Topic: Husband does not want me to Day Trade BTC but it works well for some, right? - page 2. (Read 8605 times)

One wrong move and you could be waiting for that drop that will never come and you will be left watching bitcoin increase all the while knowing that as it increases, you're loosing money. There is then the mental challenge of either cut your loss or wait for a drop. I did try trading back at ~$18 and lost over $1k (which is a lot to me). I sold and put a by order in which never came.

It's not just technology that is a risk, there are also a number of other unknowns with Bitcoin.

Government and banking regulations for one.  Competition from other cryptocurrencies - including currencies and systems that havent yet appeared on the scene. Some could potentially have large backers.

Where would this this leave the Bitcoin market? No one knows for sure.

If you're good at it, yes.  But for every time someone takes candy from a baby, there's the baby getting the candy taken.  Those are the Greater Fools who bought in at $250, who suck at short-term trading.

Don't be the baby in the equation.

With the current volatility in the Bitcoin market, making profits in short-term trading is as easy as taking candy from a baby. 

A word of advice to anyone contemplating short-term trading is to try and forget about making simultaneous profits from long-term investment holding the coins, as the two strategies are generally mutually exclusive, the psychology one will interfere in the strategy needed for the other.

i have increased my BTC holdings by 100% since i first bought litecoins earlier this year. 

my suggestion is to focus on trading alt currencies such as LTC, FTC.  convert a certain percentage of your BTC and diversify, that way you will continue to gain if LTC goes up and BTC goes down, etc. 

Well doesn't hurt to Dollar cost average it for example I was pondering selling at 130 my base is 90 now its dropping back to 100 but thinking back could have bought in at a lower price and then bought out at that higher price a few days back
But I valued my day trading potential gains in total bitcoins over buying at a lower price so it really depends on your preferences.
I don't really plan on selling either so I prefer making day trades.
A Weaker currency means more bitcoins to buy the same thing means deflation helps in the appreciation of net bitcoins if the currency appreciates again you have more bitcoins than before, but selling out for a profit is never a bad idea either my strategy is more risky if the price does not re-appreciate quickly and keeps dropping then my price is high compared to when i bought it. So really depends on your risk tolerance and investment horizon my two cents

Which, of course, I did.


Using the exchanges just as exchanges, you only pay transaction fees on that exchange, not as in day trading, where you pay the fees again and again and again any time you make a trade, generally in the same commodity.  So instead of only paying fees once or twice, when you cash in or out, you're paying them repeatedly.  This can be hundreds of times in a year, especially if your basic strategy is trying to profit on very short-term trends, which in Bitcoin are often hour-by-hour or even minute-by-minute.

We were thinking of buying some Litcoins.  We are supposed to be getting a small amount of money back from the Bitfloor account because they closed suddenly.  Have not seen it yet.  Sigh.  Hopefully they follow through.  If they do, it will go straight to LTC.   Knowing our luck, it will be after MtGox adds it and the price will skyrocket before we get in.   Oh well.  We really don't have much cash laying around right now. and it is painful to throw more money in, especially when BTC has been on a wild ride this past month. Granted we could sell BTC but husband wants to buy and hold, as I stated before.

Also, I tried day trading just $20 or so and did not make anything.  In fact, I lost a buck or two.  It is not as easy as it sounds at first glance.  Especially when I accidently put a sell order instead of an ask order on MtGox.  Trading is not for blonds.    Should I tell husband he was right?  He LOVES it when I say that.   

I would have another suggestion: Buying a small amount of alt coins.

It is the feeling of "real" money, when playing the LTC/USD or NMC/BTC pair, but you can get in with a substantially low amount of money. I personally started with one litecoin.

I have learnt in poker that even having 4$ on the table in 0.01/0.02 on the table have been vastly different in terms of psychology. I dominated play money and lost my whole bankroll of 50$ within 2-3 weeks when I started out. People get greedy with the tiniest amount

What about running simulated trades for a day, a week, a month?

It's pretty common advice for anyone entering trading to work on a demo account for a few months before moving to live trading. There are real differences in psychology between a simulated trade and a live trade, but practicing your analysis and evaluating the quality of your decisions with 0 risk seems like a no-brainer.

Here is an article on setting up a forex trading journal: http://www.learntotradethemarket.com/forex-trading-tools/a-forex-trading-journal-to-track-your-trading-performance

Hope this helps. This is a great conversation.

Well, I would say that the best poker player will often turn that down, considering that the other guy likely does not have any bankroll at all. And then again, using your whole bankroll... apart from a few maniacs, who would agree to that? The crazy australian and the swedish guy that dominates Omaha, those are the only two i could think of...




Which reminds me, I think I should get a few programmers and lawyers together for a group and run a startup that creates an exchange...



That is the actual beauty. The in and outflow makes for most of the fun. Day Traders against each other is a war, but the money coming in from the outside is what makes the game interesting.

He is not correct, because if you want to count everything you have to count the people using the exchanges not for day trading, but just as exchanges, which is another flow (in and out) of money.

You are correct.

This is sort of like saying if you're the best poker player in the world, you should never turn down an option to play against the worst for your whole bankroll.  Most people aren't that person, though, and even the best get unlucky.

Yes, there are good day traders, just as there are good poker players, and some of these consistently make a profit.  However, when you're basically betting on hour-to-hour price shifts, and frequently buying and selling, you don't just have to beat the market.  You have to beat the combined transaction fees from the exchanges as well.  You don't just have to be better than the market, you have to be better than the market plus a constant stream of transaction fees.

This is basically the definition of a negative-sum game.  While those who make infrequent but large transactions also pay fees, they are basically negligible in comparison to the size of the transaction.  When you day trade, this overhead or "rake" becomes exorbitant.  While you only have to be reasonably intelligent to make money in the mid-term or long-term dealing in Bitcoin, which is likely to increase in value for the foreseeable future, you have to be way ahead of the curve to expect to profit as a day-trader.

I sold out some at $170 or so, when the price was spiking, and felt mildly foolish when it went to $266.  But if I'd waited for the peak, I probably wouldn't have even been able to sell when it started crashing, because most of the exchanges suspended trading or were simply too incompetent to maintain their operations with heavy trading (MtGox I'm looking at you).  There was a frenzy of panicked idiots basically trading blind with no reliable ticker value for the commodity.

Note, this is a problem you don't even see in normal day trading, but has happened during both major bubbles because the idiots running the exchanges are basically amateur hour assholes. 

I think in the current situation, being very cautious is better than trying to eke out every last cent of expected value, unless you are the best of the best at day-trading (with BTC this can basically be hour-trading or even minute-trading).  The vast majority of people aren't.

Those who are here and asking for advice almost certainly aren't.  If they were, they wouldn't even care about our opinions.

Post. Of. The. Thread.  +1

This has been a pet peeve topic of mine and you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that it's dumb to just buy and hold if you don't have to.  If you are able to sit and watch the market at any time, it is just a really BAD strategy to just hold no matter what.  Risk and reward changes by the second and sometimes it's obvious you should sell (or buy back).

The most glaring example is the bubble run up to $230.  It peaked and then slowly dropped from there over many hours and if you were sitting there watching it, it would be crazy not to sell. It pretty much dropped in a straight line down over $100 in value. 

Of course if you sell at $200 and buy back at $50, then you end up with 4x as many BTC in the end.  And even if you can't time it perfectly you could easily doubled your position.

Some people say when BTC is $1000, it won't matter what you bought at but of course that is absurd.  IF you end up with 10x as much, it matters and also every dollar counts to some people.

Anyway I would start off by daytrading a small part of your position...say 10 or 20%.  Show your hubby that you can can grow it and also reduce risk and maybe he will go along with the plan.

I suggest you study the basics of technical analysis and charting...just the very basic will do wonders.  Good luck.

In general, if you have to ask, then no.

Having traded for over a decade on the (real) markets though, I will say that the cryptocurrency markets are more similar to the pre-2000 markets during the Internet bubble than today's algo-controlled markets. Much more directional, less (relative) churning, etc. It's a refreshing change of pace from the stock markets of today where robots fight over fractions of a penny and ignore everything else (in fact, "noise" is actually a weapon used by Wall street firms to confuse other firms), in part because exchanges that exist today suck too much for millsecond-trading platforms to possibly function at all.

Here's a nice picture of the crap the modern-day (human) traders have to deal with. Glad I'm no longer daytrading. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/destructive-destruction-ecological-study-high-frequency-trading http://www.zerohedge.com/news/charting-unprecedented-hft-driven-rise-intraday-trading-volatility

I don't trade BTC, but I do trade stocks. When I got into a few years ago, I read up on day-trading, long-term trends, market psychology, etc. I came to conclude that day-trading is much too risky. I assume that if I trade properly, I might get at least 10% ROI over a long period of time. By day-trading, I am putting much more on the line and I will greatly lose profits. Not worth it to compete against computers.

I say hold it. I also suggest you set an escape price or sell price at which you are comfortable. People who double down usually lose much more. And the more lemmings that sell off, the greater the price will fall. Might want to check out some books on market psychology to see the stupid things we do.

Simple solution: split the money in two. You control one half, he controls the other. The one who wins the most gets to tease the other one afterwards  

Avoid day trading. I am 10 btc poorer from day trading