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I am a college student looking to make a buck every once in a while trading crypto (mainly BTC). My portfolio is $500 of my savings so nothing big really. This is like a pilot project where I get to learn what is what and see if I can trade. I am considering going full time during summers and hopefully after finishing college if summers will have spared me. The question I am constantly facing is, how do you know when you should (or have to) sell? When the price is rising, I don't want to sell because... greed ––tbh. But again when the price is dropping, I don't wanna sell either... sometimes the price might be lower than when I bought. In general, I am bullish that the price will eventually rise and I will make a killing, so no need to hurry. But again, I don't want to be a hodler; I want to be a trader. How do you guys know when to sell?

The same approach for both: learn your subject, read, understand.

It's usually pretty obvious.  Go into a Crypto chat room.  Every 4 years you'll see people talking about buying helicopters and castles.  On the news they'll be showing you how to buy into crypto, sitcoms will be making episodes about it, you'll see that get rich quick friend on your facebook feed talking about how he's going to be a billionaire...

Just remember that short term trading is no different from gambling, and don't pretend it is anything else.  Also keep in mind the old wall street saying, "bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."

Learn the basics of buying low and sell high. I know greed is one of the reasons why you're thinking twice (if you're going to sell or wait and maybe the price will increase more). So change this attitude because it won't make you profit if you stay holding them.

Learn how to use stop-limit order and OCO function from binance(or other exchanges) to avoid losing and make a profit.

Here's a sample strategy below:

- I bought bitcoin at 8800.51 the current price right now is 8837.51 I'm going to set OCO/Stop-limit/stop-market function or any similar function where you can set the sell order to $9k and stop-limit to 8790 if the price touch on $9 USD it will trigger and sell the BTC to USDT and make you profit.
But if not and the price is going to drop below $8800 the stop-limit will trigger and sell it to 8790 before the burst price drop. So you can save your money from losing too much.

Doing this will make your profit higher than what you lose or you can set the stop-limit to 8800 value and lose 51 cents.
So, the trading function from Binance as a sample will give you advantages in trading.

Put on a reasonable price target, and stick with it. One of the hardest parts of trading is controlling your emotions(panic selling, fomo, etc), and that's definitely one of the things you need to control if you want to potentially be a decent trader. I really wouldn't suggest doing trading as a sort of "main job" though, but it's completely up to you.

Buy low sell high. Isn't that the entire concept of trading? Still, if you're planning to go for day trading, that involves difficulties since, well, you take what you can take. You take a point where you need to exit the market, two of them tbf. One is when the price drops to a certain point that any more would result in losses you can't take, and the other would be when you've achieved the profit you've wanted. The first is pretty easy to set, since well, you're losing after all. The second is the harder one cause greed sometimes gets in the way, so research is your uhh 1/2 answer to that. The other 1/2 would be entirely up to your decision making capability.

This is true, I am indeed enduring this for a while, Imagine losing more than $400 for just an overnight because the market crash really heart aching but since I am holding it I am just ignoring it. My bid isnt hit but its fine, hard to make a call when you dont have time to check every minute of market movement.


It is, but the very concept should refer to TA and when your dont find time to grasp or understand this, I suggest stay away from it until you have learned and more used to it. Trading involves risk and confidence, you dont wanna put your hard earned money without thinking of the consequence of every move we take.

Start with the little that you can and trade on your own so that you can experience how things would turn. Usually, the most basic tips are actually the thing that's happening in the market.

Those buy low, sell high advises are for real.

And with the experience you have, it's basically what you need to determine when you have to sell.

Since your topic is about trading I guess it is better to move your thread at Trading Discussion - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=8.0 you can move it by editing your thread and find the move topic and you are good to go. Back to the topic How do you know when to sell, You can set some limit or targets like 5% or 10% profit. If you reach that percentage you can sell your coins. Some exchanges have stop loss/stop profit feature so better learn about it.

You have to look at the previous resistances, it's not like a 100% sure bet of course, but you have at least more chances to make profits if you sell the resistances. Above a former resistance, all buyers are in profit and can TP anytime, so it's more risky to keep holding at those prices.

You just need to learn from the previous market's fluctuations, that's the key. Try to understand what's going on right now on the cryptocurrency market. Learn from your mistakes too. I also recommend you to check some special tools which could help you to decide when is the right time to buy/sell and which coin, for example the Galaxy Score which is available on CoinDeal -> https://coindeal.com/support/article/galaxy-score (https://coindeal.com/support/article/galaxy-score)

that's a question many has , when to sell or when to buy but no one have a perfect answer . what I do is keep a target according which I buy and wait for it to reach , its all a mater of greed and fear according to that you can decide 

As this industry is volatile so try to grab some knowledge first and try to learn about this industry so that you can buy or sell coins easily otherwise there is a high risk of losing your money. Before invest just do your full research about the crypto industry and then trade.

All of that come by practice. There are guides available outside that can tell you how to apply Technics to know buy sell points. There are even people who give signals it is upto you whether to stake your funds against the call or not.

Instead, if you want to gain some hands on without actually losing funds then you can work on test net and when you are confident enough then you can start trading actual funds. There is no more short cut.

Since you are currently a student , you will have little time left for trading. I recommend that you leave 2/3 of your deposit on hold, for example bitcoin. This method will help you cover the risks associated with trading. And with the rest of the money, arrange a training session by buying and selling top altcoins.

Doing the exact opposite of what your emotions are telling you to do usually pays off nicely.

A more foolproof way is settling on a figure that you're happy with and sticking to it rigidly no matter what when the figure arrives. The chances are extremely high that you'll ignore it, but that means perhaps it wasn't the right figure in the first place.

I have a few alts that have been sitting around for years. They've soared and plunged. I'm fucking bored of them now so the moment they reach the level I want they'll be gone. I'll be past caring if they rise further. There's no emotion attached to them any more. They made me wait long enough and I want out and I won't look back.

Put an imaginary £500 into an imaginary trading account. Then pretend that you are trading with it by making imaginary purchases and sales. See how you get on for 3 months. If you make an imaginary loss, then you need to do some more reading. Analyse your trades,and if you feel comfortable with them, then try speculating with £100 for another 3 months.

You must check your motivation first, there's always a temptation not to sell when the price is rising it's natural I have experienced this so many times in the past and still experiencing it, you must make a spreadsheet on when do you want to sell when it hit your sell preference and you must follow it, and after selling don't look back sometimes we regret after our expectation did not happen.

@aioc you would make more money in the stock market with short term strategies, but if you persist with your desire to sell crypto’s in the short term I feel you’ll burn your cash and you’ll not be able to recover it. Furthermore I don’t sell in the short term but if I ever did, it would depend a lot on the upcoming events and their impact on the crypto market.


@OgNasty thankfully he’s on Bitcointalk where members like you present a real picture of crypto trading, and now he has to choose which one is he Bull, Bear or Pig lol.

You need to focus on your books and read otherwise you might be carried away with the market. it is terrible when you are into day trading. You may not always concentrate  on your books due to your money in the trade. they said " men pays so much attention their funds than any other thing" i suggest you read and focus on your studies. when you are tru or during your holiday period, you can trade if you want.

Interesting advice but not enough because you can't include emotions in this suggested imaginary trading.
When we know that trading isn't real we trade differently than when real money is include.
Many people never learn how to control emotions in the trading and because of it they sell and buy in the wrong time.

Welcome to the world of trade. This world is one of the of the  world that needs Patience while you keep your trade, I mean: having good time on trade as a result of a long-term trade and not short-term. Long-term can actually fetch you more gains and be safer alongside your trade career. For buy low and sell high implies that: you must be a good holder than a panic seller. More also, you should do more research before buy cryptocurrency for trade, check exchange volumes fake increase and don't be greedy.

True how much far we keep emotions out of trading that much good trading goes , but its hard to do it with experience and internal control we have to eventually push emotions out of trading   

I never know when to sell. Too greedy  :'( :D

Yes emotions will just mostly cause you trouble in your trading career for it will alter your feelings and can make you do some decisions you do not want to do so for me as early as possible push emotions out of your trading career but this requires lots of control, practice and experience.

It is entirely up to you whether you sell or not when the price is high or buy when the price of bitcoin is at the lowest price. If I were you I'd rather buy btc at the lowest price and then sell high. It's what many people advice to new traders. Buy low and sell high may take longer if the price of bitcoin is slowly increasing  or decreasing. You should also check the price movement like in coinmarketcap. Just don't buy or sell your btc at the price you bought, in short you just bought $100 worth of btc and sell $100 worth of btc. Some trading sites have fee for trading crypto.

This is the decision that you have to take alone, it's all goes down on how much risk and how much profit that you have to take some traders are willing to take 5 to 10% profit, some traders wants more when they see the market is going better, you have to decide your level of profit and loss that you can accept.

That is why trading is really difficult because you don't know when to sell your holdings, there are two possible outcomes if you sell or hold your tokens. It is either you are happy selling it after that particular token you are holding or you are regretting your decision to sell because the value rises up. We all know that cryptocurrency is unpredictable and that is why it is hard to trade, but if you have plans and you have a really solid portfolio to guide you in trading, and also if you have a lot of knowledge about the market, I can say that you can really earn and it is depending on you when to sell and when to buy tokens that you want to hold. There are some people who are really getting involved with trading without taking any important information, knowledge is really important when you are doing business especially trading because one single mistake, you can lose your money in just a blink of an eye.

One of the most successful investors ( I can't remember which one ) was once asked  to what he attributed his success. His reply was " selling too soon".

This is question in similiar style to what is meaning of life?
You can't get any definitive answer to that, everyone uses different set of "rules" or informations to decide if they will sell. Most often they use emotions which is bad no matter what in trading.

Small portfolio of crypto $500, can't get you many trading styles, you probably want to focus on day trading to slowly make it $5000.
Watch out tho, if you are tired or trading long time, you will make mistakes.

The best thing that you may do to learn when is the good time for selling cryptocurrency is to do a research, and observe the market, if you really want to win in trading or selling bitcoin then you must observe and analyze the inflation and deflation of the market. Bitcoin halving really affects the market.

You should learn all the basics of different cryptocurrency in order for you to make money from selling it. There are a lot of people who get lost because of being unprepared and not doing research about it, do not follow them, the best thing you should do is be patient and hardworking of learning the basics of different cryptocurrencies.

Indeed, this thread should be in the section of trading discussion, there would be a lot and good answers that he might have if he move this thread in that section. Selling coins is not a simple thing, you will not assure yourself to win that kind of thing unless you do some research about it.

For guaranteed, I think the time to sell is when you are not lose. Just tiny profits are still good to sell. :P

Naively (but it is true), when you hear many people around you talking about something like: "Buying it now or you will lose your change to become a milliionaire", "That one is a very potential coin/token, you should not miss it", etc. It is the very good time to think of selling and taking profit for your portfolio.

Most of people buying because of motivated noisy environment around, will end with stuck on peaks or all time highs. Being neutrally when you fall into such period and determinantly make your sell orders.

I agree with the post above. In such matters, one must not succumb to external provocations. It is necessary to carefully analyze all the factors and have a lot of patience so as not to get into the prosak.

If you can manage that then you're already further ahead than 99% of people out there ever will be. It's very easy to say that when things are boring or you don't have large amounts on the line. Only the truly icy can maintain that when things are popping left, right and centre.

It's a billion dollar question  ;D You know, we can't guess or predict exactly about price, where it will go? Technical analysis can help us about price movement, reduce risks and increase win rate.
Well, if you really want an answer, you should learn and master at Fundamental analysis, Technical analysis, Market sentiment, and most important is your mentality. Then you get your answer.

In any case, it will be difficult to get an increase to your Deposit equal to $ 100 per month. Therefore, you just need to buy bitcoins and wait for the price to increase several times and then sell everything. Then it will be a significant increase for the student's budget.

Very simple for me. i don't have to wait for the price to skyrocket, once it hit my preferably choice as long as i bought below the current price. i sell off. some time it takes months, days or weeks to get above my cost price. some people has a stipulated time and amount they intended to sell off why some don't. i sell whenever i think the time is right.

Always consider the coin that you are trading. Assess the history of that coin, that will be a great help for you to decide. If you happen to see that the history is not that constant, probably that will be the best consideration for you to sell your coin if it reached a good price based on it's history. You may also want to look for the buy and sell order book, that helps me a lot.

When trading crypto you need to know which news  affects cryptocurrencies which is pretty much a fundamental skill to know which news affects cryptocurrencies and will allow you to predict which direction the coin will take...though charts and historical data can also help you in predicting the direction by knowing when a coin is either over bought or over over sold.

This is all about your experience. You'll know when to sell soon, take your time, watch the market's fluctuations and be patient. Also, learn from your mistakes. Check out some cryptocurrency channels on YT like for example SideChain Podcast. You can also use one of the useful tools for beginners, for example CoinDeal has a feature called the Galaxy Score and it could helop you to decide when is the right time to sell or buy and which coin, check out:https://coindeal.com/support/article/galaxy-score (https://coindeal.com/support/article/galaxy-score)

Basically, trading is given a place to do analysis like tradingview, tabtrader, etc.  that's why we know when to buy and sell.
Before you really use it you must understand the indicators one by one so that you more easily get instructions from it.

You can also understand a positive news or negative news like when this happens, covid-19 news spread throughout the world causing an unstable world economy.

The state of mind that gives you a positive click in your mind and wants you to get out with your current profits and/or even losses (so to save further loss), you should sell at that time listening to your instinct, to your sixth sense that asks you to do so. Don't regret of whatever happens the next moment. If you'd have waited a bit (like while we were all getting news of a pandemic spreading in a country but it has now spread globally), you could have got BTC for around half the price you paid for your coins (considering your purchase date to be exactly the day when you posted here or before).

I agree with you because the trading charts will be the most effective at selling well If we can understand the charts well then we can easily determine the name of the price and it is not difficult to sell. Your knowledge is always useful when giving a token cell.

you can sell whenever you want. it depends on your mindset. you might choose to sell when the profit is right for you Or you might choose to sell when the falling out of control. it may take months to regain back the huge amount that was gather if you decided not to sell. make your choice and stand on it. if you are holding, then hold as long as you want for long term admires while short term traders should sell to get back their original money.

Before taking any trading related decision you should have strong knowledge of this. If you are a student then 1st complete your studies then gain some knowledge about this crypto industry and trade.

Learn the basics first mate, know the market and different cryptocurrency. This is the thing buy low, sell high. If you really want to make money from trading, you should buy crypto when it is dumping or when the price is in low, then sell it when the price of cryptocurrency goes high. So being a good trader requires you to be observant, always look abou tthe status of the market.

As of now,  the best option to do is to hold it because the price of the bitcoin is not that too high. Just wait for the bull run.

Trading is one of the god way to make money using yout own money as well, how do you know when to sell? That is easy mate, just rember these 2 things.
1. Buy when the value of cryptocurrency is low.
2. Sell when the value of cryptourrency is high.

Trading is somehow related to investments but it is more complicated becauae you should observe well the situation of the market because it reflects the value of different cryptocurrency.

It's the same for me. I don't like to sell but I like to get some standard money without quit. That's why I sell when I need money but not in a bear market. Actually I am waiting for at least $50K for BTC price to take some standard profit.

Sell when you know that you'll be getting any profit,that' what i do.

For me i set my target on when i should sell my coins so i always get a profit.

Yeah i do the same like you do but you have to be patient using this technique.

Trading actually is quite different from what you have pictured in your brain. Day trading is 99% done with leveraged options. Judging by your post it is obvious you don't know that traders don't buy and sell, but they bet on the price going up or down. This is going long or going short.
Since you don't know what shorting is, you have a lot to learn. Try making a test account in some of the trading sites that allow this just to find out the options available.

So what actually do you do with that? You maybe checking your wall every hour now and then i guess. Well that's good if you are a full time trader.

Well... Trading is tricky.
And i wonder what should be done in a scenario like this:

I buy 1 btc @ $7000, and the price goes up to $8500 within  3 days.
Now how do i get my profit?
Option 1: Do i sell the 1btc and get the $8500 in full
Option 2: Do i sell $1500 worth of bitcoin to get my profits, and leave the remaining $7000 in bitcoin.

Which would be a better option as an upcoming trader?

On the flip side, demo trading isn't the same as live trading. The first doesn't harbour any emotion while the second has it packed. Remember, emotions are the major killer in trading besides Money Management (MM) misappropriation.

While OP is getting the required skill set for trading, I would like to advise that they adopt the simple method of selling when others are buying, and buying when others are selling.

i don't know why but sometimes i feel any trading strategic doesn't work for me. i usually use my feeling when i want to start open position.  ::)

Well for me i only sell my btc and some of my altcoins if i really really need some cash even i wont get profit. But if its not that emergency i wont sell any of my holdings until i get +500% of my roi.

it's not easy you need to set your destination for how much profit / lose you will close your trade. better use stop lose so you don't lose too much money.stay active when you trade so if there's pump and dump you can take advantage and make money.you need to learn how to trade and have patience for trade.

How do you know when to buy? if you are able to buy at a LOW PRICE. SELL when the price is high and take your gain. that is business. Never insist on waiting for more price increase. you will always loose out. My answer to your question is, there is not perfect time to sell. so sell immediately you have profit and don't be greedy.

It is best to have several of these goals and sell assets in parts at 20% -25%, with a ladder.
This will help minimize any risks, because if something goes wrong you will still have most of the deposit to correct the situation.