I'm in the middle of my first week's holiday since returning to the corporate world and I've certainly picked a good one weather-wise. This time-out has given me a good opportunity to reflect on my decision to quit full time trading at the end of 2011. I have to say that I have no regrets whatsoever, in fact I am much happier now than I was 12 months ago. I have a rejuvenated social life, I am being recognised for what I'm achieving every day and I don't need to worry about making the odd bad decision as the money still lands in my bank account at the end of every month. More importantly I am really enjoying this week off as I value my free time now much more than I did last year. To those contemplating a job as a full time trader I would urge you to think carefully about all aspects of the decision. It's easy to focus on the idea of the dream lifestyle, but it can be incredibly lonely and all-consuming and those downsides have to be considered.
So, what next for the blog? Well, after another chat with JP, who always seems to inspire me to achieve something new and exciting, I am working on a brand new project. Trading is no longer a realistic option for me - apart from the odd NFL game through the winter - so I have decided to try and build a small but perfectly formed portfolio of systems to follow with outright bets. I have thus gone full circle and will be returning to where I started in my pre-trading days, with one subtle but vital difference - I won't be paying much in the way of subscription costs this time around. The objective will be to build a little retirement fund over the coming years. The key will be to avoid any form of pressure with trying to get bets on and obtain value prices, so most of the systems will be my own. I need to be largely in control of my own destiny with the day job to work around and family time at such a premium. However, the first portfolio entry will be fellow blogger Graeme Dand's excellent The Football Analyst service, which at £150 for a full season is stand out value for money given the track record of Graeme's systems over the last 2 seasons under live testing.
In terms of my own systems I have nothing more than a few ideas and a blank sheet of paper right now. I have just signed up to the Dataform horse racing service for 5 weeks (£45) and I have started a massive data research project this morning. I am using the Dataform Systems Analyser which goes all the way back to 1st January 2007, so having learned from my last experience I will be ensuring that every system has a huge number of data points tested before a single pound is wagered. Once I've pulled together a reasonable number of systems my intention will be to publish selections on a daily basis here. I hope that will help a few readers make a few quid along the way. In fact if anyone has an idea for a horse racing system that they'd like testing I'd be more than happy to assist. Either leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail to mark@horseracingtraders.com.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Fooled By Randomness
Imagine this scenario: You spend a few days producing some data analysis on 1000 horse races and the results are promising. You take a second batch of 1000 races and the results are equally promising, in fact they are actually a shade better. You then ask a trusted friend to pick a random period for a third batch of 1000 races and true to form the results continue to prove very profitable. Would you be willing to invest your money in the method that produced these results? Well, if you were, then you would be disappointed. Probably not as disappointed as my brother and I were when we discovered the performance of the method we've been working on when analysed over 29,000 races.
Further to the last blog post we managed to find a fellow bettor/trader/bot guru who agreed to help us automate the strategy. We took a leap of faith and without an NDA or any such legal protection we shared our thinking with Mark and that was a great decision. He was absolutely brilliant throughout the process. A couple of weeks ago he managed to find a way of testing our method over every horse race since 2008 and despite those three early successful periods the overall results were devastatingly poor (a loss of 4600 points over 29000 races). We rapidly came to the conclusion that we had managed, by pure chance, to have selected three separate test periods that were all showing excellent profits in the midst of a long losing period. Balls.
We have learned, without investing a single penny, that when analysing data you can never really have enough. 3000 races were nowhere near enough in this case. The good news is that thanks to Mark we didn't lose anything, nor did we attempt to back-fit the results in any way to show a theoretical profit. We also found a trusted guy who was true to his word and worked incredibly hard to produce a beast of a spreadsheet. The drawing board is firmly back in the room, dusted down and awaiting the next idea. The only problem is that I think my brother and I have run out of steam. We have decided to take an extended time-out from data research. This time next year we probably won't be millionaires.
Further to the last blog post we managed to find a fellow bettor/trader/bot guru who agreed to help us automate the strategy. We took a leap of faith and without an NDA or any such legal protection we shared our thinking with Mark and that was a great decision. He was absolutely brilliant throughout the process. A couple of weeks ago he managed to find a way of testing our method over every horse race since 2008 and despite those three early successful periods the overall results were devastatingly poor (a loss of 4600 points over 29000 races). We rapidly came to the conclusion that we had managed, by pure chance, to have selected three separate test periods that were all showing excellent profits in the midst of a long losing period. Balls.
We have learned, without investing a single penny, that when analysing data you can never really have enough. 3000 races were nowhere near enough in this case. The good news is that thanks to Mark we didn't lose anything, nor did we attempt to back-fit the results in any way to show a theoretical profit. We also found a trusted guy who was true to his word and worked incredibly hard to produce a beast of a spreadsheet. The drawing board is firmly back in the room, dusted down and awaiting the next idea. The only problem is that I think my brother and I have run out of steam. We have decided to take an extended time-out from data research. This time next year we probably won't be millionaires.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Why do only fools and horses work?
I've been in the new job for 3 months now and this Easter has brought with it a very enjoyable and much needed break from the corporate world. I have mentioned a few times here that researching horse racing data and looking for trends has been my hobby for years, a pastime I have often shared with my brother. About 4 years ago I came up with an idea that was based purely on maths and probabilities. I built a simple spreadsheet and, for some inexplicable reason, filed it away without exploring the idea further. I sent my brother the file to get his view and remember him being very positive, although he openly admitted at the time that he didn't quite "get the maths". On Friday evening, with the family safely tucked up in bed, I was browsing through my old archives and I stumbled across the spreadsheet in question.
Over the last few days I've been busy working on the idea in much more depth and I am very excited by the possibilities to say the least. I've researched a further 1049 horse races and the results are staggeringly good. Better still, the idea is purely based on maths and is remarkably simple. It appears as though my brother and I may have somehow overlooked something with huge potential. What a pair of plonkers. Ok, we haven't exactly been selling junk on the market to make ends meet ever since and nor are we sitting on a £6m jackpot, but you can see the similarities. This method does have the potential to make a significant sum with the right application.
The problem now becomes one of practicality. There is no way my brother or I can watch the racing every day and place the bets as and when required. The method requires constant tracking of results and bets being placed when certain conditions are met. We either need to automate the strategy using a bot or find someone who is willing to help in return for a share of the upside. This is really why I'm posting this little story here - we don't really have the time or knowledge to take this any further without some help. Hopefully someone out there will have a bright idea. Maybe you can build a clever bot? Please feel free to get in touch with any sensible proposals. We are open to ideas and suggestions.
This time next year we could be millionaires!
Incidentally, in researching this post I discovered that John Harrison (1693-1776) was not a fictional character at all, he was a clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer. He was born in Foulby, which is just less than a mile from where I live. One of his three surviving wooden clocks (John Harrison Barrow) sits in Nostell Priory, which I can see from my back garden. Spooky eh?
Friday, 9 March 2012
Win Some Amazing Betfair Trading Prizes
I'm still alive, in case you were wondering. The corporate job has done what corporate jobs do best and consumed every waking hour, leaving my weekends for the family stuff and zero time for anything remotely trading related. I try and catch up with my blog reading once a week but even that hasn't been possible lately.
Anyway, the reason for this post is to ask for your help. Lambretta, of the excellent thoughtsofafootballtrader blog, is raising money for a fantastic cause by cycling from London to Paris in September. Anything you can give will make a massive difference, and you'll be entered into a draw for some amazing Betfair trading prizes (including 1 lifetime membership to horseracingtraders.com worth £245). The link to Lamb's Just Giving page is below, along with some more detail on how your donation will help ...
Saturday, 31 December 2011
The Last Post
The end of 2011 marks a big change for me personally as I head off back into the corporate world after 2 years of trading on horses for a living. I am sure that there will be days when I miss the trading, and more importantly the people I've met through trading, but I don't believe in having regrets and so I'll be keeping my sights set firmly on the months and years ahead, with a fresh challenge in front of me. Once again I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to the blog and supported me through the good and bad days. I wish all of you a very Happy New Year.
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Two Days To Go
It's been a very odd week. It feels like I have been working my notice. There are now just two days to go until I hang up my trading boots for the foreseeable future. I have decided to call a halt to trading on Saturday, wrapping up 2011 and giving me a couple of days to prepare for the new job. My first day back in the corporate world will be Tuesday 3rd January. I wasn't intending to post until Saturday night, when I will wrap up the performance of the lay bets for December, but the truth is I've been reading my blogroll this evening and couldn't resist. Trading has been going well since the Christmas break, and for old times' sake here's a quick P&L since Boxing Day:
I've reduced my bankroll to £1000, and the truth is I've probably traded better than ever before over the last 4 days, without the pressure of thinking about paying the bills from the profits. I've been much more aggressive and relaxed and the results show it. There have been a lot more races to go at, in fact it's felt a bit like the summer, in sharp contrast to last year when the frost wiped out most of the festive action.
I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few blogs that I highly recommend. I should have spent more time commenting on some of these over the last year, as they offer some fantastic insight into the world of betting and trading. I should stress that I like all the blogs on my blogroll, and they are all worth reading, but these are my top 6 for 2011:
1. Green All Over Superbly written, insightful and entertaining blog which gets my number 1 spot. Cassini was kind enough to give my original blog a mention, although he was doubtful at the time that I had found an edge in the horse racing in-play markets. Even the king of betting bloggers can't be right all the time! Seriously, this is a must read blog for anyone in this business and is without doubt my favourite daily read.
2. Centre Court Trading The Sultan has produced some brilliant stuff in the last few weeks, providing readers with a few outstanding interviews of some of the best-known personalities in the trading world. The questions have been top class, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the blog of late.
3. The Football Analyst Graeme Dand is second to none in terms of his knowledge of football betting systems and this superb blog covers his methods in incredible detail. Without doubt the most comprehensively detailed blog I've had the pleasure of reading. In my early portfolio betting days Graeme offered me some fantastic support with staking levels and systems and without it I would never have realised the error of my ways, or switched to trading horses. A true gent.
4. Phoenix Racing Clint wears his heart on his sleeve, and that's why I've enjoyed his blog so much. It's not the best written in all honesty, but there are few authors out there who express their feelings as openly as Clint. The occasional political rant is highly entertaining. His knowledge of racing is superb and I suspect if he focused the blog on his strengths it would be even better. He's a great guy and I love his passion and enthusiasm for the game.
5. Thoughts Of A Football Trader Lambretta and I have much in common. We both came from corporate backgrounds and when I read his blog there are some amazing similarities between how we both think and operate. He's been trading football much longer than I've managed to stick with the horses and in his words the idea of returning to the corporate world, "brings me out in a rash". With his trading skills and knowledge of football I doubt he will ever need to follow me back into employment. I hope I'm right, as he really deserves the success.
6. Sport Is Made For Betting Scott Ferguson, a former Betfair employee, provides some superb insight into the world of gaming across the globe. His blog is very entertaining and his knowledge of betting exchanges is clearly outstanding. His latest post on the £600 million Betfair error is one of the best I've read all year. Put this blog on your list and you won't be disappointed.
I've reduced my bankroll to £1000, and the truth is I've probably traded better than ever before over the last 4 days, without the pressure of thinking about paying the bills from the profits. I've been much more aggressive and relaxed and the results show it. There have been a lot more races to go at, in fact it's felt a bit like the summer, in sharp contrast to last year when the frost wiped out most of the festive action.
I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few blogs that I highly recommend. I should have spent more time commenting on some of these over the last year, as they offer some fantastic insight into the world of betting and trading. I should stress that I like all the blogs on my blogroll, and they are all worth reading, but these are my top 6 for 2011:
1. Green All Over Superbly written, insightful and entertaining blog which gets my number 1 spot. Cassini was kind enough to give my original blog a mention, although he was doubtful at the time that I had found an edge in the horse racing in-play markets. Even the king of betting bloggers can't be right all the time! Seriously, this is a must read blog for anyone in this business and is without doubt my favourite daily read.
2. Centre Court Trading The Sultan has produced some brilliant stuff in the last few weeks, providing readers with a few outstanding interviews of some of the best-known personalities in the trading world. The questions have been top class, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the blog of late.
3. The Football Analyst Graeme Dand is second to none in terms of his knowledge of football betting systems and this superb blog covers his methods in incredible detail. Without doubt the most comprehensively detailed blog I've had the pleasure of reading. In my early portfolio betting days Graeme offered me some fantastic support with staking levels and systems and without it I would never have realised the error of my ways, or switched to trading horses. A true gent.
4. Phoenix Racing Clint wears his heart on his sleeve, and that's why I've enjoyed his blog so much. It's not the best written in all honesty, but there are few authors out there who express their feelings as openly as Clint. The occasional political rant is highly entertaining. His knowledge of racing is superb and I suspect if he focused the blog on his strengths it would be even better. He's a great guy and I love his passion and enthusiasm for the game.
5. Thoughts Of A Football Trader Lambretta and I have much in common. We both came from corporate backgrounds and when I read his blog there are some amazing similarities between how we both think and operate. He's been trading football much longer than I've managed to stick with the horses and in his words the idea of returning to the corporate world, "brings me out in a rash". With his trading skills and knowledge of football I doubt he will ever need to follow me back into employment. I hope I'm right, as he really deserves the success.
6. Sport Is Made For Betting Scott Ferguson, a former Betfair employee, provides some superb insight into the world of gaming across the globe. His blog is very entertaining and his knowledge of betting exchanges is clearly outstanding. His latest post on the £600 million Betfair error is one of the best I've read all year. Put this blog on your list and you won't be disappointed.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Cat Amongst The Pigeons
Around a month ago, as I was busy planning my trading strategies for 2012, I could never have envisaged writing this post. Not long after that I received a surprise phone call out of the blue, which I mentioned at the time. I remember writing that it could "throw the cat well and truly amongst the pigeons", and it has done just that. The call was from an executive headhunter who asked me if I would consider returning to the corporate world as an MD with a rapidly growing company. After some lengthy discussions with wifey we thought that it was worth a look. Three meetings later and I have been offered a package which is just too good to refuse. I have, therefore, decided to join the company on a permanent basis from January.
This wasn't an easy decision to make. Trading horse racing (and a bit of NFL) is something I love doing. I have learned how to make a reasonable living from the markets and I suspect many reading this will be thinking, "how could you possibly give that up?". Well, trading is a fickle business. I am only ever as good as my last month. I've had two successful years but my profits, whilst good enough to live on, have not been life-changing. With a young family to consider I've decided that the security of this corporate job, coupled with the additional income it will bring, are compelling enough reasons to give it a go. The future is never assured in whatever business you're in, but the company has a rock solid balance sheet and is growing very quickly in a period of economic depression which makes it about as safe a bet as possible in the current climate. The worst case scenario is that things don't work out and I'll be back at my trading desk. There is very little downside and huge financial upside (a good trade!).
One factor in the decision has been the idea of returning to a more sociable working environment. I do miss working as part of a team and, whilst opening the chatroom has helped, I have still been getting growing feelings of 'cabin fever' lately. This can be a lonely business. Working from home has its advantages - I've been able to watch Alfie grow up for the first 2 years of his life and I would not have changed that for anything. However, it also has a few pitfalls including family not really understanding what I do and therefore being inclined to perceive me as being at home and not at work when they visit. Overall I've had a superbly rewarding and enjoyable 2 years trading but this particular chapter is about to close.
For the first few months of 2012 (at least) I will be focusing completely on the new job and won't be trading at all. I don't want the distraction and weekends will be firmly set aside for family, who I won't be seeing much of during the week. Also I think it's wise to make a clean break and avoid the temptation to dive back into the markets at every opportunity. I'm not very good at 'grey areas' - I like things to be clear and so the job will be my 100% focus. There is no doubt that I will miss the trading a lot to begin with as it has been my life for the last couple of years. Having said that I am relishing the opportunity to make a success of a corporate role once again.
As for this blog, well I think it's run its course. I'm fairly certain that readers won't be interested in my return to the 'rat race' and boardroom politics. I will make one last post on December 31st to conclude the full 5 year analysis on the lay bets, which I'm delighted to say will continue through 2012 thanks to my good friend and fellow trader JP, of the legendary JP's Betting Blog, who will take over the reins. The chatroom will also be staying open and I will be dropping in there from time to time to say hi to the great people that I've been lucky enough to meet through horseracingtraders.com. I will also continue to support members of the site by e-mail should they need it. I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging and I'd like to thank all those who've contributed over the last few months. I do intend to start a new non-trading/betting related blog in the New Year, which I'll explain in more detail in my last post on the 31st.
That's it from me, except to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.
This wasn't an easy decision to make. Trading horse racing (and a bit of NFL) is something I love doing. I have learned how to make a reasonable living from the markets and I suspect many reading this will be thinking, "how could you possibly give that up?". Well, trading is a fickle business. I am only ever as good as my last month. I've had two successful years but my profits, whilst good enough to live on, have not been life-changing. With a young family to consider I've decided that the security of this corporate job, coupled with the additional income it will bring, are compelling enough reasons to give it a go. The future is never assured in whatever business you're in, but the company has a rock solid balance sheet and is growing very quickly in a period of economic depression which makes it about as safe a bet as possible in the current climate. The worst case scenario is that things don't work out and I'll be back at my trading desk. There is very little downside and huge financial upside (a good trade!).
One factor in the decision has been the idea of returning to a more sociable working environment. I do miss working as part of a team and, whilst opening the chatroom has helped, I have still been getting growing feelings of 'cabin fever' lately. This can be a lonely business. Working from home has its advantages - I've been able to watch Alfie grow up for the first 2 years of his life and I would not have changed that for anything. However, it also has a few pitfalls including family not really understanding what I do and therefore being inclined to perceive me as being at home and not at work when they visit. Overall I've had a superbly rewarding and enjoyable 2 years trading but this particular chapter is about to close.
For the first few months of 2012 (at least) I will be focusing completely on the new job and won't be trading at all. I don't want the distraction and weekends will be firmly set aside for family, who I won't be seeing much of during the week. Also I think it's wise to make a clean break and avoid the temptation to dive back into the markets at every opportunity. I'm not very good at 'grey areas' - I like things to be clear and so the job will be my 100% focus. There is no doubt that I will miss the trading a lot to begin with as it has been my life for the last couple of years. Having said that I am relishing the opportunity to make a success of a corporate role once again.
As for this blog, well I think it's run its course. I'm fairly certain that readers won't be interested in my return to the 'rat race' and boardroom politics. I will make one last post on December 31st to conclude the full 5 year analysis on the lay bets, which I'm delighted to say will continue through 2012 thanks to my good friend and fellow trader JP, of the legendary JP's Betting Blog, who will take over the reins. The chatroom will also be staying open and I will be dropping in there from time to time to say hi to the great people that I've been lucky enough to meet through horseracingtraders.com. I will also continue to support members of the site by e-mail should they need it. I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging and I'd like to thank all those who've contributed over the last few months. I do intend to start a new non-trading/betting related blog in the New Year, which I'll explain in more detail in my last post on the 31st.
That's it from me, except to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.
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