New

[Win2Win]

As a number of us already trade on the exchanges, I thought I add a nice new thread for advice, Q&A, etc.

[wb]

A welcome new section Keith.

Just wondering if there is any point in WOM trading anymore?

I took a few months off work to bet full time last year, and done some trading. I mainly based it on WOM and made some small profits. However, it was nothing much and I found it a little boring if I'm honest.

Once again, I'm taking the flat season off work to bet full time and want to do a bit of trading along the way. However, my confidence has been shattered after a really bad day at it last week. WOM just doesn't seem to work anymore. I then tried some trading using the ladder using my instinct to guess which way the market would go but it wasn't pretty and I found it harder then ever.

Is it more difficult these days to find obvious market movers or am I just rusty? Has the market got too sophisticated? It seems more hard to make a buck these days, but maybe it's just me.

[Win2Win]

WOM is just a reference variable, I've done extensive study on it, and doing some more now. You can't use it as a variable on its own.

For instance, the Fav in a race on saturday held at a WOM level of < 70% for about 20 seconds, and the price didn't move, and this was near the off!

WOM is worth more value if used along with the overall price trend.

I will be adding more to this section this week.

[counterfeit]

Wayne

I've tried using ladder trading and I seem to get it wrong over 50% of the time which is a flipping disaster so I gave it up.

I've never really got to grips with WOM, as every time I tried I made so little profit that I considered it not worth the effort.

Most of my succesful trades go against the perceived wisdom of trading. Basically, I use a bot to watch the market and it lays any horse that has had a price increase of over 25% in the previous 10 minutes. I then trade out when the price goes even higher or take a 3 tick loss if it goes back the other way. Either way, it trades out at 30 seconds to the off.

It works for me. The profits aren't massive (I always lay to a liability of £500) but I earn about £50-£75 per day.

Another thing I do is look at the FSP as per the RP website late every evening and then go into Betfair and lay any horses that seem to be at a very short price. Usually, when I get up in the morning I find I have an opportunity to trade out at a decent profit. Obviously, it goes wrong occasionally but that's trading!

By the way, great idea for a new section.

[Win2Win]

The Ladder is one of the best tools for trading on Betfair, as a bot I use fires the bets in, but I then use the Ladder to place the S/L manually depending on what the market is doing after a few seconds. If it was fully automated, I'd soon lose interest in it, whether it makes money or not.

[wb]

Half thinking of doing one of the Peter Webb Betangel master classes. There's a couple coming up in May so I may fly over for one. There not cheap but I've heard some good things about them and if successful, the course should pay for itself quickly. Will have to think about it.

[Win2Win]

You actually learn more yourself.

Just work out what settings you are going to use for the day and DO NOT change them. And only use £2's. By seetings I mean SL, and the graphs. Make sure you have a slow MA and a fast one, I usually use 15/75 updated at 1 second.

If it ends up a disaster, find out why you are hitting the wrong entry points. Remember, you only need 1 trade a race to profit, some folk think you have to fire them in as quick as possible!

[counterfeit]

I have read (in various books and blogs) that you don't really need anymore than £1k in your trading account in order to make pretty good profits. I try to keep mine to that sort of level but still seem incapable of making anymore than a few £££ per race.

Today I made my biggest ever single trade and greened up for £35 but prior to that it had been about £11 and I seem to average about £3.

I trade out fairly quickly but do you think it is sensible to let trades ride and gain extra ticks at the obvious peril of losing bigger if it goes wrong?

Peter Webb has made a bloody fine living out of it and so do a number of other people so there must be a basic set of principles that work time after time.

[Win2Win]

I use a S/L, but usually set at a previous resistance level, I only get involved with market drifters so I let that part ride till about 30 seconds before the off.

Plenty of ways of trading though, your Offset should always be more than the S/L though, otherwise you are swimming against the tide.

[wb]

What does S/L stand for Keith?

[Win2Win]

Stop Loss. :)

[counterfeit]

I guess the skill of "cold" trading is purely analysis of the market.

If I make more use of the charting and ladder options to identify swings and resistance points I should get better at it. Drifters would be my favoured route too but I seem to see drifters just as they hit their max price and then watch the price level off taking my profit with it.

Tomorrow I will use the tools better and report back on Thursday morning to see if it improves my trading.

[Street cry]

use levels of support and resistance to look for breakouts also look to exploit the increment change when laying

[counterfeit]

look to exploit the increment change when laying

If I knew what that meant I would.

[MattR]

I would take that to mean for example laying at 2.96 and betting back two ticks higher would be 3.00. But lay at 2.98 and bet back two ticks higher is 3.05 therefore a bigger margin for your two ticks.

[Street cry]

Sorry , yes that's exactly right Matt

[counterfeit]

ok - cheers guys. Makes perfect sense.

[wb]

I should probably update here as I've done quite a lot on the trading front since I first posted here.

I went to a Peter Webb course back in May and found it very interesting indeed. While there was no magic system, he provided tonnes of examples of how to trade, why the market moves, which markets are for swinging and scalping etc.I learned a few strategies and am starting to get quite comfortable. I set up a starting bank of €1,000 a couple of weeks back and got it up to €1,250 although I only done a few days here and there.

Due to time constraints, I haven't traded much lately so I decided to set aside some time each day, starting this afternoon.

Today, I threw €250 into an account to get some practice in and the results were positive. I traded 17 races and only one went wrong by a big margin. I think I'm getting better at this and I rarely called a market wrong which gives me confidence.

OK, I was only using a few euro a pop, but the overall profit was just over a tenner for the day which was a good confidence booster before I go live with real money.

The big thing I'm learning is that patience is an absolute virtue. I used to take a position and get impatient if the price wouldn't go my way. Then, I'd open some new trades looking for action which is not a good idea at all - as one should really think about where and when to enter the market.

Opening a trade just for some action is only looking for trouble. I've also learned to leave out markets that I don't like. At first, I felt the need to try each race but now I'm happy to just make a cup of tea or whatever if there's a market I don't like.

Anyway, I feel good after today and I'm looking forward to doing this with a bigger bank next week in time for Royal Ascot.

I'm also realising that the key is to be comfortable with what you are doing. I don't particularly like swing trading so I won't get involved in those markets. Others love it and more power to them. Each to their own, but as long as you are comfortable.

[Win2Win]

The best part of trading is staring endlessy at the screen try to stay awake long enough to notice the signals you are looking for

[wb]

Ha ha, I'm sure it gets pretty boring if you are doing it all day every day - although I'm sure I could put up with it if I was making plenty of money!

Something else that worked for me today was to only enter the market with ten minutes to go - but not before the previous race had ended. The real money only arrives when the last race is over and often makes a mockery of the previous prices matched.

Again, I was making the mistake of looking for some action too early.

[Win2Win]

Main money appears with 5 minutes to go, bookmaker money with 2 minutes to go. :)

[vegyjones]

Wayne, are you using the same stake in each race, or if laying first, the same potential loss?

Is all betting done before the off?

And finally, how do you decide when it is time to take a loss and get out. Is it a matter of when the price opens up so much or a specific length of time when the price hasn't swung the way you wish?

[wb]

I base my stake on the price. If for example, I wanted to use a €1 profit/loss for every tick moved, I'd use €100 stakes for 1.01 to 2.00.

I'd use €50 for 2.02 to 3.00 and so on - depending on how the increments go.

I try to do all my betting before the off as I've had some horrendous situations when I've let it go in running. I was only talking about this to someone earlier so I hope you don't mind if I cut and paste what I was saying:

I do use a stop loss - I don't have a set figure - I change it according to the each market. Normally, it's around 5-8 ticks but it really depends on the race.

If the market goes against me, sometimes I'll get out manually before it hits the stop - other times, I'll ride it out if I think the price is likely to come back in my favour.

At Doncaster, I layed Isabelonabicycle with a fairly high stop loss.In this case, someone started hammering the market with about 20 grand and the price simply collapsed very quickly. I had called it wrong and didn't think the price would move so much that fast. It happens sometimes in weaker markets but there's not much one can do when it does. Massive moves all of a sudden happen much less in high liquid markets so I'm looking forward to Royal Ascot next week.

That's something else I've learned. In a group race for example, the price rarely plummets in a few seconds - it takes time to move a market as the market can absorb large amounts of money. But if someone comes into a maiden for example, with say 10 grand - it's lights out time and that's where the stop loss has to kick in.

It's an occupational hazard I guess but if you know the type of market it is likely to happen in, you can set a stop loss accordingly.

Regarding selecting my markets - I decide which type of trading strategy to use separately for each race. A large field with a short priced favourite will usually be volitale so I'll look to swing trade (get in large price movements) that market.

However, a large field with joint favs priced around 4.0 will be relatively stable in comparision so I tend to scalp those.

I'll also look at other things (race quality, money matched in the past etc), and then watch the market for five minutes or so. When I'm happy that I've called the market correctly, I'll open a position. Hope that makes sense as it's kind of hard to explain.

In general though, the more money in the market, the easier it is to trade. That's why there were only a couple of Irish races traded.

[vegyjones]

Thanks for the in depth reply Wayne,

Much appreciated fella!

[Win2Win]

Is all betting done before the off?

And finally, how do you decide when it is time to take a loss and get out. Is it a matter of when the price opens up so much or a specific length of time when the price hasn't swung the way you wish?

Never trade in-running, and if a trade does not do what you expect you get out, usually in the first few seconds, any longer and the initial signals have changed.