It's been a decent October. I'm happy with the overall profit (a new personal record!), though slightly disappointed because a couple of bad days stopped this being my best ever profit from tennis trading alone. By 'bad', I mean avoidably bad. There was no excuse for some of the things I did over those one or two days. For some reason, I started to feel pressure of the likes I've not experienced for a long time. I was extremely irritable and beat myself up over little things which I would normally just brush off. The old anger started to rear its ugly head again, with a force that I'd not seen all year. I think that it is because it's almost the end of the season and I wanted to finish on a high note after 2 relatively disappointing months. Still, when a 'disappointing' month equates to a profitable month, it shows just how far I've come with my trading over the last year.
I suppose the goalposts have shifted and with the way I trade these days, I expect to be hitting around 50% of my bank at least. That might seem like quite a high expectancy rate but all my research over the past year has shown that if I do the right things, I should be able to hit that amount. I've found that my trading is pretty constant in all areas. The number of games I trade and my win-loss ratio doesn't vary that much from month to month. All in all, I'm quite the steady-Eddie these days!
Despite this, I still have off-days and I still have trouble accepting them. The perfectionist within me is never going away! This month, I let myself down with one trade in particular, as I went for too much, over-staked and then refused to let go of my position - a relatively big loss (though still only a small fraction of my bank). There were a handful of other trades where the issue was not the amount I lost but the amount I won (or failed to win). I could've racked up a few hundred extra just from being less greedy. I'm not one for second-guessing (I used to do it a lot but these days, I tend to accept whatever decision I made in the moment) but this month, I know that I was too impatient. I've little doubt that this is because the season is almost over.
A lot of tennis traders will switch to another sport during November-December but I have always planned my trading so that I don't have to do this. For me, taking a break for 5 or 6 weeks during the cold, heart of winter is ideal; just the right amount of time to re-charge the batteries, visit family over Christmas and go abroad travelling somewhere warm. I've proved this year that I don't need to trade anything else. I've adapted my life to the tennis calendar and adapted my trading so that it should (eventually) fill my requirements financially.
So maybe I shouldn't feel so disappointed. Things are falling into place, I just need to remain patient. That's quite hard to do when you have 6 weeks of thumb-twiddling on the horizon. The timing couldn't be worse because I'm buzzing at the moment and raring to push my trading onto the next level. Ah well, there's always the football to dabble in and if it goes the way it did on Tuesday night, it could be quite lucrative. You'll notice that a large chunk of my P&L profit (2 screen-shots because I've used 2 accounts) is from football and all of it is from the one game.............yes, I layed Reading!
It goes down as probably my greatest ever bet, with only the £1000 I won backing 0-0 between Barcelona and Osasuna a few years ago, running it close. I wasn't even watching the match, just noticed the score on Betfair and was stunned to see Reading 4-0 up! I assumed Wenger had put the kids out to play but a quick check on the line up showed me that Arsenal were still quite strong - so I layed 1.03. Seconds later, it was 4-1. I was only hoping for a couple of Gunner goals after half-time to allow me to green up for a modest sum, so was ecstatic that the comeback had begun before half-time. However, at 4-2 I could only green up for £15, so it wasn't worth it and I stayed in. I'd given up when the clock went into the final minute of normal time and they got the 3rd very late - Reading were doing a grand job of wasting time and I still could only green up for £15. But who in their right mind would have backed Reading sub 1.10 knowing one more goal with 4 mins still to go, would destroy them?! Whoever you are, I thank you - my biggest profit of 2012 by a mile! If only I'd gone in bigger..............but then, I was about 10 seconds away from losing so I have no complaints!
Sorana Cirstea:
I suppose the goalposts have shifted and with the way I trade these days, I expect to be hitting around 50% of my bank at least. That might seem like quite a high expectancy rate but all my research over the past year has shown that if I do the right things, I should be able to hit that amount. I've found that my trading is pretty constant in all areas. The number of games I trade and my win-loss ratio doesn't vary that much from month to month. All in all, I'm quite the steady-Eddie these days!
Despite this, I still have off-days and I still have trouble accepting them. The perfectionist within me is never going away! This month, I let myself down with one trade in particular, as I went for too much, over-staked and then refused to let go of my position - a relatively big loss (though still only a small fraction of my bank). There were a handful of other trades where the issue was not the amount I lost but the amount I won (or failed to win). I could've racked up a few hundred extra just from being less greedy. I'm not one for second-guessing (I used to do it a lot but these days, I tend to accept whatever decision I made in the moment) but this month, I know that I was too impatient. I've little doubt that this is because the season is almost over.
A lot of tennis traders will switch to another sport during November-December but I have always planned my trading so that I don't have to do this. For me, taking a break for 5 or 6 weeks during the cold, heart of winter is ideal; just the right amount of time to re-charge the batteries, visit family over Christmas and go abroad travelling somewhere warm. I've proved this year that I don't need to trade anything else. I've adapted my life to the tennis calendar and adapted my trading so that it should (eventually) fill my requirements financially.
So maybe I shouldn't feel so disappointed. Things are falling into place, I just need to remain patient. That's quite hard to do when you have 6 weeks of thumb-twiddling on the horizon. The timing couldn't be worse because I'm buzzing at the moment and raring to push my trading onto the next level. Ah well, there's always the football to dabble in and if it goes the way it did on Tuesday night, it could be quite lucrative. You'll notice that a large chunk of my P&L profit (2 screen-shots because I've used 2 accounts) is from football and all of it is from the one game.............yes, I layed Reading!
It goes down as probably my greatest ever bet, with only the £1000 I won backing 0-0 between Barcelona and Osasuna a few years ago, running it close. I wasn't even watching the match, just noticed the score on Betfair and was stunned to see Reading 4-0 up! I assumed Wenger had put the kids out to play but a quick check on the line up showed me that Arsenal were still quite strong - so I layed 1.03. Seconds later, it was 4-1. I was only hoping for a couple of Gunner goals after half-time to allow me to green up for a modest sum, so was ecstatic that the comeback had begun before half-time. However, at 4-2 I could only green up for £15, so it wasn't worth it and I stayed in. I'd given up when the clock went into the final minute of normal time and they got the 3rd very late - Reading were doing a grand job of wasting time and I still could only green up for £15. But who in their right mind would have backed Reading sub 1.10 knowing one more goal with 4 mins still to go, would destroy them?! Whoever you are, I thank you - my biggest profit of 2012 by a mile! If only I'd gone in bigger..............but then, I was about 10 seconds away from losing so I have no complaints!
Sorana Cirstea: