Grass season and new approach

After a terrific French Open final we are back to the daily routine. Today the grass season started at Halle, Queen's and Birmingham. The change to a different surface it's difficult for the players and the traders as well. Less breaks bring less swings, so the strategy has to be a bit different. Beside the approach of the full time trader is not the same like the one of Sultan. I have to get used to it. Today I made some mistakes, but I also had some promising moments.

I am learning with my small bank. Sometimes it's boring. You invest eight hours or more in front of the TV and computer and in the end you make a profit of 20 to 30 Euros. In comparison to the account it's okay, but for the motivation it's not a real boost. If the strategy works with smaller amounts, it will do it as well with bigger stakes. The liquidity at tennis is really good. So the next step to more successful and enjoyable trading is a bigger bank. My player and market knowledge is quiet well now, and I only make trades when I really feel save. Of course there is still a risk to lose a trade (obvious, I have no crystal ball), but the risk/reward-ratio is a lot better than before.

The issue about a big bank you can also see here: http://www.daily25.com/. He makes enormous profits, but if you take a closer look, you recognize that he has a huge turnover. A ROI of 2.51% is nothing special, but with big stakes you can make a lot of money. Of course you need a strategy which you can scale up. The latest results are promising, but the most important step (rising stakes) is still missing.

At Thursday I will go to holidays for one week. Before and afterwards the learning process will continue. I try to gain more confidence with the new strategies. Wimbledon will be a good indicator to measure the progress. If I can make profits with a small account, I can also do it with a bigger one. At 14th of July I will travel to Lyon for an intensive trading week. Afterwards it's planned to trade with a bigger bank and higher stakes.

The next post will be the 100th! So I hope that it will be a special one... probably it will take some time until I will write it. First I will be in holidays until 20th of June, second there is not so much to write about at the moment. If there is something really interesting, I will let you know.

A review of my first half year as a (part time) trader...

The French Open is almost over. That's a good moment to think about my progress as a trader. In 2013 I started to learn the tennis markets and players. It's quiet difficult if you don't have an experienced person on your side. I decided to join Sultan's Trading Academy and TradeShark's picks.

TradeShark gave me a good overview about the Top50 players. The picks are a bit disappointed so far, but I guess that's bad variance in this year. In general the service has a good price/value-ratio for beginners or investors which are not interested to trade on their own. For more experienced traders I don't see much added value. So I will not renew my subscription next year. Paul was very helpful all the time, but I can walk on my own now.

The Sultan's Trading Academy is a bit more expensive. The trading guide is okay, but it's not giving enough inside to reach the level of a full time trader. Sultan doesn't make wrong promises (he is a honest guy!), but in the review I have to tell that he couldn't help me to reach the level I wanted. I was a bit surprised that he is not looking for for more interaction between the students. Beside he never seemed really interested if the students of the academy can succeed. At least not in my case... He helped me in the beginning, but with his email coaching it's (almost) impossible to become a successful trader. His service is too superficial (at least for me).

I was lucky to meet a full time trader some weeks ago. I wrote about it. Without his help I would trade at the moment in the best case around breakeven level. To improve more, I will visit him in France at mid of July to trade together the tournament of Hamburg.

My profits are stable now. Considering that my account is very small now (because my partner is trading with my money), I am really happy with the performance. Today I made around 10% return on capital. Once I trade with bigger bank, it's getting really interesting! The tennis markets have big liquidity, so it's no problem to rise the stakes at least by factor 10 to 20. Without taking big risks, I made today 30 Euro profit (only trading two matches). Beside my partner made me around 700 Euros with four matches.

Let's see if the progress in the second part of the year 2014 will be as good as in the first half. With the planned measures, I should be able to make a decent profit latest at US Open. Afterwards I can decide if I will start the 2015 as a full time trader.

Back on track

Like I wrote in the last post, I couldn't trade that much last days. Beside I decided to reduce my bank and act more as an investor in the project of my partner. He (still) trades a lot better than me. I prefer that he trades with my money and builds financial security for me.

At the moment I trade with a very small bank. It's good to learn the new strategies with less money. Sometimes it's hard to see that I could make with normal stakes ten times more profit, but it's okay at this moment. Today I won 30 Euro and I felt first time in my life like a trader. I was not laying or backing players, I just traded the market. I see a big step in the right direction!

Now I understand why Sultan stopped the blog. When you achieved to trade successful, it's not to say that much anymore. You can't even talk about the bets you made during a day, because you change very often the sides. Today I layed and backed Federer in the same match. In some moments there was value on Federer, on other situacions on Gulbis.

In the second week of the French Open is not that much action anymore. It's a pity that it took so much time (almost half a year) until I got a better feeling about trading. Unfortunately the grass season starts soon. It's harder to trade on quick surfaces because there are more service holds and less swings.

Beside I am sure that a big bank helps a lot to be successful. Of course the strategies will work with less money, but you will have less profit and less opportunities. My target is to build a bigger bank until US Open. Afterwards I have around two months to see if I am ready to go full time at year 2015.