Hunting for Profit

On the 4^th November I attended the latest “Hunting for Profit” (HFP) In-Running trading course run by Matt Gibson.

The course was from 9.30 am till about 5.00 pm and I didn’t fancy driving all the way to Doncaster very early in the morning, so I went up the evening before and stayed one night in a hotel nearby.

A large percentage of the other attendees did the same and we all met Matt in the hotel bar for a drink and a chat which was nice.

Everyone on the course that I spoke to was nice and friendly. I think we were all pretty much in the same boat ability wise, in so much as we’d all got some experience in trading, but no one was claiming to be hugely successful at it. Most had gotten their fingers burnt trying to learn pre-race before moving on to in-running.

I would guess also that we’d all probably had a similar amounts of screen time as although some had traded for several years more than me many had F/T jobs so they only trade evenings and weekends. I know how lucky I am to work from home and have freedom to trade virtually every day.

I think almost everyone in the room had attended at least one other trading course at some point. Most had done training with Steve Howes, Peter Webb or Tony Hargraves (TH).

There is a case to be made for sticking to something till you master it rather than constantly chopping and changing strategies. However where pre-race is concerned I’ll happily admit I’m not good enough now nor will I ever be to trade pre-race and make an income from it. So, continuing to throw good money after bad is bordering on insanity.

I switched to In-Running at the end of April 2019 and although I continued to lose, my losses have reduced month on month. I lost just £56 in October, trading over 600 races. (You can read my Blog update for October here.)

I now know that In-Running is my best chance of trading success, so I plan to stick to it. I also enjoy it a lot more than pre-race which always helps.

I feel fairly certain that I would have made a profit in November if I’d continued with what I’d learned from TH’s “In-Running Guide”.  

Based on that fact, why you might ask did I pay to go on a different In-Running course?

Well I have a thirst for In-Running knowledge and although I had no real idea what Matts technique was, I was told it was totally different from the way I’d been shown by TH. So I thought it would give me a different perspective and maybe add something to my trading tool kit.

Having attended the course I can confirm that it certainly is totally different. Matt guards his methods carefully and everyone attending the course signs in blood to say they won’t reveal his techniques, so I’ll respect that and not give any indication as to his strategies here.

Although I found it alien to what I’d learned previously I fully intend to give it my 100% attention for decent trial period.

You can’t really judge anything on a small sample size as the results can be massively out of line due to the odd freak result, so I will not make a decision until after I’ve traded at least 200 – 300 races.

Using the TH method, I was trading 600+ races a month with the amount of screen time I get but with the HFP method I think I’ll be trading a lot less races so doing 200 races will probably take over a month.

I will obviously track my results and see how it goes. After that initial 200 races I’ll be in a much better position to assess which method/style of In-Running trading will suit me best.

At this point in time I have an open mind and no particular preference. To be honest if Genghis Khan could show me a method of trading where I could win £1,000+ a month I’d happily take it.

How I plan to implement the HFP method

I will not be diving in headfirst with the HFP method, I plan on taking it slowly. It’s taken me 10 months to get to where I am now so another month or two taking things slowly won’t hurt.

In all honesty there is a lot to take in and with the best will in the world you cannot attend any one-day trading course get home and expect to suddenly become a massive winner. Matt showed us his techniques but seeing the technique and turning that into a skill takes many hours of practise, further ongoing study and reviewing your progress.

My first day back Tuesday and I didn’t trade at all and I may not do today Wednesday either. The reason being that Matt sent all the people on the course full access to 300 videos of trades and Webinars etc and I plan on working my way through them over the next week or so.

I don’t intend to use training mode when I start to trade the HFP method but I will be using very small stakes and NOT placing any trade into most races. I intend to just watch the race unfold and see if I can spot opportunities that I feel Matt would be trading.

Post Course Support

After attending the course, we all get access to the skype group so I will be able to see what the experienced members are saying about each race.  One of the best things about the course isn’t the actual course itself but the after-care service.

Apart from daily pointers and full access to hundreds of hours of training material you are able to ask Matt questions in the group or 1:1 and also if you want to record your screen while you are trading Matt will review it and give feedback. That is a terrific way to help anyone improve.

Just doing something will improve you but to really make significant gains you need to take time to analyse your performance and be able to spot opportunities to improve and work on them. (I was a staff trainer for 20 years so I strongly believe in training and development as a way to success)

About ten years ago I interviewed one of the UK’s most successful online poker players and when I asked him how he became so successful he said that initially he spent 80% of his time watching poker training videos, reading strategy books and reviewing his own play and only 20% of the time actually playing poker. As he got better and better the percentage changed but even when he was hugely successful, he was only playing poker 80% of the time and still spending 20% of his time working to improve his game. The minute your ability stands still you are in reality going backwards because so many others will be improving.  

I know I can’t be that patient, (80/20) but I do want to try and take baby steps initially as I don’t want to make the kind of mistakes I did when I first tried to trade pre-race.

I will post an update as soon as I have anything to report.

Resources

The image used of the training room was taken from the HFP Facebook page.

If you want to read someone else’s blog post about the training course visit the Green Filly blog here.