lesson 1. dont risk more then you can lose/live without for a long period of time EG imagine you spend $25 a week on fast food.. ($100 a month, $1200 a year)
many people wont care to lose $1200 because in reality that amount just ends up as 52 bowel movements and flushed down the toilet.
so lets use that $1200 figure as a yearly investment
if the price of BTC appears at a healthy all time LOW, its a good time to buy.. NEVER buy when its near a all time HIGH.
next dont have it in mind that you will day trade, and then hold out to only sell when you see 50%+ profit
instead notice the charts and you will see there are healthier less risky 1%(~$80) swings happning more frequently/hourly
take this week.. prices move from $6900-$7700(10%) in just a few hours
so lets say you have $1200 dont throw it all into one order.. risk only 10% per order. (emphasis: dont throw all $1200 into one order)
even if you put in $120 at $6900 and sell for $7600. thats $12 profit
if you done that 3 times a day,($36).. 7 days a week ($252) within 5 weeks you will have $1200 EXTRA, just by playing with one allotment of $120
why is this important.
imagine you bought $120 of bitcoin at $6900.. but then the price went down.. well you have 9 other 'allotments' of $120 to buy at the next cheapest price.
so you leave the first allotment to sell at $7600 and then use another allotment at the new low. then set that at a 10% profit point
or be even more risk adverse
buy $12-$120 of btc and sell even faster at 1-5% variance and repeat more often .. yes it soon all adds up, and your taking less risk because you then have more spare allotments if the price goes down, and your not waiting as long for the price to go up, because your selling at a less higher %
again dont think a one time trade for huge profit. think little and often and it addsl up over the year. the total will end up being more than $2400 returns without having to wait for one order to go to $10k-$14k/btc
EG
$12 with a 1% variance per hour = 24%($2.88 a day from one $12 allotment) or $28.80 profit a day if you have play with $120.. or $288 if you are using all 10 allotments of $120
which over a year.. well
only using 1% of your funds ($12) to make 1% rinse anad repeat profits multiple times a day($2.88) =$1055 profit next year.. from just 1% of funds at 1% per trade.. while not risking all of the rest of your funds
.. there is alot of psychology involved in it. and also controlling your greed by NOT thinking you can make even more buy increasing either how much you put per order line or increase the % before your willing to sell.
many traders if their entire investment is $1200 would never make an order of 0.17btc, and its why you see alot of order lines of 0.0017 or at most 0.017btc (as an example of todays prices and the investment example amount) because many of them small order lines are all one person that split his stash up
in short
1. dont throw $1200 into an order and wait a year hoping to turn $1200 into $2400 by waiting for todays $7k/btc to rise to $14k/btc
2. dont throw $1200 into an order and wait for weeks/months for 50% by waiting for $10k/btc
3. buy $120 of btc and sell for 10% high a couple times a day/week, knowing if the price drops you still have spare cash to buy the new discounts
or if you want to really day trade(multi trade per day)
4. only using 1% of your funds ($12) to make 1% profits rinse and repeat multiple times a day
last lesson. dont forget the trade fee.. if a buy fee is 0.25% and a sell fee is 0.25%.. and you want to do many 1% profit trades(day trading) set your sell price as 1.515% above the price you bought at (as a rough guide) to cover fee costs
edit: while writing this the price moved more than 1% in 10 minutes
Actually, this post can answer the OP question. This also gives me an insight into how to trade wisely.
Sometimes I got frustrated when following the price chart every day. I think its time to do this advice more intense.