Trading Pitches and Grinding Riches
A Friday in the Field
I'm Matt, as heard on seasons two and three of the critically-acclaimed Trading the Market podcast. Inspired by Billy Epstein's recent post, I decided it was time to make this a regular feature. When I began this journey, I naively envisioned replacing my day job with trading. While that's possible for some when everything aligns, I've since become a realist. My long-term vision is to achieve regular profitability, supplement my income, and, where possible, buy back my time. Anything beyond that is a bonus! I hope you enjoy these insights into a day in the life of an aspiring trader.
Friday
Undoubtedly my favourite day of the week. Work starts around 07:00 most days with coffee (Americano with two shots of espresso), verbal tirades and a smattering of productivity. Today was a little different, mind. There are two big cricket matches on, Pakistan v England and India v New Zealand.
Ignoring the England game, I look at India v New Zealand. As ever with India, regardless of the situation, the market will often be in their favour. Taking that into consideration and how I was reading the game, I put a lay in on India at evens. I get matched in no time and no doubt in large due to the latter, the market goes stagnant. I believed this to be wrong but this time I let bottle get the better of me, and, after half hour or so, I get out for scratch.
I've always enjoyed the game of cricket but only this year decided to investigate trading it. Due to the liquidity in these markets, you should take a look. Come and join us in the TTM cricket thread. We're very fortunate that those who contribute in there are very insightful and active. Cricket isn't for everybody and has a reputation for being a bit dull. Perhaps that, matched with my own dour personality, go hand in hand!
It's 10:00 now, and I open Sports-IQ. This is quite often the standard for me. I trawl through my filters for the day ahead and whittle them down. For me, this is key Friday to Sunday. There can be far too many picks to go at on a given day. Especially time clashes!
Back home by 16:00 and my first football trades will be from 17:30 onwards. Prior to that, I read through the horses. I'm currently working on a strategy for laying horses which is going nicely but Friday and Saturdays will not be considered for that. Cheers Mark!
Having read through the racecards for the day I find one horse to trade. It comes in before the off. Ideal. 25% return on stake and that's me done with the horses. I prep my meal for the night, have a little hoover (wearing a black leather mini-skirt and pink sleeveless top) and put my beers in the fridge.
I've got a bit of time to kill now and find myself battling deep, philosophical problems. How long can I morally delay that final grass cut of the year? Much like with cricket, I check the forecast: next Friday will be the day!
17:30: Football Trading
With Sports-IQ and Betfair open on one screen, Sofascore and Bet365 on the other (my two preferred sites for viewing in-play) it's time to do some work. I go to the office, put the radio on (I like noise) and get stuck into my selections, ONLY where conditions allow. By this I mean liquidity, price etc. I have no doubt I won't get away with this but, at my level, I'm not interested in value. Just being correct.
After 3.5 hours of intermittent trading, today brought just under 5% growth in the bank. It could have been even more! I did struggle to get out of one trade. However, from using Sports-IQ I had 15 selections and only three of them lost. Yes, that sounds significant, but it's worth noting that 30% of those trades were scalps.
Before I conclude this piece, I just want to stress that it is rare for me to trade this efficiently. Only losing three trades from my fifteen selections might sound extraordinary. And it is. Certainly, for me. But make no mistake, this has not been the norm. I had plenty more trades available pre-game but early goals, lack of liquidity and undesirable prices assisted me in reducing the list. I would say that being able to trade as I did today was undoubtedly due to being given the platform to document my journey. Therefore, the stakes are certainly raised!
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope even a small part of this offers something to somebody. Yes, this has been very wordy to kick-off with, and I'll aim to offer a brief bi-weekly overview of my journey going forward. Alongside that, I'll be sharing some musings on cricket, horses and boxing.
Thanks again and don't forget to reach out to any of us on the Discord forums!
