With just 5% of new traders succeeding, it’s wise to get off on the right foot, failure hurts.

It’s not unusual for new traders to feel as though they’re quite lost when starting out. Learning to trade from a position of being uninformed is less than ideal.

In this article, we’re going to cover 15 separate points to set you off in the right direction.

They’re sort and sharp, so be sure to savour the best points…

1) Sensitivity

This is absolutely paramount. You’d be a fool to ignore it. Every new trader should start on their own feelings and emotions immediately.

Just by knowing what you are sensitive to, what makes you tick, and what is likely to evoke an emotional response is a monstrous advantage.

I can guarantee you now; by understanding yourself fully, you’re far less likely to make those foolish erratic mistakes.

2) The Worst Case:

Learning to trade isn’t a fast experience. There’s going to be many peaks and troughs with much to learn.

However, there is one thing that you can do before you even start. That is, plan for worst-case eventualities (within the moment). It’s one of those things that doesn’t require any trading knowledge or skill.

For example:

• What if your internet connection goes down?
• What if Betfair’s exchange crashes?
• What are you going to do?
• How are you going to deal with it?
• How are you going to hedge a potentially open position?

Prepare for the worst case and it won’t hurt anywhere near as much if it happens. Trust me, I’ve learnt the hard way over the years…

3) Learn to Read Graphs Properly…

I’m not talking about developing an obsession with the Betfair charts and graphs here. In fact, being able to read graphs alone is not going to make you a millionaire overnight. Nonetheless, successful trading means making good decisions. You can’t make a good decision if you don’t understand what is happening, either in the betting market right now or previously in the past. Graphs are a quick and simple way to get an overview and insight as to market activity.

It’s a deep topic, so there’s a short-form post to read here. Failing that, you may want to check out the product store.

4) The Sum of Five:

A hot topic that’s been discussed all around the world, no matter what path you are embarking on. You are a direct product of the people you surround yourself with. I’m not sure if I agree totally that the closest five complete who you are.

However, in trading, there’s going to be many people that do not believe in what you are doing. Both in and outside trading circles.

For that reason, it makes sense to be very selective as to who you surround yourself with. Or at the very least – who you engage with whilst talking about trading.

As the saying goes; 

“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”

5) Go Deep!

A trader’s job is to be quite analytical. Understanding and exploiting biases within a betting market is a huge topic. It just makes sense to go deep…

When I say this, I mean be specific in what you are doing. It’s common sense, but those who succeed often went that bit further. To be all informed is quite a specialist thing. Approaching a situation quite broadly doesn’t make sense, especially when you consider how man variables contribute to a live betting market – 100’s if not 1,000’s.

6) Money Management:

One of those no-brainers, but it had to feature, didn’t it?

Trading successfully is all about managing risk.

If you take care of the potential downside and consistently put yourself in situations where the upturn is greater, you will win. There is no two ways about it. You should set out from the beginning taking great care at managing your own trading money. It’s all too easy to start clicking around exchanging red and green numbers like it’s not real cash. Others have suggested stacking up physical money on the table whilst trading. When you lose, push some away, and when you win draw it close. I haven’t tried it, although it makes sense on some levels…

7) Best Programs:

As I said in point one, trading is not an overnight activity. It makes sense to get the right Betfair trading software in the first place. You don’t want to be changing and mixing up the tools and interface you are using. Get comfortable early.

To do that, the best advice would be to pause, look around, see what’s available. What fits your approach? and what you hope to achieve from the betting markets?

Each of the software’s have their own pros and cons. Save yourself some time and get it right the first time. There are a handful of software reviews on the YouTube channel here.

8) Defend It!:

A manual trader’s confidence is paramount and so is your job to defend it in all instances. Avoiding the slippery slope of negative thinking will assist you in keeping consistent results.

One of the nasty truths about successful traders have gone bad has often been a case of losing confidence with their approach and then amplified further by more negative thinking.

As always, prevention is better than cure.

9) Meticulous Detail:

Similarly to points three and five, if you’re not keeping results and analysing where you went wrong, how to improve, and what you should avoid, there’s not much point. You won’t be able to see the wood for the trees.

With meticulous results keeping, it becomes a lot easier to make progress and go forward, strengthening your own trading confidence in the process. It’s a no-brainer.

8) Launch Sequence:

Before every trading session, it’s good to have a small sequence that you carry out religiously. In doing so, you’ll be operating from the same position, more or less, every single time you start to trade.

You may even notice, over time, certain elements that you can tweak and improve to get you off to the best possible start. Not only this, but it’s also a consistent position to operate from, making results comparable.

9) Minimal Pain:

Something we get emails about every single week, but the reality is, it doesn’t need to happen.

Learning to trade doesn’t have to be expensive. You can start on extremely small stakes or even training mode. Only once you find those consistent biases within the market, start to understand yourself, how you’re operating within the market and know you’re profitable should you then increase your stakes.

Some simple, but commonly ignored advice. Learn and fail on small stakes and then increase them once you’re successful and not before.

10) Learn for Free:

Many traders turn their nose up when there’s talk of matched betting and the like. But the reality is, you can get your first trading bank for FREE. I would advise doing that by exploiting as many bookmakers offer as possible.

Of course, it’s not going to be a get-rich-quick scheme. However, it will provide you with your first few hundred-pound trading bank for absolutely nothing, except the small amount of your time. Why not swallow your pride for a short while to get off on the right foot?

11) Humble Patience:

There is not a lot of explanation required for this one, but the markets are unforgiving and they’re not going to change any time soon for you. The most painless route to learn to trade is a humble and patient one.

You have to allow the betting markets to do the work for you. After all, that’s half of the beauty with learning to trade. It’s no secret that the impatient and irrational will get delivered painful blow after blow by the market. Don’t allow that to be you.

Anything less than being patient is just another expression of emotion within your trading, think about it.

12) Future Success:

Providing you’re taking this seriously and intend on being one of the successful few, it makes sense to plan ahead early on.

Of course, I’m talking about additional charges, such as the premium charge. If you don’t know what that is, see this link.

Looking further down the line (early on) is going to work in your favour. I’m not talking about doing anything untoward, but doing all you can to pay the minimum charges just makes sense.

Finally…

13) Don’t Give Up:

it’s time to close this article in a similar fashion to the way it opened. Trading is not an overnight cash-grab. So prepare yourself for the longer term, be realistic, follow the previous points and make a commitment to yourself now, assuming you’re serious about this.

By deciding earlier on that you’re not going to give up, it will change your behaviour en route, of which, as far as I can see, only positive can come.

I’m still yet to find a successful trader that won’t agree the following quote is an important one whilst learning to beat your craft.

Many of life’s failures never knew how close they were to success when they gave up -Thomas Edison

That’s it. Some short, sharp, commonsense advice. Sadly, I’m sure the majority of young traders will still make some of these mistakes, but if you can just take away a few of them and implement them into your learning, it’s likely to be less painful.

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