Cant take the losses.

Yup, Im back to that old topic. Im just not quick enough to cut out recently. I have had a tough month, and struggled a lot with my trading, I am entering at the wrong time constantly, and paying for it, so its getting harder and harder to keep taking the losses, but I need to, because if I don't, I just end up with bigger losses. I am not going in play with my losses, just letting them go a bit too far before I cut out. My discipline has definitely gone down this month. Its fine when things are going well, but when things go badly old habits start to creep back in. I still don't completely have the traders mind set, I'm not sure if I believe I can be a winning trader yet.
So I need to have these thoughts in my mind
I know I can make the loss back easily.
I will not let this loss affect me.
its ok to be wrong, I shouldn' t beat myself up about it. Just accept it and move on

Although some might disagree, the evidence is pointing to the fact that I am ( or will be) a winning trader, my last 6 months have been in profit or break even, and I still have a lot of improvement to make, so the signs are good. But I need to get my head together more. Its weird, I am more disciplined trading the greyhounds than I am the horses, probably because I use smaller stakes, the swings are faster and potentially bigger, and you have to be out just before the off. If I could bring that discipline to the horse racing my trading would improve greatly.

The flat season, hooray!

Supposedly, the flat season is much easier to trade than the jumps, more races, more money. I didnt find it so today, having the worst day I think I have had for 4 months. Ok , so its only the first day of the flat season so no need to get worried yet. The markets were also all over the place and I kept getting caught out time and time again until I had just had enough and stopped trading.
Maybe I also went in expecting too much and not trading as I have learned over the last year.
I will see what happens as the season progresses, and if it is actually any different to trade.

My trading setup with The Toy

I have run out of things to say about my trading on the blog at the moment, its going along pretty much the same, I am performing fairly well, but am looking for improvements which aren't happening yet. So I thought I would say a little about my setup and the software I use. I used to use one application, which was not bad, but I wasn't totally happy with it. I was interested to see how hard it could be to write my own app( I know quite a bit of Java and C), so started messing around. I got as far as being able to log in and retrieve my account balance, and then the next day a blog post directed me to an application called A Geeks Toy. Almost immediately I could see that it would take me weeks or months to write something as good as this, it looked good, and felt good to use, and fast! Best of all, it was free! So, no more coding for me. It is fairly customizable, you can dock and undock various windows, move graphs around, change the size of ladders,etc. I am very impressed by its speed. Using my old application, when the betfair API was being sticky, you would really notice it, but with The Toy, it manages to function almost as if there are no problems.I have 1 PC running the Toy, on a 32'' monitor, and my laptop as backup, with the Toy loaded, but disconnected from the API to avoid data charges, and mobile broadband ( costs me £5 a month) just incase my PC crashes, or my main broadband connection goes down.
Here are a few screenshots of some of the different set ups that are possible

Best Day Ever(Almost)

I have changed the way I trade in the last few days. I was getting tired of entering trades only to see them go against me, and having to cut out because the markets have such big moves that you just dont know if, or where, they will stop. So I have changed my entry points a bit. After a few difficult days I was starting to see good results, and was becoming more confident. Todays trading felt awesome, I was making more money per race, and wasnt putting myself in difficult positions. with 1 race left to go, I had made over £30 using £35 stakes, and was already composing this post in my mind. So, onto the last race, where I seemed to forget everything I had learned, and basically went to pieces, discipline-wise. One draw back to my new style of trading is that if I'm not totally on the ball, and things go against me, I can be looking at a bigger red than what I am used to, very quickly. I put in a trade at a stupid entry point, where the market promptly went against me big time.Did I stay calm, focused, look at the other runners, take in all available information? No. Did I cut out quickly and without emotion, at any of the exit points available to me? No. I just sat there, and hoped, until the red became too big for me to bear, where I cut out for a £15 loss.
Tiredness was probably a factor, as well as greed and fear of "messing up" my best ever PnL. Even though I have made progress, I still need to change my mindset a lot, with regard to losses. Maybe I should go and see a sports psychologist or something because there seems to be a mental block that I cant get over.

Dont take it personally

Does it ever seem like the markets have it in for you? That they are just waiting for you to enter your trade and then go against it? I have felt like this at times over the last couple of weeks, as I keep getting caught out by unexpected fast moves. Obviously I know on an intellectual level that the market is impersonal and uncaring, just doing its own thing with no regard for what most of us are doing. But on an emotional level it is hard not to feel sometimes that the markets are targeting you specifically and just waiting to pounce on your ill-timed trade. This is not a good mindset for your trading as you will feel anger towards the markets, which will lower your concentration and block out the information you need to take in, as well as perhaps making you start not to care about your results, or end up putting in unthinking trades in an attempt to get back your losses. This is something I am going to have be wary of.

I only managed to trade the 2 evening meetings yesterday, but I did ok, making about a tenner. I usually find the evening meetings easier to trade, less spoofers, slightly less volatile. The only problem is the crazy guy who every now and then sticks in huge back bets near to the off, but I managed to stay clear of him last night.

March so far

I havent posted much recently, as I haven't been able to trade much so far this month, had to go away for a few days, and the days I have traded I have really found it quite difficult. It feels so random and swingy, and it seems that every trade goes against me. I know this isnt the case, so it must be partly a mental thing, and maybe that is affecting my trading. I have definitely lost something from my trading , and I'm not sure what it is.After last months consistency, I was looking for the same again, but I dont think thats going to happen this month. To try and keep things positive though, I am still in profit for the month. I have also started looking at trading the greyhounds in the mornings and have had some success there so far.
Will just have to keep grinding away, and hope some sort of penny drops as to where I am going wrong