Thursday 9 October 2014

Small recovery

Since the the disastrous trade of Petkovic (see at my last post) I could recover a bit. Today was a decent day with a highlight trade of Ferrer against Murray. How in the hell Murray could be 1.05 favorite after he won the first set against the "never give up Ferru"?! Normally value is not that obvious like here, nevertheless I would say my strategies start to work if I am disciplined.

In the comment section we had a discussion what is more important, the knowledge of the players or the markets. I am 100% sure that a decent professional trader (no matter what he trades) will make money with tennis, even when he doesn't know the players. Probably it takes a bit of time to learn the markets, but he/she will succeed. Actually good knowledge of the men and women on the tennis tour can be a burden as well. Who in the hell is going against Djokovic or Nadal? I have not a proof, but I am quiet sure that low lays against the very best ones often pay off. I don't say that is bad to know the players, but if you like to read from the past the future, it can't work in my opinion. Goran noted it correctly, it's all about risk-/reward ratio and not about player's name.

Back to my results... how you can see below, it takes some time to recover the loss of the Petkovic trade. To be honest, it's not very meaningful after 20 trades, but it gives an indicator what I have to improve.

My problem is obvious when you take a look at the numbers. The losses are big and the profits small. Some of the winning trades are scratches, so the real average would be slightly higher. Beside the average loss would be smaller without the Petkovic trade. Nevertheless I can't be happy and that's an alert sign. The strike rate (77%) is around the expectations, but the win-/loss ratio is with not even 15% a real problem which has to be addressed.

One reason for it, it's the bad variance. I had 3-4 trades which would generate good greens with a different outcome (for example Fabio Fognini or Rafael Nadal). Here I can't do much, it's just bad luck which will be offset in the midterm view.

Another problem is the second stage of the trade. Instead of compounding the profits, I lose the profit with too risky entries. I trust too much the favorites - here we are back to the topic I wrote about before - instead of trading the market.

The last problem is a common one which everybody knows. I close green trades too early and let the red positions too long run. It should be exactly the opposite way. It's difficult to change this behavior. The only way you can manage it is to define entry- and exit levels before the match starts. I don't like to make a classical stop loss during the trade. In my opinion it works better to lower your initial stake and accept the full loss. I would say it's a personal preference, but I like to have a (small) chance to make profit with a bad looking position. In the opposite case (let the greens run), you need a clear plan when you hedge which amount. If you don't decide it before you open the position, your will be driven by emotions...

3 comments:

  1. I agee whith you, it´s more important to know the market than the player. Indeed in my case i don´t see the match in live, only follow them in two live scores and focus in the ladder of the Geeks Toy. A little advice, you have to know a what odd are you going to enter, at what odd are you going to exit if the trade goes bad and in what odd arer yo going to exit whith profit. Exactly at what odd. I mean you know i am ging to enter the market laying at 1.18, goes out backing at 1.95 and exit the trade if the odd goes down at a.1.13

    Whith this you can know that you are going to loose 76 dollars if things go bad or you going to earn 779 if things go good. Like Goran says it´s all about risk-reward ratio.

    Cheers mate.

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    1. Thanks Cristobal! Yes I can't agree more. You can trade without any problems just with the scoreboard. Pictures often misslead you. Like I wrote some days ago, in the end a 1:6 is often not a different scenario than 6:7. If you see the match an TV, you often overvalue a one sided match. With the scoreboard you are more focused on the chart, what is not the worst thing...

      I have some strategies which need live pictures, but most of them I can execute just with scoreboard.

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  2. Dont know about you people :) but I had much more success when trading without live TV and I think its because I get distracted and nervous. I tested many strategies in past year but so far best was laying arround 1.10-1.20 and exit point arround 2.5-2.9 . (and do nothing if it goes red)

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