Hello everyone. I’ve had a real rollercoaster of emotions this trading week. And I’ll be honest, it’s mostly been downs rather than ups. On a sidenote and thinking a little deeper on the roller coaster analogy, for ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ – if you’re ‘down’ emotionally that means you’re not in a good place. But on a roller coaster, going down (to me anyway) is the best bit – you’re typically going really fast and enjoying the brief thrill of excitement. However, going ‘up’ on a roller coaster is the boring bit. But being ‘up’ emotionally paints a picture that you’re happy and enjoying life. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that my emotions and trading was pretty down in the dumps this week. i.e. not good. I experienced a loss of £81, but don’t worry as I’m not too down as this could very easily have been a lot better had I not been a bit of a knob. Here’s a screenshot of some of my trades for week 6:

So what went wrong then? Well, you’ll noticed a deficit of £56 at the bottom of the screen for the Everton vs Peterborough FA Cup game on Thursday (9th January). I decided to have a “fun” bet and lay the 2-0 scoreline, as I didn’t think Everton would score two goals, and that Peterborough would have possibly scored a goal. Also the odds of around 6.6 looked decent enough value for me to lay. Obviously I was gutted when Everton scored that late second goal, but I could have lessened the red by either cashing out earlier in the game, or by placing a counter-bet in a different market e.g. the over 1.5 market. Ultimately though, I could have avoided the red altogether by sticking to my plan and not do any “fun” trades that don’t form part of my plan!

Secondly, there is also an amount of £3.92 that I won on the Genoa vs Parma game on the Sunday (12th January). I did look at this as it seemed a low amount considering what I staked on it and the odds of the winning correct score, which I think was around 9s. When I dug a little deeper I found out that only £2 was taken of my £6 stake. With hindsight, once I placed my trades I should have ensured that all stakes were taken before moving onto the next trade. So this was all my fault and it looks like I missed out on an additional £32 worth of profit. Taking both these scenarios into account, I could well have found myself ever so slightly in the green for trading week 6. So I’m taking this away as a stark lesson for me to learn from, but also not to beat myself up too much as it could have been so different.

Anyway, here’s my weekly P&L so far, and what my P&L journey looks like so far:

Yes, this doesn’t look good, but I know that I’ve made a few mistakes which means it’s not as bad as it looks. It could be better. I need to cut out the mistakes and be a bit more professional about my trading. This downward slope I think will be taking a little upturn soon, I’m sure. I just need to keep the faith and carry on. What I will say is that I’ve struggled this week. Especially on Saturday and early Sunday. It was only after results turned around that I felt in a better place. I’ll have a think about putting my thoughts down in a separate blog post about this. It won’t be anything massive, but it’ll be something that may resonate with a few of you and hopefully prove to be useful.

Good luck with your trading peeps, and may the Lord be with you…always!