That one is starting to look a bit less likely, isn't it?

Also, I'm not gloating, and I'm not a perma-bear, but I have to say I don't think we'll resume our usual (upwards) program quite as soon as some of you guys seem to think.

Anyone else getting the eery feeling that luc's "long, painful slide down" prediction might become true after all?

Who said you'd have to predict the price with absolute certainty? It would be enough to predict it often enough s.t., given the amounts you chose to trade with, you are in total profitable.

I believe predicting price (with a substantial error rate, true) is possible because it is mainly a function of human (group) behavior, and there is nothing in principle that makes predicting such a system impossible, difficult as it may be.

You on the other hand seem to think it is inherently impossible to model markets, did I get that right? I hope you don't take your linked to article as evidence for that, because it's not about modeling markets, but that a random stock selection beats a capitalization weighted index (couldn't find the actual paper either, I'm going to guess it's not peer reviewed, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that).

And your little Platonic dialogue about chaotic systems is rather useless in its generality: you could equally well ask "Can I predict the weather conditions 5 minutes from now". And we know the answer to that one: not perfectly, but given enough information to run the best models we have, with high probability you will be able to do so.

Could well be a Fibonacci level, never said I discovered something new On the other hand, are Fibonacci levels regularly calculated on volume weighted prices?

Maybe let me clarify: I'm not trying to make big claims about the underlying cause (or trying to generalize the pattern). I've just noticed a pattern, and now am thinking about a way to putting this observation to a test (in a way that takes "intuition" out of the equation). But  in my original post, I just applied the method to our current situation, and concluded that I'm slightly leaning towards bearish continuation.

You're right, that is ridiculous, especially since you're verified.


Oh wait, you're not.


*yawn*

niiiice

I divested a while ago, but right now, whoever is still in, can look at a sweet ~6% profit just from nakowa's latest streak by the looks of it.

oh, it absolutely is scatterbrained. but if you want a tl;dr...

hypothesis (not properly tested, only observed a few times in the last year):

take the median mean between highest vwap and lowest vwap during a crash. if price bounces back and crosses median, then mainly stays below it in the first days up to two weeks following the crash, bear market more likely, otherwise bull market.

Bit of a passive-aggressive tone, but in principle, valid remark.

No offense to masterluc or Brisance, but to me it seems too many traders concentrate almost exclusively on "candle reading", and all that comes with it (triangles, points of resistance/support).

Here's a very, very shaky idea I play around with that deviates from that method. Don't worry, I will point out just how arbitrary and non-empirical it is in a bit.

That said, here's the observation: I think I noticed that a volume-price median tends to work as an attractor, and price development in relation to that median might be a predictor for how a consolidation period resolves after a crash.

Note: this is pure eyeballing so far, and cherrypicking of the data points. In the pictures below, I mark the highest point of VWAP and the lowest point with RED circles. In picture 2, you'll notice that I might have as well picked the first green circle as the highest point, in which case the indicator wouldn't have worked the same. I would argue that it's different because the green circles constitute another high/low cycle, but that's somewhat arbitrary. So I've been trying to come up with a way to algorithmically test this, but for now, here's the result of cherry picking, applied to April, June/July and now.

The red line is the exactly middle point between the highest and lowest 2h VWAP (works equally well, or bad, with 1h, 6h).

My claim is that this line works as a price attractor at first, and then, in the few days following a crash, how price relates to this line predicts further resolution of the cycle. Price mainly stays above the median line, more or less bounces off of it upwards? Breakout upwards is likely. Similarly for price staying below, bouncing off downwards.

Point is, it's too early to conclusively say how price moves around the median this time, but the first signs point towards downward resolution. If in the next days we stay below the median, encountering resistance when trying to move above it, I will take that as a pretty bearish sign.

On the other hand, I always believe strong enough news can turn things around, so I'm not religiously following this... it's more the idea that, in absence of other strong signals, I will have to work with this.

Plot twist:

Brisance = masterluc


Impossible?

liar! that's your 2nd post already!

Apologies for sounding grumpy. :/


To summarize: it's never wrong to be safe (convert to btc, take them out), but realistically, there's a low chance that Unicredit account(s) will be hit by anything in the near future.

Correct. And: Only holders at Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus were affected, the two banks that caused the entire crisis.

Seriously, this is getting real old. If the overall level of economic knowledge of your average BTC investor is really that superficial, I'm not too impressed...

I'm going to quote myself, because I've written the following summary over and over again in the past month(s), and it still applies:




Especially point 2) is something that is completely ignored, every single time this discussion comes up. Think what you want about how the EU handled Cyprus (disclosure: I think they did the right thing, all things considered), but the bail-in did *not* affect all Cypriot banks. So very little indicates that Unicredit Slovenia would be affected by a (far from certain) bail-in in Slovenia.

Not sure about that (the "unsafe fiat", that is). Not saying the thought isn't crossing my mind either, but here's a number of reasons why I'm not that worried about the banking situation of Bitstamp:

1) Slovenia =/= Cyprus. Seriously, it's a worthwhile discussion to go through the details, but for several reasons I don't see Slovenia at a real risk for a "bail in". To name a few: bigger country, higher risk of domino effect. less foreign account holders than cyprus to my knowledge. EU already made an example of Cyprus.

2) even in cyprus, there was no "all banks bail in", I hope people know that. In particular this means that Unicredit Slovenia, a subsidiary of the Italian Unicredit, is nowhere near the level of risk of the Slovenian *state banks*, that are the main cause of the problem the Slovenian banking landscape faces.

That said, if you want to be safe, convert to btc. If you want to be really safe, withdraw those coins. Personally, I don't think it's necessary though.

Thanks.

I rarely get really pessimistic about btc's long term prospect, but the thought that a substantial portion of investors and (judging by the name of our forum) speculators have a kindergarten-level understanding of markets and market participants scares me.

 

Then the second part of "either act fast, or don't act at all." should apply :D

A hint for those who're wondering if the boat left without them: As a general rule, either don't trade at all, or if you trade: don't wait too long.

What I mean in particular is that, given the correction we just saw, you had two realistic options, and one unrealistic one.

The unrealistic one first: you're as good as luc, and you traded the swing perfectly (let's assume he did for a moment :D)

Okay, so you're not as good at reading the market... what are your other options then? The obvious one, often repeated by some of the big holders actually, like Rampion: just buy & hold. Which means during this swing, you would have done nothing.

Problem solved?

No, because I know that's not what I want, so I'm going to guess you don't want that either. You'd prefer to a) insure your investment against total loss, and b) you'd like to occasionally *profit* from the swings (i.e. your coin stash is bigger than before).

So I always cringe a bit when I read those tortured "Should I buy back?!" posts, or the ones that ask over and over "Should I sell already?!".

The answer is: yes. If you trade at all, trade (relatively) often.

That doesn't mean twice a day, not even twice a week, but instead of *wondering* if a correction is over, you *buy* if it seems to go up again, but be ready to *sell* as soon as it looks like the recovery was a bull trap after all.

I don't mean to sound like giving trite advice. The devil is obviously in the details, and you still need to familiarize yourself with some basic amount of TA to get a feeling for the market. But the single most important thing I had to learn in the past few months, and that I still have to bang into my head at each opportunity is that, if you're not sure, either act fast, or don't act at all.

So according to you, there are no traders who consistently make a profit (in total, I mean). Only guys who get lucky once in a while.

I would disagree.