Days 6 to 12

I haven't been trading much since the last update, with christmas just a few days away i did have to put trading on hold for a bit, but i've still managed to make just enough to finish the challenge.

Like i said at the beginning of the challenge the profit wasn't the real target for me, i guess i haven't traded enough lately to really say i stopped making those stupid mistakes, i still made one big mistake as i've said in one of the earlier posts but since then i have been trading much more on the safe side, no real big profits or losses, still the green/red ratio as been good enough for me.

I'll probably update again at the end of the month if i get to trade that is.

Until then, Merry Christmas!!!

Day 6 to 12: 86,92€
Total: 239,81€

Day 5

Slow day today with not many races to trade so i also traded in the IRL races, still trading 100% pre live.

Day 5: 24,67€
Total: 152,89€

Day 4

Had a good day today, could have been better in terms of profit but today i traded pretty much on the safe side and i confess that this is probably how i should always trade, by trading this way i get a lower average p/race but at the same time i do get less reds and don't get caught in bad positions so often, i think i traded pretty well throughout all day, as i said yesterday i didn't trade in live at all and i was pretty focused all day, so if i'm looking for a day to serve as example today was probably it.

Day 4: 64,76€
Total: 128,22€

Day 3

Terrible day today... I'm very disappointed with myself.

Today i think i found one of the reasons i'm making those stupid mistakes i've been making lately, i was trading just fine throughout the day when by the middle of the day i just find myself frozen after taken a big loss trading in live... Yeah i had a 52€ red that costed me pretty much the whole profit of the day... The good thing is i think i identified one of the reasons for so many mistakes lately.

Previously to November i was working, so my time for trading was a bit limited, but since the beggining of November i'm full time trading, by full time trading i mean trading pretty much all available UK races of the day and sometimes the IRL races aswell...
What i'm trying to say is that i'm extremly bored throughout the day, so i find myself in some awkward situations like trading in live just to get a little excitment(well isn't that smart), more than a year ago i used to trade almost exclusively in live for a few months, i even had much bigger profits than i have now, the thing is i couldn't accept well the higher variance in daily profits i had, and the fact that i sometimes didn't deal very well with some bigger reds, that were some of the main reasons i started to learn to trade pre live, so nowadays when i trade in live i'm a little(a lot) rusty, and find myself not doing very well, so why do i do it then? I don't know... I guess i shouldn't be doing it but there's always one or two races p/day where i feel the urge to trade in live, and ocassionally things don't go well and i end up turning an ok green day into a red day in a matter of seconds.... This is definetly something i will have in mind from now on and try to work on. I will probably try to keep away from going live with exception to long races with hurdles i might still do occasionally.

The rest of the day went ok, could have had a nice day today but that big loss ruined it, still managed to end up with a small green but i'm not happy at all.
Going to be aware of this tomorrow and try to get back on track.

Day 3: 1,84€
Overall: 63,46€

Day 2

Very nice and steady day, in terms of profit it was very good, although i did a bunch of small mistakes, started losing concentration after a few hours which caused a few small reds that could have been avoided, but nothing too bad i guess.

Day 2: 53,02€
Overall: 61,62€

Day 1

It looks like i've choosen the absolute worst day to start this mini challenge...

For starter i was late to the trading session and couldn't trade the first races of the day, then with 2 tracks closed due to weather and API giving signs of crashing at anytime i didn't get to do much, ended up trading in the IRL races late afternoon but the liquidity was just awfull for me...

Well at least the stupid mistakes count is still at zero.
Hoping for tomorrow to be a better day.

Stupid Mistakes and a new small challenge

NEW CHALLENGE
DEADLINE - 31/12/2013
PROFIT - 200€
MAIN GOAL - No more stupid mistakes

Well... Not really...


I've been doing a lot of stupid mistakes recently, i came to realise that after a few days/weeks of nice steady results i tend to lay back a bit and i imediatly get punished, well i don't even think getting punished is bad, it is indeed very good so i can get punched right in the face and get back to my normal levels of trading, what i do think it's bad it's what i have been doing lately, i have found myself chasing a few bigger reds every now and then, not being aware of races going live, etc, and as i know very well this can and will go extremly bad someday...

So this is the main reason for this new post, i'm going to make a small challenge until the end of the month, but this challenge will be a little bit different for me from the regular challenges we can find pretty much everywhere, what i mean is that regular challenges normally have an amount of profit to reach in a certain amount of time or something along those lines, well the goal of my challenge will be a bit different, although i'm setting an amount to reach aswell, but the main goal will be about reducing/eliminating the number of avoidable errors.

What do i count as avoidable errors?

Well definetly not reds, having reds per say is not a mistake, when trading we gonna have both greens and reds, of course some of them might be considered mistakes for some reason but in genereal i'm not going to consider a red a mistake unless i really consider i've made a mistake in trading.

So, what are those errors then?
Leaving stakes open to close in running intentionally.
Leaving stakes open to close in running unintentionally(like not noticing a race going in running).
Increasing stakes chasing reds.
Trading in running chasing reds.
Not taking small reds.
Trading in tilt mode for any reason related to trading or not.
A lot others that i might not remember now but i will post if they eventually happen.

I'm not really concerned if i will reach the 200€ or not, but i will definetly not be happy if i keep making stupid mistakes on a regular basis.

My bank will be around 200€, i'm going to trade mostly pre race, i'll try to update daily.
If this challenge goes well i will probably start a new and bit bigger one in January.

Wish me luck.