Hello peeps, I hope everything is alright and you’re doing well. I’m doing okay, and enjoying the footy at the Euros. Actually, that’s a lie, it’s been shite. I’m staying away from doing my own trades at the Euros, but I have decided to follow a tipster who seems to be have done well in previous tournaments. This was following a recommendation from Ian Erskine at FTS. I thought to myself, ‘why not’. It takes the pressure off doing my own selections, and keeps my interest in the Euros to other teams, and not just following England or Scotland. They’re currently a few points down, but the outright bets are looking good so hopefully they come in. Apparently the person achieved 17pts in the last major tournament, so if I can gain a few points this Summer to put towards my trading bank for the 2024-25 season, then I’m all for it. Which leads me nicely onto the second big lesson I learnt from my trading last season – ensuring I have a large enough trading bank!

Going into the new season I did have a good bank behind me (approx. £700+) which I thought would cover a good number of losses if need be. What I didn’t envisage was a total collapse of one of the new strategies I was employing and this hit the trading bank hard. I probably kept on with the new strategy a little too long, but I’ve always thought it’s tricky to judge when to keep going with a system and when to cut your losses.

Because the trading bank was reduced considerably, I then made the decision to lower my stakes from £25 to £10 so that I could keep in the game longer. This decision was made when I was £722 in the red and my trading bank was reduced to virtually nothing. Had I not decided to reduce my stakes due to a reduced bank, I would have possibly made £855 from then until the end of the season. Instead I made £342. That’s over £500 difference!

This just goes to show one of the biggest issues you can come across when you’re not trading with a proper bank. By not having a proper bank, it can have a massive psychological effect on your trading. But more importantly, and as witnessed by myself, it can affect the value of the trading stake being used. For myself this came at a crucial time. I reduced my stakes just as the variance of my strategies went in my favour. And as seen, this cost me big time. Had I kept at the level I had traded at all season, it would have made a losing season into a profitable season.

So what am I going to do for next season? Well, I’m going to make sure that next I’ve got a bank together that covers 20 times my stake being used. This may seem too small to some, and too big for others. But the way I’ve calculated this is to find out the largest losing run I can typically expect, and this is apparently a losing run of 10 trades, and multiply this by 2. So this should realistically be covered. I’d be terribly, terribly unlucky if I went on a 20 trades losing streak! Fingers crossed I’ll take this valuable lesson learnt into next season.

Right peeps, I’m getting off. Hopefully I’ll post the third and final lesson learnt from last season sooner rather than later. And Fingers crossed for an England win on Wednesday. Good luck if you’re trading. And may the Lord be with you. Always!