Important Information
Well day 3/6 on jinx week has passed without catastrophe. Yesterday wasn’t a great day by any means and I really fouled up on one race, but I’m still moving ahead on the week and hope for a better day today.
I’m always experimenting and there is no better way of doing that than directly in the market itself. I will always recommend this, as it’s the best way to really know what is really happening and how your actions shape the market. That’s important. You can back test and practice as much as you like but I can assure you actually doing it will always be different for one reason or another. This is why I recommend you get your hands dirty as quickly as you can.
I recently looked at a new strategy, gathered some data, tested it and then wrote a spreadsheet to put it to use. Spreadsheets are fantastic tools for trying out things with little effort. The end results can either confirm, confound or point you in a new direction. You can put some simple commands in and let Bet Angel do the rest throughout the day (or night) automatically. Some of the best ideas and understanding I have had, come from doing this. I was sure my new strategy would be net positive with a bit of tweaking. So I unleashed it on the market and promptly did my nuts, though my nuts were done in a very controlled manner. You may think that’s bad news, but for each negative on the exchange you will always find a positive.
I was a little perplexed, but not surprised, as it’s tricky to nail something on the first attempt. I carefully re-examined the data and checked my assumptions, they were OK. To eliminate confirmation bias, I handed the data to a third party and asked them to check it without telling them what they were looking for, that was OK. So, I had to dig around to learn what was different; eventually I found an answer.
In the data, I was measuring the strategy from a certain time forward; this time was variable. In the market I was using a fixed time. I had to do this as I wanted to carry on my ordinary activity while the spreadsheet pursued the new idea. It took a while to understand but the conclusion was inevitable, the time between the two fixed points contained important, predictive, information about the future of the market. This is something I hadn’t noticed before or had been quick to discount.
So, while one path is blocked, while heading down it I have noticed a gap in hedge I hadn’t spotted before. This leads to a new path and one I shall now enjoy exploring instead!
Category: General, Trading strategies
