A day of two halfs

 

Todays lessons Today started quite well with a bit of trading on the tennis and the cricket, nothing fancy just backing serve and laying a player that was a recommended trade so not too much effort there. Trading on the horses was good in general i am seeing more patterns in the market and getting it right acting on them, i'm also better on taking losses which proved useful later in the day, although im still falling for spoof money and mini reversals today i was mainly waiting for a big old order to come in and following that for a tick or two. I had also seen something on the 19:50 race so i put a small position in there with meaning to monitor it untill the race which was still nearly an hour away at that time Now a couple of days ago i had placed positions on the england game, both on laying england and laying over 2.5 goals. When i last check they were in green and i thought to let them to to 10 minutes or so, which seemed a good idea at the time. I got involved on the roi match which was kicked off earlier than the england game (was that impatient / or didn't i want to miss out on something (hello greed ... bad boy) either way i made two trades on this both angling for a goal which didnt come nevertheless my stops were hit and i took my losses like a good boy. Now the ROI game would have finished about half past eight and because i was waiting for a goal or my stop loss to hit then my attention was on that when i should have closed then and switched my attention to the england game, during this period i was also cooking something to eat and then the phone went... oh and yes i lost track of the 19:50 (:@) so i had to take a loss on that when i got to look at it Now remember those bets on the england game, i got back to my pc and it pronounced 20:00, and i thought phew went in to close my positions and you can probably imagine what had happened... :( now with englands odds shooting down i had lost most of what i would have on a one way bet so i instantly redded up for a loss on england, scratching on a draw or belarus (who?) so now i feel really patriotic :( the loss on unders was an interesting one, with the market where i found it settled but i was faced with a red of 30% of my original liability - should i wait or should i close, i closed out and of course they were no more goals at least at the time of writing so i could have hung on but i didn't like the risk factor of two (by the amounts) for no goal for the next xx mins - i feel a bit miffed that i feel i panicked a little bit and closed too hastily without thinking it through, but i do not feel that emotional thing when you do something silly but feel happy i took the loss if that makes sense. That being said i decided to quit for the day then when i should have been looking for other opportunites on the england game but i decided enough was enough So what have i learn't today, discipline comes in many forms for many scenarious and that cutting losses is only part of it so. Dont trade events that run into each other Dont trade 4 different sports in a day, you cant (or at least i cant put full focus into them) When you are in the market, the market matters most so dont allow yourself to get distracted Always have a plan and a schedule With all the media and communications out there, sometime a big old clock on the wall is better If you cant put your full focus into trading then dont trade, dont feel bad about taking a day off There is no excuse for not being organized!