I am a little lost on how this works and need some direction. I have recently started trading altcoins, I am a business owner who has yet to invest in anything other than real estate which has recently became a losing battle in my area. I liquidated all real estate assets accept my private residence and decided to find a new investment, hence altcoin. I had no prior trading experience of any kind but I have always been rather computer literate and decided to give it a go. I don't really see the potential for high returns in day trading crypto, seems more like something a bachelor can do to support himself without working to hard for his money OR a decent supplemental income as a part time gig. If all I have to do is watch the swing of the market, buy red and sell green... beautiful. I can do my day job and play cryptos on the side. Now that your caught up with terribly unimportant and unrelated details to the post lets get started:
I began with $1000. I have not pumped any more into it yet, and I may have chosen a bad time to start (I am aware of Aug 1st but I have faith in BTC)?
I really only got into it on Monday of this week... so 5 days now.
I have been buying BTC on coinbase, sending too and trading on Poloniex (If anyone has a better way PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME)
I have made about 10 trades between LTC, ETH, XRP, XEM, and BURST ----- Fuck BURST, thats my biggest loser so far. (For all you math wizards yes thats only 5 cryptos and I said 10 trades... I have sold some already) .
Overall I have managed to maintain my initial investment of $1000, I guess I am down about $12 so far after xfer and trading fees. Being a complete noob I am rather satisfied with this performance, after all I knew before I started this would be a trial run with minimal investment to test market.
I am attempting to track all my trades using a CryptoCompare portfolio to monitor my P/L but for some reason the calculations I get on that site don't match what my calculator tells me. Heres my conundrum:
CryptoCompare says I have proffited about .0038 BTC but on the flip side I have LOST $56.00
My Poloniex account shows my holdings worth about $1009... (Real initial investment was $1020.00)
Is this because even though I have made trades which amassed more BTC then I invested the falling price is actually resulting in a loss?
Also the math they provide doesnt quite match, here is how I see it... correct me if I am wrong:
I bought 6.5 LTC for about .0187 BTC = .12155 BTC total, at a time when I bought the BTC for $2235 / BTC, that means I paid $271.66 for this LTC
I lose about .001 in fees on the buy so I have 6.499 LTC left. I sell the 6.499 LTC when they reach .0192 BTC per for a total of .1247808 BTC, BUT BTC IS DOWN TO $2195 at this time meaning I extract a total of $273.9.
In my world this means I either went +0.0032308 BTC or +$2.24
Its a profit either way, my CryptoCompare portfolio calls it a profit of .005135 BTC and a loss of $3 and change (acidentally closed page and dont want to open again for exact number)
Any ways you get the idea.... any help to offer? Am I doing bad math, looking at this wrong or just an idiot?
Any help is greatly appreciated, and also advice please! I really want to be good at this.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: I just noticed that CryptoCompare says my total profit in portfolio is .004067 BUT my profit on that 1 LTC transaction was .005135.... more than my entire portfolio?
So lost now.
EDIT 2: ignore previous edit, im dumb. the total is accounting for my BURST loss.... Fuck BURST.