That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? I sold a decent portion of my btc holding at ~950-1000, re-bought at ~700-750. Sure, I didn't sleep as good as usual during the weekend, and was somewhat distracted most of the time, but I made an approximately 30% coin profit. Was it worth it? Sure.

Ah, okay, I see your point now. I also think you're deluded and/or utterly naive, but that's besides the point -- sometimes there's nothing to say between two people rather than "we agree to disagree".

However, your own believes only allow you one rational conclusion: stop trading. You can buy & hold, but since individual participants (that are by and large not subject of the regular TA) "shape" the price anyway, active trading must be pure gambling.

So, are you rational?

Depends on who successful you are with it, and how much nerves it costs you. I also suspect the two points are related :D

The point is a different one, though: trading entirely *against* the market is always a risky proposition. Don't know how long you've been trading, but maybe you'll notice it yourself already: risk appetite is not completely independent of what you have to lose. In other words, I'm pretty sure someone who has 100s of millions of USD on the line is not all just going to bet it on one trade, that would be *incredibly* poor risk control, and most certainly means he/she won't hold that kind of money for long.

Point is: just because you have the money to move the market doesn't mean you'll be inclined to do so if there's a real risk the market will move *against* you after all. Hence: I find it very likely large enough whales accentuate inherent market movements, but the idea that whales yank and pull the market in whatever direction they want to is, IMO, somewhat naive.

Yeah, thanks for stating the obvious, most here know who loaded is.

Doesn't change the fact that you might well disagree with him on this matter.

Phrased in such a general way ("above some volume, TA is useless") I most certainly disagree, doesn't matter if the guy who says it holds 100 or 100k coins.

It's true, "whales" can initiate (or more accurately: accentuate) market movements, but to get a taste how market behavior by whales can also sometimes just be, well, plain dumb, go read some of rpietila's post history :D (no offense rpietila, I enjoy your new style. keep posting)

Didn't notice this thead until now. You made some pretty good calls, OP.

(Sorry if I came across too aggressive)

It's clear we saw major correction, true. To be followed by another major correction (which is what lucif expects)? That would confirm we're probably going to see a longer lasting downtrend. But I'm not sure that'll happen... Come Monday, we're going down to 300? Are you sure about that? Because to me the market right now mainly looks the same way I feel: undecided. We're hovering precariously close to the 30d average (on all exchanges), the bottoms of the smaller waves since 576 are slowly rising, volume paints a pretty uncertain picture, order books across all 3 major exchanges are holding up quite nicely actually,... like I said, to me it looks like it could swing either way.

By the way, I wasn't against profit taking at all. I sold at 1000, and don't regret it for obvious reasons. the question is, have we seen the major part of this correction, or are we in for a long bear market.

Yeah... This is kind of bullshit. I would suggest not to throw around big words like "denial" and "greed", because exactly the same arguments were thrown around each step along the way to 1200 from the April low. Sometimes they were appropriate, most of the time, they weren't, as evidenced by the 1200 ATH.

Note: I'm not saying I think we're back on track immediately to a new ATH. But we just saw a halving of the ATH, and some (moderate) signs for support above 600. So another halving event like the one masterluc expects is dubios in my opinion. Not impossible, but not the most likely scenario either.

Well, I posted when I sold 2 days ago, so now (without any good reason :D) I'm going to post I'm back in. I don't know if the correction is over yet, or will continue on Monday, but I see a slightly higher chance for continuing some kind of rally on Monday than another drastic drop *without any further warning signs*, so it seems wiser to buy back now (at a nice healthy 30% profit :D) than take the risk to buy back at a (coin) loss. I'll say however that I'm prepared to sell off again if it turns out that what looks like consolidation now doesn't hold tonight/on Monday.

haha, no, that's not what I mean by predicting of course. If you can't profit from it, it's not a prediction, and if you "predicted" a reversal all the way from the 20 you most certainly didn't profit :D

He called this top pretty much immediately after the double top formed, so between 1000 and 1200. I suspect he got our nearer 1200 since he tends to post shortly after he made his own trades (which seems a good idea if you prefer to sell before others get a chance to ruin your profit taking).

look for user lucif (old account), masterluc (new account). solid TA (bit EW heavy, for my taste) + excellent intuition, and he called the top again well ahead of the crash.

Hm...


Price was around 1050 at that point (mtgox).

Anyway, I never called an entire group of people "clueless" and that I somehow "take their money". I call people that bullshit about the worthlessness of TA clueless.

If I misunderstood you, and you're just pointing out a particularly weak point in OP's analysis, my apologies. But if you doubt TA as a whole: well, guess what? You probably shouldn't actively trade, since that would gambling, wouldn't it? Buy & Hold is your game then, I guess.

Agreed. But the fact that there is only 1 competent brain surgeon among 1000s of people doesn't make brain surgery any less of a well-founded method.

There difference is though, I agree, that trading allows delusion to thrive :D

Why the aggressiveness? He made a relevant remark about double top and volume. I pointed out that the volume part of his argument wasn't very precise. The market dropped a few days later.

You're free to say "it's just luck, twice a day even a broken clock is right". In other words, you don't believe in TA. In other words, you're clueless and probably shouldn't trade. (go to lucif's thread to get a taste of what someone with actual intuition *and* technical knowledge can do).

re: ATH. We'll see, I guess. Too far into the big money game for stuff to play out like 2011, IMO.

re: news vs. TA. Never said *TA follows news*. Just that I don't buy the opposite either (*News follows TA*). It's a bit more complicated than that, and you gave a good example (sometimes e.g. price "unlocks" certain events.) (hehehe, no I'm thinking of MMORPGs)

Pretty amusing read, thanks OP

Doesn't really apply to Bitcoin (or any other market) though, right? Sure, there are plenty people that get rich simply by luck, but the Buffett example is that of a coin -- presumably a provably fair coin, meaning there is nothing to predict about tossing that coin besides the fact that either outcome is equally likely.

That's hardly what happens in markets. Why would human behavior, guided by (depending on your philosophical assumptions) free will or quasi-deterministic processes suddenly become completely random just because it is group behavior rather than that of one individual. Sure, there's some noise and randomness, but almost certainly not to the point where there is no prediction possible.

Meh. Unnecessary rant, I guess. After all, this is the speculation subforum. Surely noone here thinks the market is nothing but a coin toss.

Added to my gloat list. Started it a while ago, contains articles that are full of the smug "ha, you idiots, how could you ever think this would work" sentiment. Kind of like the quote by the then IBM chairman "'I think there is a world market for about five computers.".

I'm not only keeping this list updated to gloat when btc turns out to invalidate them, but more importantly, to know when these guys (and more importantly: publications) will start back pedaling, pretending "they always knew it would change the world".

Example: Business Insider's Joel Weisenthal. Calling Bitcoin a clown currency, now slowly changing his mind. I'll give him credit, he's still relatively quick to change his opinion.

The publications that *really* piss me off, because they *should* know better are Wired and the NYT. Say what you want about either of them, but they both have a talented pool of writers: it is (IMO) mainly an editorial choice to make the "voice of the publication" so strongly BTC negative.

They will eventually come around. And then, I will have my gloat list

Yeah, joining the choir of "luc(if) rules" voices. Been on the edge myself since the double top formed (weird, just notice that's only 2 days ago... feels longer), mainly believing we'll see consolidation rather than a sharp drop. But the combination of my own indicators, bad news, bad forum sentiment and finally, lucif's call made me substantially rearrange my position yesterday, just in time for the big drop.

I still have to say, I'm strongly sceptical about parts of lucif's methodology: EW theory seems a bit too shady for my taste (though I tried wrapping my head around it in the last weeks), and his basic premise that "news follows TA, not the other way around" is something I strongly question.

But all that said, there's no reason to argue with results: no matter how he arrives at them, he has an uncanny ability to call tops (and to a degree, bottoms). I'm glad he's posting here.


P.S. No way we'll see a multi-year bear market. Maybe a shift in the overall exponential trend to a slightly lesser (but still exponential) rise, but I'm convinced within 365 we will see a new ATH.

Jup. Credit where credit is due. Good call OP.

Did you get out at around 1200? I didn't, took me til around 1000 (bitstamp) before I decided we're stalling and sold a substantial portion of btc (with the goal of rebuying lower)