Saturday 20 June 2015

I lost the focus...

The trading week ended with a disappointment. After a bad Friday, I lost the focus. It's a common thing and is called revenge trading. You like to win the money back that you lost before, and you are not patient enough. It happened today. The trades were against my gut feeling. I was definitely not in the trading zone. I saw a one sided match between two German ladies (Lisicki and Kerber). Instead of trusting my gut feeling and my tennis knowledge I went against Kerber... Probabaly I would not do this at another day. But 1/2 final days don't have much action. There are only a few matches, you often see not interesting service battles (like Federer against Karlovic).

Yesterday I read an interesting link about trading (it's in German): http://de.tradimo.com/lernen/psychologie/emotionen-einfuehrung/ There is a theory which says that there are three components to be a successful trader: strategy (10%), money management (30%) and psychology (60%). Well, 60% is probably a bit too high, but the control of the emotions is definitely the most important part. You need to handle bad days and start refocused after a night.

Nevertheless I made a minor strategy update. Nothing big, but I recognized that the redding strategy of Sultan (take out 1/2 of the stake at 0:30 and breakpoints) makes sense. When one player is tanking or injured (today the opponent of Seppi was again injured!), it doesn't help much to know where the price should be under normal circumstances. In this kind of scenario the market panics, and you have to protect your bank. With this small adjustment I can go back to the old stakes...

Despite the last two days were disappointing I feel on the right way. Trading is not a one way street and losses are part of the game. For the whole week I am still in profit.

2 comments:

  1. it looks for me that your strategy not working in one sided matches

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    Replies
    1. Hello Piotrek

      Yes, that's right, but it's normal. If your strategy would work in every scenario, you found the holy grail. Unfortunately it doesn't exist. I can remember that Sultan had in the beginning a strike rate of 40%. That's enough, when you have enough balanced games with good profits.

      My target is a strike rate over 60%, that's enough to make good profits. Four of ten matches can and will be losers. Right now I even trade too conservative. I think I can enter more often, take a small loss instead of going just for winners.

      I would prefer a 50% strike rate (as 77% at the moment) with a better average profit to average loss-ratio. Right now the losses are too big and the profits too small. One of the strenghts of good traders is the exit after a small loss. Mentally I am still not enough strong too accept always the losses as part of the trading. When I make this step, my numbers will go more in the direction I mentioned. Worse strike rate, but a lot better ratio between average profits and average loss. At the moment I am going too much for winners... today I layed Wozi at 1.16 (first set). After another break the odd fell to 1.10. I decided to went out again at 1.16 to be at least breakeven. That was too conservative... after the 1:5 Kuznetsova fought back and won the first set. Instead of 1.16 I could green at 2.40. I should accept the loss of six ticks (is part of the trading) and go at least for a swing back to 1.35 or even more (at least as a free bet).

      I don't know which numbers are realistic, but I guess a 50% strike rate with a ratio of 2:1 could and should be the target. It will be interesting to see how these KPI will be in the future. I will keep an eye on it. For me is very important to find a strategy which fits the own behaviour. Some traders are going for the very big swings (strike rate will be smaller), other are happy with one break of serve (strike rate will be bigger). In the end there is not only one way to make profit. You have to the way you feel confident. I am still making some small setup adjustments.

      Regards, TT

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