Making time to trade - 5th August 2010

It can be tricky finding time to trade when you’ve a job, family and social life to look after and sometimes it’s easier to leave the computer switched off after a long hard day. However, the summer evening racing will be coming to an end soon so I need to try my best to get even an hour or so when I can. When the winter comes in, I’ll only have the opportunity to trade on my days off but that has to fit in with my family life too so opportunities become more limited.

That’s one of the reasons I didn’t set very high targets for this project as I know I won’t have loads of time to sit at the computer trading during the week. Part-time will have to do. That’s no to say, however, that decent money can’t be made part-time over the months and years.

This month, I’m going to try my best to trade at least two of the evening races per day, even if I’ve had a long day at work or wherever. That’s ten races per week (Monday to Friday) which nearly adds up to one full regular day of trading. I’ll still have the weekends too where I can put in a full day to make up even more hours. Nabbing an hour or two here and there is not ideal as you don’t get much consistency – but it’s better than nothing I guess and the more experience I get, the better.

Back to today...

I traded for about an hour and quit at seven as I want to get some work done on Saturday’s Irish Independent article. I like to start studying the form on Wednesday or Thursday before I finalise my article on Friday so that’s why I didn’t do the later racing.

The hour went well in that I made a profit of €14.45 – but I’m not entirely happy after some anxious moments and I’m going to have to think more about whether I should spread the loss when a trade goes bad or not.

Barking (6.35 Folk) was a good example where a trade went against me. If you look at the first screenshot, you will see that Barking would have cost me over €166 if it had won. Diamond Charlie actually won so it was fine but that’s not the point. Don't get me wrong - I didn't simply lay and let the bet stand. I backed it too but I left the book red on Barking only.

My trade on Barking went quite wrong and I had the option of getting out for a red book of thirty quid no matter what won– or else get out for a loss of €166 (but only if Barking won). I chose the latter.





The first approach (enduring a red book) will mean you make small losses a lot more - which can be a bit frustrating. Had I chose this option, I would have shown a loss today. The second approach will see you stay green for the most part but when you do lose, it’s a big deal. Overall, it probably levels out over time but I must admit I was sweating a little when Barking went as low as 1.77 in-running.

Anyway, here’s the stats:

Starting bank: €1,000 (beginning of May 2010)
Target for end August: €1,215.51
Today’s opening bank: €1,257.44
Today’s closing bank: €1,271.89
Today's profit: €14.45
Today's turnover: €5,065.00