Thursday 4 August 2011

How far into this trading thing do you want to delve?

There is a wealth of freely available advice and opinion out there in blogland, and since starting this blog I have spent literally hours reading loads of postings on various blogs. Many blogs, like mine, are essentially documenting 'the highs and lows' of trading full of (semi?) success stories and tales of woe with a P&L analysis along the way. These are my favourite blogs as they reflect, I suspect, the experience of the vast majority of traders.

If you want to delve a little bit deeper into the subject there are also lots of blogs that analyse trading / betting in a lot more detail. Some of these are VERY heavy duty reading. I'd like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent man, but I am certainly no mathematician. Despite reading some of these blogs many times I must confess that I still don't really understand all the maths! One thing that does come across though is that to succeed long term you need to study the markets, study the way in-play prices move, and actively seek trades that represent 'value'.

If, like me, trading is nothing more than a hobby for you, you might find these blogs heavy going. But my advice is to persevere with them - these people give freely of their time and expertise - it would be foolish not to consider what they have to say. To get you going, three which I have found really interesting and worthwhile to read are Cassini's Green All Over, Graeme's The Football Analyst (very intense but stick with it!) and a relatively new kid on the block in Paul's Betting Algorithms - particularly if you have an interest in building and developing bots.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Dave.

    Afraid to admit that I've only just stumbled across your blog tonight. I got a little shock when I saw my name mentioned though! :)

    I'm quite picky when it comes to linking to blogs (simply, I tend to read all the blogs I'm linked to!) but I've added you to my blog list tonight. I've got some reading to catch up on!

    Trading football is something I've never looked at and to be honest, I'm very sceptical about it for the same reasons Cassini tends to discuss on his blog. However, I always enjoy expanding my reading material, so I'll take time to read through your blog and catch up with what you do mate. If I've any questions, I'll drop you a comment. :)

    Good luck with the trading though and look forward to learning a thing or two on here.

    Cheers,

    Graeme

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Graeme,

    Thanks for the kind words. Trading, to me, is a conservative form of gambling and I like the idea of managing positions over placing right or wrong bets, if that makes sense. The advantage of being able to profit or minimising losses through being nearly right is priceless as far as I'm concerned.

    I hope you uncover the odd nugget!

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Dave.

    I really take on board your point about using trading for being nearly right.

    Although I don't use my blog to discuss my own betting activity outside of football these days, before I switched to the footie, I would be classed as a 'swing trader' on the horseracing, with a twist. The twist being that I have a very decent understanding of horseracing, so I'd trade horses instead of backing them. A combination of my form study, pre-race trading and IR laying gave me a very potent strategy. Unfortunately for me these days, I don't have the time to do this as any leisure time I have tends to be late at night. Was fine for a bit as I was using it for studying horseracing form and giving out selections but in terms of me making money, it wasn't really a way to make decent money.

    The football is much better as the analysis and development can be done any time I have the time spare. The only tie in I have these days is the time to place my bets which is a few hours a week, so it works fine.

    I'd never find the time to be able to trade the footie as if I could find the time, I'd trade the evening racing instead!

    I have looked at laying off some of my bets on the footie and due to the fact I'm a trader and not a gambler, I will often lay off bets etc. if I'm in the house and the game is taking place but in terms of a strategy, I don't have one as I can never tell where the value is when the game is taking place!

    Anyway, I thought I'd post this in case you thought I was against trading. Most definitely not. ;)

    Graeme

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anyone who can make a good income from the nags has my admiration mate! The price always seems to go in the opposite direction to the one I want, and then the gambler in me overcomes the trader and I let it go in running - with the predictable result that I lose!

    Therefore I leave all four legged betting to those better equipped to deal with it and stick to ball sports!

    ReplyDelete