Trade log Video

Day(trading days) 50-59 (Project Day(actual days) 81-94)

Been a while since I posted, apologies for that. I was off work this week and got my two days to trade with the big boys during the day on Thursday and Friday.

What a thrill, I had great crack. The ups and the downs. Thursday was a losing day, Friday made

up the losses and some profit too boot. I was well pleased with the way I traded over the two days.

Also being off work during the week meant I could spend time with the family. This allowed me time to trade today without upsetting anyone or having to run off anywhere.

Boy did I trade, a massive €88.88 profit today alone. I couldn't believe it, my trend spotting is getting better and better. Also this type of trading is completely different from what I do on the American races.

Anyway keep an eye out for more videos from me, I have two that I am working on and will post when they are completed.

Anyway the judges scores are in ................

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €277.41

Closing: €439.93

Last Profit: €162.52(58.58%)

Total P/L: € 302.24(219.5%)

Day(trading days) 42-50 (Project Day(actual days) 62-81)

I have finally done it. Doubled my money at last. Haven't done much trading recently, byt everytime I got close to doubling my money I was pegged back. Persistance pays off in the end.
I still haven't gotten time to take two days off work to trade during the week due to work commitments, hopefully in the second week of November I'll take a week off and put two days aside for trading if possible.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €263.07
Closing: €277.41

Last Profit: €14.34(10.41%)

Total P/L: € 139.72(101.47%)

UK race video

Quick one tick trade

Trip around Bet Assistant - the software we use

Day(trading days) 37-41 (Project Day(actual days) 52-61)

Major milestone achieved. We passed the €250 mark. I believe my treat for achieving this is to take two days off for day trading.


I shall organise that tomorrow to try and squeeze a couple of days off into a heavy work schedule.





Next minor milestone is the doubling of the bank. €137.69 X 2 = €275.38.





Last few days have been up and down for the little trading I've done. I haven't been as disciplined as I should be. Work is consuming most of my energy during the day and I am not just alert enough in the evenings on some days.





That being said, I have been perceptive when I'm not in the right frame of mind for trading, I've stopped fairly quickly. Protecting the bank is the main aim.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €244.25
Closing: €263.07

Last Profit: €18.82(13.67%)

Total P/L: € 125.38(91.06%)

Day(trading days) 27-36 (Project Day(actual days) 35-52)

Haven't posted in a while, but I have been busy.

Another mini target hit, we broke the €100 mark in profit, very close to the milestone of €250.

Close to the first milestone, I am tempted to keep trading until I get it.

Today was good, I am going to quit while I am ahead and bask in my Glory!!

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €158.46

Closing: €244.25
Last Profit: €85.79(54.14%)
Total P/L: € 106.56 (77.39%)

Day 24-26 (Project Day 32-34)

Did it again. I got caught out with a lay bet again. I never learn!

Got very lucky this time as the horse was a donkey in disguise. I was unemotional when I lost the €99 two days ago.

This time I was furious, getting caught again. Low liquidity until just before the off is forcing me to trade very close to the off. With the satellite delay of a few seconds, it is very touch and go. With no inplay trading for US racing, there is no recovery from errors.

I may need to reduce the trading days to tie in with the more liquid days in the market. Also will have to look at the football strategies and in play markets in the evenings to help boost the opportunities.

I knew it would be hard, but didn't think it would be the rollercoaster ride I am making it.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €116.17
Closing: €158.46

Last Profit: €42.29(36.4%)

Total P/L: € 20.77 (15.08%)

Day 23 (Project day 31)

Disaster. I didn't realise how close to the off it was while I was trading. When I realised, I paniced and tried to cancel a bet. At the same time I pressed the hedge button. Net result, a lay bet with a liability of €99.43.

To say the horse romped home is an under statement. I am not back to square one, I am at square -1.

I don't feel emotional about the mistake. I am not angry, I didn't yell, I accepted I made a mistake. This gives me heart. I am going to stop for tonight and watch some telly.

I will start again tomorrow (hopefully, NTL are installing 3Mb broadband tomorrow, hopefully it works.)

Again this is a setback, it may affect the timelines, but i have faith that i will succeed with this. When I do, the taste will be so sweet.

“Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €212.43

Closing: €116.17
Last Profit: -€96.26(-69.91%)
Total P/L: -€ 21.52 (-15.63%)

Day 16 - 22 (Project Days 22 - 30)

Profits going up. Hit two good milestones this week. Broke the €50 profits on Thursday evening and today broke the €200 bank. Not going as fast as i would like, but making steady progress.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €165.02
Closing: €212.43

Last Profit: €47.41 (34.43%)

Total P/L: € 74.74 (54.28%)

Day 11- 15 (Project Days 13 - 21)

Haven't posted for a while, but I have been trading. Had ups and downs over the days, but overall I am up. Attached the last weeks Profit and loss for your viewing please.

At one stage I was down €30 in one day, but recovered to a loss of only €9.

Also dipped some toes in Greyhounds and football.

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €148.19

Closing: €165.02

Total P/L: € 16.83 (19.84%)

Day 10 of 90 (Project Day 12)

Short time trading today, didn't get near the computer until pretty late. That should all change next week as school starts. There should be early nights for everyone else, leaving me free to attack my project with venom!

Good results all the same, only 4 races traded tonight, but over a 4% profit.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €142.36
Closing: €148.19
Day P/L: €5.83 (4.09%)
Total P/L: € 10.50 (7.62%)

Day 9 of 90 (Project Day 11)

Not much movement on prices today, the liquidity seemed to be there, but the money seemed to be static. I was having an up a down kind of evening, so I decided to call a halt while I was a small bit in profit (approx 2%).

Will post trade log so you can see the comments as well as betfair screenshot.

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €139.45

Closing: €142.36

Day P/L: €2.91 (2.08%)

Total P/L: € 4.67 (3.39%)

Day 8 of 90 (Project Day 9)

Into profit for the first time since starting the blog. What a great day today, everything fell into place. No trades went wrong. The big money I am always complaining about worked in my favour today.

All round, very relieved to be back on par. Looking forward to pushing ahead now.

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €125.58
Closing: €139.40
Day P/L: €13.82 (11%)
Total P/L: € 1.71 (1.24%)

Day 7 of 90 (Project Day 8)

Disaster strikes! Back to square one big loss today.

Internet connection put me behind from the start, but 2 big losses put me back in the hole. Salvaged some money at the end, but all around disappointing night.

Anyway, i never said it would be easy. These things are sent to test our resolve. How could I handle great success, if I haven't tasted temporary defeat along the way!!

That being said, my trading has never been this poor!!!

Have attached trading log and betfair screenshots.

Starting: €137.69

Opening: €134.48

Closing: €125.58

Day P/L: -€8.90(6.61%)

Total P/L: -€12.11 (8.79%)

Day 6 of 90 (Project Day 7)

Gremlins in the internet got hold of my PC. It appeared that I had been infected with viruses midway through my trading.


This sent the virus checking into overdrive and 2 hrs later a full PC scan revealed nothing.


Anyway small profit for the day €0.31

Starting: €137.69
Opening: €134.17
Closing: €134.48
Day P/L: €0.31 (0.23%)
Total P/L: -€3.21 (2.33%)

Day 5 of 90 (Project Day 6)

Quick day today. Got a beautiful trade on trade number 3 so decided to watch the Ashes Highlights instead.

Current situation on day 5

Starting:€137.69

Opening:€125.49

Closing:€134.17

Day P/L: €8.68 (6.9%)

Total P/L : -€4.65 (-3.4%)

Day 4 of 90 (Project Day 5)

Another good day today where we clawed back some of the deficit off the first two days. Another €5.29 or so.

I've added in the trade log to give you an idea of the feelings I had around the trades. Remember, psychology plays a big part in trading and your frame of mind is very important.

I keep a trading log to try and learn what the emotions were at the time of the trades. I try and see if I can find patterns from the comments for the losing trades. As they are updated real time they give a good indicator of what is going on in my mind at the time.

Today you can see the relief for the big €7 win from the US race. i thought I was going down the road of another bad day.

I clearly need to work on my UK racing. I might reduce my trade size to limit losses until I see a trend of progress. Once that happens, I will gradually increase my trade lot sizes.

doing it this way will minimise losses and will build confidence as the trading improves.

Day 3 of 90

Much better day.

Up €5.80, not much, but around 5% of the starting €114 bank.

This is a good consolation after the last two days of trading at a loss. Not much in liquidity today, so not a bad result all round.

Also had our first football trade for a whopping €0.08. Still it was just a test and a successful one at that.

Let's see what tomorrow has to offer.

Day 2 of 90

Not a good day 2. Again another loss -€4.70.

Not start to hope for. I had a good start but then it got away from me. Still onwards and upwards, we will push on, the target still in sight.

Day 1 of 90

What a disaster!

I can't believe I got it so wrong to start off with. Down 13.8% (€19) on day one.

Reading through the Trade Log for any indication of what happened. Down -€14 on one race and I kept giving back what I won through out the night.

My usual staple US Racing killed me all together.

I need to go away and gather myself for tomorrow.

Despite what happened today, I am excited about the challenge ahead. Looking forward to the next 89 trading days.

"The impossible we can do now, miracles take a little longer."

The Equipment to be used.

As you can expect (for a family man with young children), I don't have state of the art equipment. I can't afford luxury PCs, not that I would know what to do with them anyway.

The set up is as follows:

1. Location - Kids Playroom/wife's craft room/Dad's games room
2. PC - iQon with Windows XP and an Intel Celeron 2.66Ghz with 480MB of RAM
3. Trading software - Gruss Software Bet Assistant.
4. Internet Connection - BT Ireland - Broadband and Talk pack - up to 3Gb ???
5. TV - Sky TV with Sky Sports, At the Races and Racing UK.
6. Microsoft Excel to record my Trading Log. - (Not suitable for viewing by younger readers as it contains words only old people use!)

Expected Time to Trade:

I expect to trade between 8 - 10.30pm most days during the week. I will also try to get some weekend trading in to boost the numbers.

As you may know, some days are more liquid than others so with that in mind, I my start and stop.

Also with a full time job and family, there may be days that I am just not up to it. Then again, this is a true life attempt to trade to a bank 10 times the starting bank.

Tomorrow it is due to begin, so hopefully my next post will be results and comments.

"The impossible we can do now, miracles take a little longer"

Markets & Strategies

Hi Everyone

Today is markets and strategies day!

The main markets I will be working in to achieve the trade-2-1k goals are pretty standard.
1. Evening UK & IRE racing
2. US Racing - been pretty successful at this in the past
3. Football markets

Of the 3 markets, football is the most variable one for me. I have good laying strategies, but not much trading strategies. We might go for the standard correct score, match odds and the draw get your money back one!

As regard strategies, I use the old weight of the money trick and trend following, for the UK & IRE racing.
I have a rule based approach for the US racing which, when stuck to, has been quite successful.


I think the 3 markets above will do until I get to the 1k target.

Next post will be the tools I will be using, software pc, etc. Also getting closer to trade time, starting Monday. Hopefully trying to get a countdown clock to count down to the target time of 90 days.

Milestones on the Road to €1k

The most important part of goal setting is to write your goal down. That we did in the previous post.

The second most important part of goal setting is planning.

How will we achieve our goal of €1k in 90 trading days?

Milestones!

Milestones (like the word implies) are points along the path that will lead us to €1k Town.
On the way to €1k Town, we will pass through a number of villages. These villages will direct us to our ultimate destination of €1k Town.

Milestone 1
€250 after 25 Trading Days
Reward: Two days off from work to trade during the week!

Milestone 2
€500 after 50Trading Days
Reward: A new game for the Wii/Xbox360

Milestone 3
€ 750 after 70 Trading Days
Reward: Night out with the mates

Destination
€1k Town after 90 Trading Days.
Reward: Train someone else to do it.

I am away for the week end after work tomorrow, so not sure if I'll get to post over the weekend. Hopefully the next post will be strategies and markets etc. If not it will be results of day one on Monday!

"The impossible we can do now, miracles take a little longer."

Trade-2-1K on Betfair

Hi, my name is Gregg.



This is a blog that I have decided to write to help myself.

I have attempted to trade on Betfair for years now, making money and then giving it back. Operating just under break even for years, the lack of discipline has prevented me from moving forward.



This blog is an attempt to overcome this habit. By forcing myself to publish results and achievements, I am driving the lack of discipline out of my trading.



I encourage you to comment and offer your opinions.



The Challenge



To Turn €137.69 into €1,000 in 90 trading days.



Many of you are saying what? €137.69 - who cares?



Well I do! I don't have 1,2,5 or 10k to start trading. I don't have that luxury. My intention is to build a trading bank from scratch, while learning the trading process.



I don't trade during the working day, I work.

I have a young family that I will spend as much of my time with as possible.

I don't have lots of time to dedicate to trading.



Am I unique for betfair traders?



How many on betfair are like me? I am part of the 99% who don't make money as we cannot dedicate the resources or time to trading to allow success.



This blog is to focus my time and my money to achieve success on Betfair.



Trading will start on Monday the 17th Aug 09.



In the next post I will talk about milestones on the way to the magic €1,000.



Remember - "The impossible we can do now, miracles take a little longer"