Peaks And Valleys

A good comment from modestly named Average Guy, who in response to my comment that "At the end of the day, if you're the sort of person who has problems with discipline, you're unlikely to honestly report all your bets anyway." wrote this:

As usual very perceptive and accurate. My ranting BLOG stemmed from he belief that blogging would impose self discipline, how wrong was I? I don't report profits / losses any more as my selective amnesia meant I omitted the trades I preferred to forget. Don't know how your writing style has evolved as I'm a recent convert but further evolution is not necessary. Great work congrats on the 3 years.

The timing was almost prescient, since it coincided with one of my bigger disasters, and while I don't like to discuss numbers, either profits or losses, it occurred to me that readers of my blog possibly get the impression that I make steady profits each day, with barely a hiccup. In fact, while most days are profitable, those days are interspersed with the occasional disaster (defined here as a four figure loss). If you count the 'loss' of £1,400 I mentioned in the last post, I have now achieved the rare distinction of back-to-back disasters with the latest shown in the screenshot above. Fortunately, rare indeed, with the last time being May 2008 when I hit three disasters in four days, but it's at times like these when you look at the big picture and realise it's not so bad. I'm back to where I was on 7 March, so that's two wasted weeks in a way, but a lesson in sensible staking.

Yes, it's annoying, and there's always that feeling of 'if only' you hadn't bet, but you have to look at all the other days and see that 'if only' you hadn't bet on those days either, you'd be far worse off. If that statement isn't true, then you're not finding value. I really would prefer a smooth daily profit, but betting isn't like that.

I almost need the occasional slap on the wrist to stop me getting carried away. To use a topical allegory, in the same way that the further into distant memory the last tsunami was, the more we think it less likely there will be another one. While I prefer my reminders to be a little more gentle, in retrospect I was a little greedy.

I've been here before, and the process is that I scale back for a few days while I rebuild confidence and balance, then hit a new high, increase stakes, and inevitably, sooner or later, take another hit.

Remind me again - what was it I said about Thursdays a few days ago?