The final of the 3 days… here’s how it went.
Day 3 Result:
After a stressful second day, feeling a little disappointed with the result I went at it relatively hard. It took me a little while to settle in but on the whole, things were smooth. As you might expect, Sandown took most of the media focus and produced some fluid markets. I slogged away for the afternoon, and in truth, started to get a little bored with the challenge. It was good to have a fair run at the day though without the distractions of dentists and web problems!
Achievements
We’ll get on to the day’s results in a moment, but I’m relatively happy with these little challenges and achievements. The feedback has been positive and it’s highlighted a few important things. As per the first post, it’s fair to say it’s shown the answers to those 3 basic questions. Also, it highlights that you don’t need a monstrous balance to do it! With a little discipline, repetition and focus it’s possible to build a half-decent return.
Targets
One thing this experience did highlight more than anything; is that targets and pressure aren’t helpful. So next time you’re thinking about setting that lofty goal or pushing for that little more. Remember; you could be setting yourself up for a fall. In fact, this little project made me think about the pressure I sometimes put on myself, even now.
Change of Scene
While it was nice to do something a little different. I did start to get a little bored in places, having a smaller bank is an advantage in some ways, but not in others. As one reader pointed out – you can get stakes matched and be in the market for a little longer on smaller stakes, turning them over repetitively. But on the other side of the coin, it becomes harder when you can’t leave so many unmatched bets sitting around in opportune places.
Now day 3, the results…
Complete:
On the whole, the challenge wasn’t too bad, with a bank increase of 48.74% overall.
Day 1 – £86.61
Day 2 – £31.01
Day 3 – £77.35
Total: 194.97
And just for the conspiracy theorists that say I had a bigger bank; a clip showing no other deposits since the original post here.
25 thoughts on “£400 Bank Challenge: Day 3 Results…”
And that’s a wrap!
You have proved that with the experience and discipline that it is possible to make decent returns from a small bank.
Obviously it’s not an exact science, but if you increased the bank to £500 and consistently achieved that amount during the year, even after 20% PC, you’d still be making more than the national average wage.
Hope you have a good weekend – you’ve earnt your Saturday night beer tonight!
Thanks, Chris.
Hello Caan, I’m honored to see your video on Youtube. It’s great! I’m from China. I’m interested in the Betfair market. I’m trying to learn how to do some quantitative trading with Python by myself. But I just came into contact with these things. I don’t really understand what I need to learn. Can you help me? Thank you. I hope to hear from you, a scholar from the ancient East.
Hi Caan
Did you reset your bank to £400 each day or did you keep the winnings in the bank on each day to give you a larger bank to play with for the following days?
As you quote your final results using “bank increase” rather than return on investment. Or you couldve said:
Day 1: +86.61, +21.7% return on £400 bank (new bank = £486.61)
Day 2: +31.01, +7.8% return on original bank £400 or +6.4% return on £486.61 (new bank £517.62)
Day 3: +77.35, +19.3% return on original bank £400 or +14.9% return on £517.62 (final bank +£594.97)
Based on these figures using a £64 daily average profit your monthly return would be:
Per month £1,408 (trading Tuesday to Saturday 5 days a week £64 x 22 days per month)
Per Annum £16,896 (5 days a week x52= 260 trading days) (Caans original target per year was £28,000)
and thats without compounding your bank as you go along thats just using your original bank of £400.
Is this achievable? In my eyes yes this is very achievable.
Hi Caan,
Most interesting little project – for us mere mortals anyway! 🙂
As you may recall from my past emails, I’ve ‘lent’ a lot of money to the markets over the past 2 years or so – 4 figure sums; of which I’m not proud, but from which I plan to learn! Trading can have such a steep learning curve can’t it! 🙂
I’ve decided on – been forced in to more like(?) – taking a break from trading for a while and plan to return to start recouping my invested capital at the start of the next Flat Season.
During my ‘break’ I plan to use both another trader and your own experiences to help me more effectively manage my trading methods. My first goal is to control my gambler’s urge. There is absolutely NO reason why I should let a trade go in play – yet I still do. Like other habits from my adolescence, it may take some breaking, but I’m sure I’ll prevail! LOL
In closing then, may I say ‘thanks’ for all the free info both yourself and another trader make available. Okay, cynics say that it is your way of ensuring that there is always sufficient liquidity available in the markets, but I say, we KNOW its hot in that there kitchen and if we can’t figure a way to stop us getting burned, then we shouldn’t be there in the first place! 🙂
All the best. Keep on keeping on – and I hope to take a few coppers off of both you and Mr. Webb next Flat season! 🙂
Make the most of that break 🙂 …good luck George!
you ignore graham 🙁 .. poor graham..
Nice job Caan, I can see a lot of the lessons arising in your little challenge which I have been learning myself. It’s easy to miss the importance of the subtle psychological factors that can play a part when setting goals. One of the toughest lessons I’ve observed recently is the tendency to want to over-stake in order to make a faster buck. When I keep the stakes small however, and the objectives humble, it’s easier to maintain a more sensible and consistent strategy over the long-term. In fact it’s surprising how much more quickly your bank grows over time when you remain conservative in your expectations.
To illustrate the point, a few weeks ago after a lot of consistent success with £5 stakes, I decided to up my gambits to £50 per trade. I ended up blowing a £450 bank in one day! With the remaining £50 left in my account I slept on it and the following day began trading with a fresh mind. I returned to my smaller stakes of £2, and over the course of the afternoon went no higher than £5. The result was that I doubled the original bank that afternoon, and went on to do the similar over the next few days.
As soon as the greed kicks in it all seems to go pear-shaped. Moral of the story; slow and steady profit is the way to go!
Hey Naz,
Sure. The psychological side of things is often the last that people master, but by far the most important once you reach that stage. It can really have huge impact on the overall results… be it over a week or month or even longer.
Cheers,
Caan
Hi.
Very inspiring and good to see with small bank as well do nice profit.Thx for share your tough.
No problems Mickey, things must be good for you! You’ve been following a long time.
Excellent project Caan, really pleased you’ve done this.
You mentioned you got a little bored on the third day? Is that normal for you? Or was it the stake size you found boring?
Cheers mate, thanks again.
Barry
Boredom creeps in from time to time for sure, although in this case it was down to the stakes as well yes.
Inspiring results there Caan, I was operating from a similar bank recently and as you know via email I went a little bit loopy in the markets, ‘cheese slid off the cracker’ you might say.
I’m still on a little break at the moment. Mastering the psychological aspect of trading, is a fierce battle. Doing a lot of reading and mental exercise in order to control emotional response to losses and wins.
Thank you for doing this little experiment as it just proves to me that, even with a small bank roll great returns are still there to be had. In time and with experience I do hope to be able to get similar results.
Keep it green!
Hey Leon,
Yes mate – answered your email!
Psychology is a huge part.
thanks for all your posts, nice to see the results from a small bank, Im still learning, but finally managing to quieten my gambling urge and have a run of all green days, making about 12%-15% increase on a small bank (about £200). Am finding when I start pushing to increase my return then the mistakes slip in.
Hey Ally, well done. That’s still a decent increase despite being a smaller bank!
Nice one Caan. Great project and reading. I too like many have started at £2 stakes gradually increasing to £50 with huge losses. Couldn’t understand why but a comfort that I’m not alone, I presume its the volume of loss which throws your mindset thus bailing out too early or go In play to recoup the loss! Gone back to £5 stakes with simple B2L & L2B with promising results not pulling trees up yet but baby steps. Cheers Simon.
Steady does it, Si.
Just starting out at the age of 68. Would be very happy with those figures.
Caan will you do the trading for me :0)……please ;@)
Regards
Steve
68, crikey! Most people your age are anti-computers… let alone trading. Good on ya, good luck!
I dont know if this helps people but when faced with a loss I would not be able to face it with thoughts like Oh no that will be the whole day gone of I accept this and then I would take it in play sometimes winning and sometimes losing but then when I lost it was bad …To cure it I did a strange thing which I thought of myself I upped the stakes to such an extent that I could not afford to go inplay cos of the big loss it would have made …guess what .. for me it has worked and now I take a loss but make it back on subsequent trades and end up overall with a good day .. not saying this is for everyone but your thoughts Caan ?
Verygood point about the kind of thoughts, Gary. I completely agree… doing that is a road to nowhere. Good to hear the positive results, have to do what works for you. As you say, if the stakes aren’t serious to you – it’s likely you’ll make bad decisions.
Thanks for this post it kind of makes me feel a bit better when trading horses you only ever see the big money being used as trades not a small bank kind of relates to most people starting out
Well done Caan!
Thank you for proving a point, this is something I have been saying and doing for years now!
You really don’t need a huge bank to make a living or nice side-income from trading…..
(Granted you need a decent bank, if you wanna earn £100k+ p.a.)
I wonder how many hours you actually worked for that £194.97??? I’m guessing 15 hours or less…. so many people work for the minimum wage of £8.72p.h., for doing hard graft, being bossed about by some idiot, then to be heavily taxed too….
Trading is a no-brainer from me….
Keep up the good work!
All the best,
Jay