Sunday 26 December 2010

Merry Christmas and a Happy (& Prosperous) New Year!

Season's greetings to everyone!

It's been  a while since I updated, and I'd like to bring the blog to a close, in terms of its original direction in any case.

Combining a full time, long hours job and trading / blogging hasn't been particularly successful, but I'd like to continue but in a slightly different vein. I'm going to attempt something broadly similar to the compounding experiment, but with the emphasis more on being able to draw a useful second income from trading as well as trying to achieve a modest bank growth as well.

The precise nature of what I'm going to try will be detailed in the 'What is going on here?' panel to the left of the main posting area. I will upload that later today.

My New Year Resolutions with regard to trading are 1) to keep disciplined and detailed records and 2) to set achievable goals to remain focused and 3) to update the blog at least every three days.

Let's hope they last longer than my annual Resolution to stop smoking!

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Snowbound and thinking about low liability laying....

Can't get the car out of my road today... so having an enforced day off. Putting Mrs Gun's list of jobs to one side, I looked at the In-Play soccer coupon for today. First off, a seemingly one-sided affair between Thailand and Laos. Now, there would be room to spare on the back of a postage stamp if I wrote down everything I know about Asian football! Thailand were at 1.06! Any Unquoted on Correct Score was at 1.65 pre-match. A glance at the form stats suggested there was little value in getting involved so I left it alone.

You can probably imagine my surprise when I checked flashscores later to see it was 0-0 at half time! Interest re-aroused I flicked Evo open and had a look. I was sorely tempted to back AU as it was at 5.5 but decided to concentrate on the various goals markets. U2.5 was too high to lay so I put a couple of £2 liability lays in both the U3.5 and U4.5 markets. The result? 2-2!! With Laos taking the lead twice and a 90th minute for Robbo's boys securing the draw this was a low liability layer's paradise!

The screenshot below shows the graph for Thailand in the Match Odds market - and leaves me thinking that despite a good profit from my lays that I really should have invested £6 in laying Thailand for £100 when I first spotted it!

Stuck in the snow - but had a nice touch anyway!

My journey home from work is six miles, door to door. I left work at 6pm last evening, and walked indoors at 11.15 pm! The QEII bridge over the M25 was, to put it mildly, more exciting than I'd have liked! The upslope was littered with stuck lorries, so cars, vans and other lorries were having to weave in and out all the time. Those lorries that made it over the crest were obviously  struggling for grip on the downslope - I watched one French lorry literally slide for about 50 feet with all twenty odd wheels locked solid!

Having phoned a lot of people I hadn't spoken to for a while the time reached 7.45 so it was time to tune into 5 Live for the West Ham match. I had speculatively placed a back bet on AU at 6.25 the previous evening, expecting to make a few ticks prior to kick off - unfortunately only for £10! You can imagine my delight, and surprise, as West Ham duly knocked Man U out of the cup with a resounding 4-0 home victory! Well done The Irons!

I couldn't help wondering how I would have traded that score had I been home in time (I haven't got a fancy mobile to trade with - a mobile phone is for arranging a time to meet in the pub or on the golf course in my opinion!). Would I have let it run at 2-0 - I very much doubt it... every sensible nerve junction in my brain would have been screaming 'United will pull it back....' and I would have traded out of the position.

So a big thank you to the snow and to Britain's total lack of ability to deal with it!