New to trading

[DireEmblem]

Hi,

As the title suggests, I've been dabbling in a few different areas lately, and today I have started trading(well only on a small scale).

What i've been doing is looking at the races where there is a high volume of betting near the off, and then placing a lay on a ~low odds horse, and then once that gets matched, setting a back for slighly higher odds. Sofar most of them have been successfully layed/backed, and the odd one which didnt lost(i would still have been in profit from the rest).

I'm trying to basically pick up the basics with small stakes, to see if in the long term this is viable, as I am a bit Pessimistic about lots of blogs people have regarding high returns, for a relative risk.

Can anyone reccomend any software, preferably if its got a demo function, where you could set parameters over a period of time, to evaluate the potential over a period of time?

[DireEmblem]

Right ok, feel free to moan at me for this, however given that i've had a good week mb'ing, and that my "manual" trading is going well sofar (making pennies off each race, but better than a loss), I had another thought...

Now I've read the thread "lay the leader", and looking at all the races i've had today, the majority of leaders before the 'off' have lost.

As such I decided to extend my experiment as follows:-

I realise trading horses, I need to lay at least £2.50, so that when I back when the odds shift, I make slightly more pennies if my lay wins. Then I had another (not so sure if its bright this time) idea:- what would happen if I didnt back my lays?

Now, I have decided for this, that I will lock in a maximum loss of £20, easily covered by this weeks mb profits.

I know this is more in the realms of gambling rather than my usual, however I am in the mood of trying something new.

Anyhow, since starting I have had the following results:-

IRE Cork 13th Dec / 15:00 2m Mdn Hrd / Hellyhunter
Lay 2.22 2.00 Won
GB Here 13th Dec / 15:10 2m Hcap Chs / Star Galaxy
Lay 2.80 2.00 Won
15:30 2m INHF / Crannaghmore Mist
Lay 3.00 2.00 Won

Now I will admit this is gambling, and am reading up more/analysing results as I go along, so will keep people posted if anyone is interested.

[DireEmblem]

And the remaining results for today are:-

GB Here 13th Dec / 15:40 2m1f NHF / Kaybeew
Lay 3.80 2.00 Won
GB Kemp 13th Dec / 15:55 6f Hcap / Space Station
Lay 5.10 2.00 Won
GB Kemp 13th Dec / 16:25 1m4f Hcap / Private Equity
Lay 1.79 2.00 Won
GB Kemp 13th Dec / 16:55 7f Hcap / Seek The Fair Land
Lay 2.96 2.00 Lost (3.92)
GB Kemp 13th Dec / 17:25 1m Hcap / Wunder Strike
Lay 2.44 2.00 Lost (2.88)

And there we have it, unless I go and do some US/AUD races later, my results for today are as follows:-

+£5.20 (minus commission)

Bear in mind, that thats not the actual figure, I just decided to start the total from what I had mentioned above. I am not so sure that only laying a horse on each race is the best means to turn a daily profit, and that because of the min bets of £2, i could probably start trading by laying @ say £2.5, and then betting when the odds shift in favour(by monitoring races like I was doing this morning). I am undecided whether to carry on my experiment in just laying a horse on each race, or by trying to learn more about actual 'proper' trading, to lock in a profit regardless.

[Human123]

Im a bit confused, are you just laying the favorite in each race?

[Grandthrax]

I read somewhere that:

Over the last 5 years if you had laid off every favourite you would have ended up with a 20% profit.

Although how much of that is down to luck?

[zenmaster]

Judging by what i have seen over the last few months on horse races laying a favourite under 3's when you have at least 2 other horses under 8's and the amount of times that favourite loses you should make a bit of cash.

The real value though is on horses under 2's especially in handicap jump races, the reason that horse is favourite is because its won and won a lot usually which tends to also mean its gained a handicap mark that will in the end mean it will struggle a bit and lose.

Having said that i dont plan on testing the theory with real cash right now, maybe when i have banked 5-6k.

[DireEmblem]

Yeah, to be honest I got a little bored today, and read a bit through the trading forum, and thought i would give a few "different things" a bash, and shall continue next weekend after some more investigation, and if my mb activities continue on the same spell as this week.

[munk]

To be fair what you're doing isn't really trading, I would say a 'trade' would be defined as a position that is opened and then subsequently closed.

So for example, backing £2@3 (your opening position) and laying £2@2 (the closing position), that's a 'trade'. With this you'd make no profit if your horse lost, but if it won you'd make £2.

If you wanted to hedge that to make the same profit either way, you'd basically lay profit/LTP = £2/2 = £1 at 2 (LTP='last traded price') - to make 50p no matter what the result (if you were looking at a loss then you'd back instead of lay). A lot of trading software will do this for you automatically, but it's always worth trying to understand how you'd 'manually' hedge your bets anyway (probably needs a dedicated thread I suppose!).

[Human123]

Yeah its pretty much gambling, not that theres anything wrong with that.

I really doubt you will be able to profit long term from just laying every favorite.

you would have to put some sort of filter in there and a decent staking plan.

[DireEmblem]

Right then, due to some heavy drinking this weekend in celebration of upcoming xmas, I have steered clear from most my mb activities/trading I was going to start.

However on that note, I have traded 3 races sofar with the below result:-




Nothing startling, but all profit, and I am at the start of my learning curve. I am planning to take a short break over xmas/new year, but I might potter around doing some more trading.

In the new year, I plan to take some holidays, and use that to 'trial' some trading software, so I will post my results as of when that happens.