Recently I mentioned that I had received an offer from an individual to trade with their money, in return for a share of my monthly tennis trading profits. Talks are still ongoing. I wrote in that same post, about offers I'd had last year and these were things I'd never blogged about. One of them was an offer from a betting syndicate, which I actually agreed to. This took place back in October. I traded for this syndicate for one month. Four other traders took part in what was a trial period, which was due to last 3 months. Unfortunately, at least 2 of those traders blew their entire allocated bank (c£2000) and the other 2 reportedly made a loss. I was told I was the only one who made a decent profit. As it turned out, October was my 2nd highest ever monthly profit for tennis alone. So I was particularly disappointed to learn that the trial was to be ended 2 months early, a lack of funds for the operation being cited, no doubt due to the losses incurred by the other traders. I don't blame them to be honest! But I have since wondered what could have been achieved if I'd been kept on. I won't go into too much detail but the entire plan encompassed much more than just trading with a £2000 bank and splitting the profit. Funds were promised far in excess of this, along with a business structure resembling that of a small company. In short, it could've turned my trading into something many times greater than it is now.
I never wrote about it on the blog for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't want to upset the syndicate in any way and so felt it best I kept quiet out of common courtesy. Secondly, I was worried about the adverse affect it could have on my trading. By that I mean the added pressure of wanting to impress my readers and also the added pressure of trading with someone else's money and wanting to impress the investors. I think it was a wise choice not to blog about it because it turned out that the initial pressure did indeed get to me! The first few days, I found myself wrought with nerves in a way that I hadn't experienced for many, many months. It caused me to get frustrated at things I normally would not allow to get to me and some of the old anger started to resurface, the sort that blighted me in the early years of my tennis trading. I was fortunate in many ways, that I got off to a good start. If bad variance had kicked in immediately, I may have found things turned out very differently.
As it was, I got a win quite quickly and this calmed me down somewhat, though mistakes were still creeping in, mostly because I was just so damn keen to impress! I was desperate to prove I was as good as my results had proven over the past year (which was the reason I was contacted in the first place) and so I maybe pushed things on the ladders that I would not have pushed if I'd just been trading with my own money. So although it sounds preposterous that 2 or 3 of the other 4 traders involved, blew their entire bank within the first month (one I believe did his dough within the first WEEK!) I can kind of empathise. I know what must have been going through his head because I was probably thinking the same things.
It was such a big opportunity that the pressure felt really intense and as I've said from the very beginning of this blog, it's the psychological aspect of trading that is the hardest to master. I had been trading relatively stress-free for 9 months, yet that was changed instantly as soon as the pressure was turned up a notch. It wasn't that I was worried about losing the money because the deal was that I was not liable for any losses. In theory, that should've made trading easier and more relaxed (and that was indeed the case once I'd got a few wins on the board) but it was the strain of knowing that if I failed to make enough profit to impress the syndicate, I would be dropped and lose out on a fantastic opportunity, that was the real pressure.
Whilst others struggled and ended up chasing losses and exposing their banks with poor money management, I kept my head and gradually built my profits to over 50% of the bank - only for the experiment to be cut short. So it is not the first time I've had an offer to trade on behalf of an investor and now I have a better understanding of the pitfalls, I'm not too worried about doing it again. I'll go on record as saying the party who invested in me last October were very transparent, smart and trustworthy guys who I wouldn't hesitate working with again. So I had overall, a great first experience of this kind of partnership. Plus, trading without the pressure of losing my own money really gave me a new lease of life. It enabled me to perhaps do a few things which previously, I had held back on for fear of losing what I already had. This extra aggressiveness in my approach was no doubt a decisive factor in me achieving one of my highest ever monthly profits and is something I've tried to continue now that I'm back risking my own money. I can't help wondering 'What if?' about that trial but I definitely got a lot out of it, even if it meant giving away some of my hard earned wonga!
Iveta Benesova:
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I never wrote about it on the blog for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't want to upset the syndicate in any way and so felt it best I kept quiet out of common courtesy. Secondly, I was worried about the adverse affect it could have on my trading. By that I mean the added pressure of wanting to impress my readers and also the added pressure of trading with someone else's money and wanting to impress the investors. I think it was a wise choice not to blog about it because it turned out that the initial pressure did indeed get to me! The first few days, I found myself wrought with nerves in a way that I hadn't experienced for many, many months. It caused me to get frustrated at things I normally would not allow to get to me and some of the old anger started to resurface, the sort that blighted me in the early years of my tennis trading. I was fortunate in many ways, that I got off to a good start. If bad variance had kicked in immediately, I may have found things turned out very differently.
As it was, I got a win quite quickly and this calmed me down somewhat, though mistakes were still creeping in, mostly because I was just so damn keen to impress! I was desperate to prove I was as good as my results had proven over the past year (which was the reason I was contacted in the first place) and so I maybe pushed things on the ladders that I would not have pushed if I'd just been trading with my own money. So although it sounds preposterous that 2 or 3 of the other 4 traders involved, blew their entire bank within the first month (one I believe did his dough within the first WEEK!) I can kind of empathise. I know what must have been going through his head because I was probably thinking the same things.
It was such a big opportunity that the pressure felt really intense and as I've said from the very beginning of this blog, it's the psychological aspect of trading that is the hardest to master. I had been trading relatively stress-free for 9 months, yet that was changed instantly as soon as the pressure was turned up a notch. It wasn't that I was worried about losing the money because the deal was that I was not liable for any losses. In theory, that should've made trading easier and more relaxed (and that was indeed the case once I'd got a few wins on the board) but it was the strain of knowing that if I failed to make enough profit to impress the syndicate, I would be dropped and lose out on a fantastic opportunity, that was the real pressure.
Whilst others struggled and ended up chasing losses and exposing their banks with poor money management, I kept my head and gradually built my profits to over 50% of the bank - only for the experiment to be cut short. So it is not the first time I've had an offer to trade on behalf of an investor and now I have a better understanding of the pitfalls, I'm not too worried about doing it again. I'll go on record as saying the party who invested in me last October were very transparent, smart and trustworthy guys who I wouldn't hesitate working with again. So I had overall, a great first experience of this kind of partnership. Plus, trading without the pressure of losing my own money really gave me a new lease of life. It enabled me to perhaps do a few things which previously, I had held back on for fear of losing what I already had. This extra aggressiveness in my approach was no doubt a decisive factor in me achieving one of my highest ever monthly profits and is something I've tried to continue now that I'm back risking my own money. I can't help wondering 'What if?' about that trial but I definitely got a lot out of it, even if it meant giving away some of my hard earned wonga!
Iveta Benesova:
