Tuesday 5 February 2008

Reply to First Comment

Thanks to the anonymous person who has left me my first comment. At least it shows that someone is reading the blog apart from me……

In reply to your questions, I think I can win around £10k-£20k in the 12 months of The Experiment. Obviously, my first target has to be to win around £9,000 to break even. I think I would be fairly happy to win the £9k as it would at least mean that it hasn’t been a complete waste of my time…...

However, for me to judge this project as a success, I need to earn £10k-£20k if I’m being honest.

One point that I would like to make is that I don’t expect to earn the £9k to break even uniformly across the 12 months. At the start of this project, my earnings are going to be very limited as I will be using small stakes until I gain enough experience.

A graph of my profits over the 12 months may look something like this:





Clearly, my profit across the 12 months will be slightly exponential which fits in with the fact that I will be increasing my stakes as the project progresses as well as gaining more knowledge.

The Experiment will officially start at the beginning of March sometime. I am still in discussions with my work about agreeing a date but as soon as I have a date confirmed, I will post it on here.

The name of the project has originated from something my girlfriend said about it. I said I was calling this project “The Experiment” and she said it was more like “self-indulgent bullshit”. Hence, the project name was born.

If anyone has any more comments, please get in touch and I’ll try to answer your queries.

1 comment:

leonthefixer said...

Hi mate - just finished reading your very interesting blog. You seem to have a very good financial background and obviously good knowledge of the form.

Not sure if you have read my blog right through - I would recommend you do if you have not as it will give you a good idea of how I got to where I am now. I am not saying I am good at this game. I still have a lot to learn.

Anyway heres some comments - I will probably leave more later as I don't have to long until the racing starts for the day, but here goes any way.

1. Record your trading. This is one of the most important things I do. Either buy the software or download it for free from Limewire or somewhere. I use Camtasia Studio. By recording your trading each day you can go back and watch it again and again and again. You will be able to see exactly what you did right and what you did wrong. You will be able to see when the market turned and it will help you figure out what caused it to turn if it is possible to. It isn't always! I still record every race I trade, at least when I remember to press record! I don't watch the videos as much as I should now though, but I hope to change that. I think it was one of the most important things with regards to the progression in my trading.

2. On Saturday you were tading your opinion not the markets opinion. Your opinion may well be right but if the market doesn't agree with you it does not care and it WILL take your money! I have gone throughb many thought process as to what causes the prices to move and why and the main reason I have found is the prices cause the prices to move and not much else! I tried out my opinion (I have a very good knowledge of the industry) and the market gave two fingers to my opinion and did the opposite!

3. 'However, the main point about today was that I wanted to practice my trading skills, so I didn’t care too much about how much I won or lost.' I have to say I did not expect to read that in you post from Saturday considering your earlier posts on the blog. You should care from the word go how much you are losing! My advice would be to stick to the £2 stakes until you find out/establish something that works. How you lost your entire bank in one day is beyond me (sounds harsh but I think it is fair). You said you would close out losses but you didn't, you let positions run and run in the hope they would turn around and in the hope your opinion was correct. Remember there are a lot of people that make up the market and therefore a lot of opinions.

4. I personally will level out a profit or loss on every race, I won't let it become determined on the result. Wehter or not I am better of doing this or not I don't really know but I think I am and it means a lot more stable p/l.

5. You seem to be backing with £60 not matter what the odds are - I may be wrong? But if this is the case you are exposing yourself to a lot more risk rather than changing the amount depending upon the odds range.

6. There are many different forces at play within the market and people trading on many different sets of criteria - find out one that works for you and you will be away.

7. I personally will look at just about every horse racing market but it doesn't mean I get involved in every market. I will watch and wait for an opportunity if it comes I will try to take advantage of it, if it doesn't I will just leave it. At least that is the idea anyway! Quiet a few races I have made good profits on that I thought I would not do anything on.

8. Discipline Discipline Discipline - the 3 key words to trading and the three key ways to improving your winnings. This weekend in my opinion you displayed the complete opposite. Undisciplined, Undisciplined and Undisciplined. If I was you I would be cutting my stakes right down to £2, and be working on my discipline and trying to understand what makes the market move and why and when.

Didn't really get everything down that I wanted to as I forgot a lot of the points that came to me as I read through what you wrote but I hope some of this is of some help.

Remember it is a marthon not a sprint! I think you have what it takes to make it but you seem to be pushing it to much e.g. the stakes. Lastly, you need to get your mindset right - you should not be doubting your ability to do it yet, you have a long way to go that is going to take a long time to get to.

Now watch me go and post a big loss today on my blog! :-)
Leonthefixer.