Christmas Strains

One of the benefits of being a student trader is the large sum of capital which arrives in my bank at the beginning of each term. In October, I invested a small portion of it into my Betfair account and have used it to trade with since. As this has been my first 8 weeks or so at proper trading, and by that I mean trading with rules, strategies and proper targets, I am pleased that I have (with the small exception of last week) kept my discipline and not blown my entire bank. I can't remember whether I said before but if I was to blow my entire bank I wouldn't be able to start again (for financial reasons), so it is likely that my trading would come to a complete halt for a significant amount of time. In this time I have won myself over £400 in 6 weeks, an average of over £70 per week, which is pleasing given my £50 starting weekly target. Last week I had my first losing week, but given the previous week's profits it has not hurt me too much, as long as I draw from my mistakes to prevent such losses again I should be alright. I have also had many ideas for strategies and systems in this time, and some of these I am researching and perfecting as we speak, so hopefully they will prosper in the future.

The negative side to being a student however, is that it isn't strictly real life. Some weeks I will be more busy than others, I travel frequently to see friends/family/girlfriend and because of this I cannot always trade regularly. Due to the fact that I have no other form of income other than trading, money does tend to get tight towards the end of term (i.e. now). Not only this, but I have a very large family as well as a girlfriend and Christmas is definitely going to be a pricey one this year! Due to this, I have decided to temporarily downgrade the scale of my betting, as I am not in the business of betting my bottom dollar. I have withdrawn all my of Betfair bank but for £50, which I shall continue to trade with over the Christmas period. My hope is that I will preserve and build this £50 up so that come January, when I will return the money back to my betting bank, I will not need to invest as much. On top of this, I will be trying to win very small amounts with this money, so it will help me to re-establish the importance of small and gradual accumulation. If anyone thinks that I have copped out in any way, I am sorry but I genuinely am just skint! And I'm sure any of you would agree that your betting bank size should never be 100% of your actual bank size (which is almost was!)

Tonight I won't be doing anything, there isn't much on and I would just like to enjoy the Charlton-Huddersfield game to be honest. It's too tight to call for me and I am always wary of teams on long unbeaten streaks as it is too easy to get caught up in the hype of 'they will never lose'. I will have a look at the tasty Carling Cup ties tomorrow though. Why sky have scheduled Chelsea-Liverpool and Arsenal-City on at the same time is beyond me, a shame from a viewing perspective.

Lastly, I would just like to join the masses in sending my condolences to Gary Speed's family. I've always admired him as a player and manager and always thought he was one of football's good guys. Like anyone else, I really saw no clue that he was in anyway troubled which makes it sadder the thought that he was suffering in peace, whilst feeling as if he had to put on a brave face in public. It just goes to show how pathetic it is that we scrutinise and judge all of the players and others in the public eye, but really we know so little about their lives. It truly does make our everyday 'sufferings' (cold weather, work due in, a £100 loss) seem entirely pointless. R.I.P. Mr Speed.

Good day.