Let The Bad Times Roll

After my bad day's trading yesterday, I now feel sufficiently removed from the events to discuss it in a bit more detail. Most of what I am about to say will doubtless be filled with the usual platitudes and cliches, but for me they are true nonetheless.

I'd say the way we as traders handle bad losses is as important as the profit we make (or are supposed to make).


First off, I'd like to thank Jan, who had these words:


just like the roman cesars, it helps to be reminded of our mortality, no matter how disciplined one might be. in fact, i welcome such losses up to a certain degree, because it does in fact help me to stay on the ground.

glad to read that you're not overly frustrated, as it's still all about the fun and kicks of it.

cheers
jan

It's nice of Jan to offer some encouragement, although I'm not sure I can join him in welcoming losses as readily as he seems to do. I do take his point that sometimes we all need a little corrective slap on the wrist to help us stay on the path and, looking back over the last few weeks, with things going so well, I had definitely grown steadily more complacent and over-confident. If this is indeed true, then I suppose Jan is correct.

The other interesting thing for me is the peaks and valleys nature of betting and trading, which I believe I've talked about before. When in the deepest part of the valley, we often can't see any way out and wonder if we'll ever start winning again. And when riding high and things are going well, we forget the valleys and start to feel as if this game is easy.

To get into the details of my losses, these came largely from my pattern-observation trade that I talked about previously. This means I will always red-out at some point if my trades haven't worked out how I want them to. Yesterday, nearly every one I tried out didn't work out and I had to take red after red.

One way to look at this, if I'm convinced that I have indeed found a pattern worth persuing (and after back-testing it, I am convinced), then I can only put yesterdays losses down to variance. There will always be kinks and putting to one side an idea just because of one bad day would be a huge mistake. Even though my confidence has undoubtedly taken a bit of a knock, I will definitely continue and see my idea out.

There is no way on earth I will be chasing down this loss. I was not able to trade during the day today, but I got home in time for the Everton v Spurs match (Spurs unfortunately seem to be sliding towards the Europa league at present) and also did a couple of other trades. There was a definite feeling of taking things slowly and being a little more reserved than normal, but under the circumstances this is no bad thing. So I will take it easy, try and forget about yesterday with regards to trading on each day, and see how I go.

Football: £99.98 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £99.98 

 

Football Showing 1 - 6 of 6 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Palermo v Roma : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 10-Mar-12 19:45  10-Mar-12 21:40  11.55
Football / Palermo v Roma : Over/Under 2.5 goals 10-Mar-12 19:45  10-Mar-12 21:40  10.21
Football / Palermo v Roma : Correct Score 10-Mar-12 19:45  10-Mar-12 21:39  17.72
Football / Everton v Tottenham : Over/Under 2.5 goals 10-Mar-12 17:30  10-Mar-12 19:30  13.84
Football / Everton v Tottenham : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 10-Mar-12 17:30  10-Mar-12 19:29  -3.80
Football / Malaga v Levante : Correct Score 10-Mar-12 17:00  10-Mar-12 18:55  50.46