May Summary

May has been another tough month for me. The first few weeks I was all over the place. I wasnt thinking properly about my trading, was too busy seeing what other people were achieving and trying to emulate them, and was probably trading almost at random at times. Heres the PnL graph for this month.


With my PnL looking like a line drawing of the Alps, I was making stupid mistakes, and was starting to doubt whether making it in trading was possible for me. The big loss on 22/05 was due to a huge spike moving the market 10 ticks or more, but I had something like 6 trades in waiting to be taken, which is just careless. Even without this spike, I was having way too many large losses, sometimes £4 or £5 using £20 stakes, and it was killing my trading. That was my lowest point of the month and I decided to do something about it.The total on 23/05 is mostly due to an arb on a betfair offer, but as you can see, I managed to turn things round for the rest of the month. I realised that I wasnt trading methodically, with an edge, and was putting in trades hoping it was the right place. I was trading every race, with no real idea why I was opening trades( of course, I had some sort of criteria for putting in a trade but it was all a bit up in the air and random). I that I would look at each market, determine a point where a trade seemed more likely to succeed, and then just sit and wait. If the market didnt reach that point( I might adjust my likely trade depending on what had happened in the market) then I would do nothing. If it did reach my point, then I would trade. The first thing that surprised me was the amount of times the market was reaching my trading point, even from seemingly far away. I was also suprised that the points I had selected did seem to be more successful than not. From then on, following this method, I havent really looked back. The big losses are gone, just 3 losses over £1 in the last week, none over £2 ( the loss on 26/05 was due to an in-play mistake and doesnt count :p ). I am much more relaxed when trading, making it easier to watch and take in all the market information. taking up better positions means I am not chasing the market around, and am less likely to be caught in play, as any losses I have are small, and i'm not going to be frantically opening and closing positions close to the off. It really does feel totally different. I am hoping this is the big step forward, the eureka moment that I have been needing to really get to grips with trading. Some people have been saying the markets have been good for trading over the last week, so maybe this has something to do with it, but I know I have struggled during supposed good weeks before.
heres my average win and loss graph, and strike rate graph for the month




You can see my average loss has come right down, my average win has slightly, although this is partly due to reducing my stakes half way through the month.

I am going away for a few days at the start of next month, I am actually dissapointed about that, as I am keen to continue and see if I can make more progress. Maybe its a good thing that I can take a break, clear my head, and come back recharged and ready.