Don't Let Go of the Ladder!

I traded 16 races yesterday and all went well except for two mistakes, one of which proved costly. Thankfully the absolute loss incurred was small as I am only trading a small "tester" bank of $100 Canadian (about £56), however as a percentage of capital the loss was significant. The lessons learned came in the 18:00 at Nottingham. My first mistake was even trying to trade the race as my immediate reaction when I opened the market was - too many runners, market leaders are long odds, and too little money spread around. I should simply have shut the market down and waited for the next race. Instead I sat and watched. I eventually bet $80 @ 8.2 (yeah I know!) on Racoon and went to lay back at 8.0 but then saw the WOM (Weight of Money) and decided to try to nick 7.8. Next thing I know I am staring at 8.2, 8.4, 8.6, 8.8, 9.0. Now I should mention the other lesson here and the reason for the title of this posting - I was sitting in the "Grid" interface of BetTrader Pro rather than the proper trading "Ladder" interface! This makes it slower to exit a trade and thus easier to keep missing exit points when there's strong market momentum. That is what kept happening. Eventually I just clicked on the hedge button when the price hit 9.0, BUT... the hedge function was still at it's default to use the last traded price so a lay was entered at 9.0 rather than 9.2, and as you can imagine there wasn't much price action at 9.0. At this point the market was pressing home my errors in the harshest manner by rocketing ever upward. I eventually got out at 11.5!! My loss was $22.92. The other loss I mentioned earlier was also greatly magnified by my use of the "Grid" rather than the "Ladder" interface.

The honest truth is I was getting low on my free trial minutes (which only deplete when using the ladder interface) and was simply trying to save them. How stupid is that?! I saved the minutes alright, but I lost probably 17.5% more of my bank than I would have if I'd had the benefit of the fast exiting one-click functionality of the ladder!

So my lessons from the day were:

1. For fast moving markets like horseracing, NEVER trade using anything other than the ladder interface

2. Be more cautious of the markets (and the horses within those markets) you choose to trade