Racing

On the whole I have been pleased with December. I did have a few relapse moments which in hindsight frustrated me more than I should of allowed. I do have much more confidence in my ability to profit now than before, despite not trading as much as I would of liked in the latter half of the month (mainly due to other commitments). I feel my attitude towards risk has changed and I find some of the risks I used to take, even as recently as a few weeks ago unacceptable anymore. I've also decided to tighten up things slightly to protect my bank better by introducing a few new rules, will post more details about this during the month.

There is a slight blip in my equity curve due to my poor attempts to trade the Aussie Racing, however overall I'm happy to report the curve is looking good. You can see from the second graph that I'm almost averaging £1 a race now which is also pleasing, particularly considering my stake size.

The strike rate has also stayed high but I would expect it to start decreasing now, partially due to my increase in stakes, and more specifically as my new tighter rules will certainly reduce my strike rate and profitability, but with an overall reduced risk, which is what I aim implement in the next few weeks.

Football

 

My lack of trading opportunities have regrettably transpired mostly onto my football scalping. The racing did always take preference and with reduced trading time I ended up only trading about a quarter of the football markets managed in November. A shame as I increased my stake size to help push things along but didn't anticipate how little time I would have for it in the end. However the equity curve is moving in the right direction which is encouraging. The low risk tactics here are what continue to interest me in these markets, however the last full day I traded these markets I did start to feel fed up with it. On reflection I think I just burned myself out a bit having traded 63 markets that weekend. I prefer to break it up into a few markets a day and will continue to do this fixtures permitting. I also included a second graph below showing how the footy profits were made, and as you can see it is all small scalps of 0.1-1% that add up. You can also see just how few go against me, this is the low risk element I was talking about earlier that I really like about this tactic.  In case you missed it in my last review thought I should also mention for anyone interested, the racing analysis graphs were made with MG's spreadsheet and the Football graphs with TrackBets.info. Both very quick and easy to use. 

 

 

I also have some other developments that will regrettably eat more into my trading time these next couple of months. The first is that I was offered a new full-time job which I would of been daft not to accept. This has meant leaving a company I was with for 4 years, but when you're struggling to find reasons to stay the choice becomes a lot easier. With my old role I was very comfortable and rarely tired from work leaving me with more time and energy to trade. I don't anticipate it being the same in my new role, particularly in the first few weeks. I also have a couple of other side projects I need to complete by February. I will of course be trading whenever possible but it seems likely to be reduced until things settle down again. Good news is this is all happening now when the racing isn't all that great, and I should be trading much more by the time we hit the more exciting March period.

Would of been ideal if I started trading a year earlier when work seemed like a dead end job and I had much more time, but I suppose that's just the way it is sometimes, like London buses they were originally all red, wait that's not quite right...  Here's to a prosperous 2010!