Tuesday 18 August 2009

Grid v Ladder

When I first started to look at the multitude of trading videos that are available on the web, my attention span when watching these appeared to be minimal - this was mainly down to the fact that they were always shown in the ladder format. Now, at this stage having only ever used Betfair itself, this ladder layout appeared totally alien to me, and I found it hard to relate it to the usual Betfair grid style.

It was soon apparent that to trade with a tad of success, some trading software was required.

After trialling a number of packages, I opted for Fairbot. A sensible piece of kit, especially for the junior trader, and it gets the thumbs up from me.

Having got to grips with it's functionality, I decided to start trading. Initially, not knowing any different I started to use the grid interface - after all it looked liked Betfair, and that was what I was used to.

Then one day I decided to see what all the fuss was about with the ladder interface - to my surprise having spent some time now market watching in the grid layout, it soon became clear that you got a far better visual representation of the movement of the market in the ladder.


As they say what goes up must come down - well it's kind of true when looking at the markets. If a horses price is coming in (i.e. odds shortening), then some of the other horses must be going out (i.e. odds increasing). With the ladder view, you can see this price movement very clearly, and it is by monitoring this movement you can make you trades, hopefully getting in and out whilst the market is still moving in your chosen direction, and greening up for a profit.

My advice to all beginners is, learn to use the ladder, the ladder is your friend...

1 comment:

  1. I fully agree Jockey, Ladders show movements more clearly than the grid, Nice one.

    There is a video over on the racingtraders forum/website where the Badger is shown using the grid in RacingTrader to great effect.

    Ron

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