Spread Betting Tips an average trading anecdote you can ignore
If you’ve been following this series of Spread Trading Tips then you may have noted that a lot of the tips are fairly straight forward. Some are a little dull. Is this spread trading blog lacking juice? For now? Possibly. That’s because a lot of trading losses occur because investors are getting the basics wrong. Here’s a good example of why you should go through the motions to help increase your trading profits.
Financial Spread Betting Tips – an average trading anecdote you can ignore:
Should you practice what you preach? Are my thoughts (and ramblings) of any use?
Well I decided to apply some of the methods from this blog to my sports betting.
I wouldn’t actually improve my research but I would note every bet, reason for placing the bet, sport, stake size, profit / loss etc
Possibly it was luck than judgment but after a year my sports betting accounts were in good condition. I had some good wins, some poor bets, the usual, but I rarely deposited funds, I was taking money out and my stake sizes were growing so I figured I was OK.
It’s possible that by simply going through the motions of noting everything down that helped me think about (and avoid) the less thought through bets.
Trading Results
After 12 months my report card read something like: UK football bets profit +- 2%, European football -20%, rugby +30%, tennis -10%, racing -10%, novelty bets +5%, golf -100%.
It doesn’t take an analyst at Goldman’s to see what a poor golf punter I was. 26 golf bets placed, 26 bets lost. Poor hunches and relying on “mates tips”. Likewise, I thought my football trading was OK. And my UK football was (for a hobby). Unfortunately I don’t know as much about the European markets as I thought.
The lesson? It’s a pain to note every bet but it helps:
- you think about the bet you’re placing – it might stop you from some poor bets
- highlight trends such as strengths and weaknesses in “similar” markets. eg showing that UK football was OK but European football wasn’t
- you see some pretty simple answers
“increase rugby stakes and…no more European football and certainly no more golf”.
Good luck
DB
August 22, 2007 No Comments