Ouch

Took a fair hit yesterday all on one race and I must admit that it hurts pretty bad.

I came home from work and had 15 minutes to kill before I had to head back out. The laptop was on so I thought I'd just trade a quick race from Kempton. Bad idea. In fact, it was an awful idea that cost me €239.

I opened a position but forgot to put on the stop loss. I left the room for a moment and came back to see my position had moved miles away from me. I should have just took a red book but I tried to continue trading the race and it went from bad to worse.

Trying to grab a few minutes here and there just doesn't work really and I'll have to cut it out. My concentration was down and I'm pretty disappointed with myself.

It's a real kick in the teeth and it means I'm certain to miss this month's target now. I suppose I should try learn from it so here's another couple of new rules:

1. Always check the stop loss is in place before I start
2. Never leave an open (short term) trade unattended
3. Don't try to 'grab a few minutes' at the computer. If I don't have the time to do a decent session, forget it altogether.

A major setback, but we live and learn.

Book Review

Finished that book I mentioned before ‘The disciplined trader’, and I’m going to give it a five out of ten.

It started off very promising and it was clear that the author had ‘been there, done that’ with regard to busting banks, losing money and more. I find it refreshing to read a book by a real trader because with some books, you get the feeling that the author doesn’t really trade all that much. This guy lost his car, family and gaff so I was looking forward to reading about his road to recovery and how he pulled himself together and became a disciplined, successful trader. We don’t really get to hear that though.

From about mid-way through the book, he looks into the psychological side of trading but for me, this is where it comes up short. He talks about the memory and energy etc, but gives no real scientific examples or evidence for what he is saying. It gets a bit waffly to be honest, and comes across as one of those self-help power of positive thinking type of books – with no real facts, evidence, or examples to support what he is saying.  I do realise that the book was written nearly two decades ago so things like neuroscience and the study of the brain were in their infancy. However, after a while, I found myself ‘scanning’ through the book trying to get through it and get past the waffle.

In the last couple of chapters, he talks about trading and gives some examples of strategies which is fairly interesting and salvages the book somewhat. Perhaps the book needs to be updated for the computer age.  It’s probably worth a read but it’s not one of my top ten anyway.

Noel Fehily

I see from Paul Nicholls' Betfair blog that Noel Fehily will be getting the plum Kauto Star ride in the King George. It's a real bummer for Ruby as he wasn't long back after injury but Fehily has been doing pretty well in fairness to him and deserves a chance. Couldn't complain about his ride on Master Minded at the weekend although I must admit that I didn't back it. 


Link here:  http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/paul-nicholls/latest-news/paul-nicholls-exclusive-noel-gets-the-kauto-nod-231110.html

Imperial Commander

A decent weekend on the betting front, thanks mainly to Imperial Commander. I put him up as a max bet in the Irish Independent so that was good.

I couldn't believe he was 10/11 - I had him priced up at 8/11 so his SP was a steal. After all, he had 22lbs in hand so I can't see why the layers took him on.

When having a Max bet, it's important to try get a good price and I thought I'd found it when backing in the bookies at 10/11. However I see that the Betfair SP was 2.02 so I probably should have backed on the machine. Still, a win is a win even if it was odds on.

Spent most of the morning preparing a big Sunday roast (leg of lamb) which was absolutely delicious if I may say so myself. I only got to trade the last few races of the day after dinner and it went fine with a very small profit. Still a fair bit behind target though so I'll have to try my best to get some trading sessions before the month ends.

Blogger is having problems with uploading pics today but the profit made was €15.31 and I've posted a pic on the Let's Bet forum. 

Dundalk

Done a few races at Dundalk tonight and earned forty quid which is very reasonable - don't have time for a proper review as I've loads to do but I'm pleased with the results.

2 screen trading

I was trying to hook up my TV to the laptop today to watch a movie and discovered how to use the 2 screen function where you have your regular laptop screen and also a 2nd TV or monitor.

This could prove very useful when trading as I often need multiple screens open but have to tab back and forth to each which is a pain.

You can move your mouse right over to the next screen and it looks pretty cool too! I've been pricing up some monitors and may go with one soon as I think it could help. I've attached a picture where I have two separate Betting Assistant markets open (one on the laptop and one on the TV). These are controlled by the one mouse and both are run from my laptop.

Monitors are a bit more expensive than I expected but there are a few strategies I can think of where it would help to have multiple screens open at once.

Real work

Spent most of the weekend in the back garden working on a BBQ area which I hope to use next summer. I should have been trading if I want to start meeting my targets but the weather was fine and with the winter now here, I thought I'd try get it finished while I can.

It was pretty heavy work lifting blocks and putting down cement but it was quite enjoyable and I stuck on the radio and worked away.

Pics can be seen here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...0&l=e183cabb4f

All I have to do now is paint it tomorrow and add some flowers to brighten it up. Roll on the summer!

It's been quite some time since I done some 'real' work (that is, not sitting in front of a computer) and my body aches but it was nice to be outdoors.

On the trading competition front, I got stung with the price of Gold. The Chinese are talking about upping interest rates and this has partly reversed the buying of commodities although there are other reasons too.

Bloody Chinese eh? Definitely not ordering a chow mein tonight!

Anyway, it knocks me back down a bit in the comp. I'm still holding quite a bit of Gold and I really need to to staring rising again if I want to get into contention for a prize (see below pic).

Not sure when I'll get to trade on Betfair to be honest - my wife's away in England at a training course so I'm minding our daughter on my own. Maybe I'll get some done this weekend but I'm getting anxious about going back to it as I really want to meet some targets.