Good tips, nice post.
Best trading/gambling advice I ever received is don't trade/gamble.
This advice is retarded as hell. Trading/gambling is a job for many.
Basically its only a good advice if the target is someone stupid, because they obviously wont succeed. Otherwise - no.
LOL, that was a good joke. I make $300-$400 most days when I have the time to buy/sell bitcoins. I love volatility. You're obviously doing it wrong. I think you're thinking about buy/hold and assume it goes up over the course of days. I think the advice posted here is for day trading, which can be quite profitable if done right. For example, today I saw a large bid support level at $373, so I set my buy order at $374. The price was around $385 and going up at the time. Once a large ask wall appeared, it knocked the price back down, and guess where it landed? Right at $373, and very quickly jumped back up from the support. I got my order filled, and now we're at $385, looking good. Once you can read these levels, you can make some nice gains from the fluctuations.
Take profits
High volatility can cause insane pumps. Having a take profit 10% to 20% above the current price is a good thing to have since you can catch these insane pumps before the dump happens.
This is also a very important point, I need to constantly remind myself. It's really easy to get greedy and think you're going to the moon. But profit is not really profit until you sell. I've had so many instances where I was up $700-$800 on a trade and ended up just breaking even because I didn't sell when I should have.
The thing I like to remind myself is that the type of gain that I'm thinking "isn't much" is actually a lot compared to stocks and other investments. They're gains that other people would love to have in other investments... but it's so easy to get greedy and think it's not enough.
I'd like to add some tips as well:
Don't chase the price upward. If you set a bid and it doesn't get filled because the price went up, don't try to increase your bid to chase the price upward. Be patient. If you estimated the bid/ask levels properly, the price will move in those directions and you will get filled at a more reasonable price. Likewise, don't buy on an upswing. When you chase, you're generally buying on an upswing, as the price goes up. True, it means you may 'miss out' on some gains, but in the long run you're much better off to consistently by in the downswing. For example, like I mentioned above, this morning I saw the price go from $384 to $388, and while I could have bought at $386, I stuck to my principles and set my bid at $374. Even if the price continued to climb past $388, I wouldn't touch it, because at any moment it could crash down and you don't want to be stuck in a bitcoin price crash. It's similar to a low-float stock, which means it's difficult to get out when the price is dropping quickly because it's not that liquid. Instead, watch for price moving downward and buy right as it seems that the selling is slowing down. You can determine this by looking at the spread on the bid vs. the spread on the ask and the total price volume on each.
Set your rules and don't let yourself be swayed by emotion. It's really easy to let emotion cloud your logic, but stick to your principles and your strategy. Treat it like a scientific experiment, and try to create a consistent strategy that will lead you to profits. Don't allow a bad trade get to you. Learn from it and factor that into your strategy.
Make sure to also factor in commission/fees into your trade profits. Most sites/platforms don't account for commission in their profit calculations so you have to do this yourself. Get a good calculator and/or create a program if you're able to, and use it often to ensure your profit margin is big enough to make the trade profitable. Depending on how much you're trading, you can make a $300-$400 profit on just 2-3% price swings. There's no reason to shoot for huge jumps. I've found that consistently making small gains is a much lower in risk and much easier. It's really difficult to predict bitcoin prices in longer periods anyway.
Thanks for the feedback. I certainly sounds like you are an experienced trader.
I will add to your last point - in case anyone is considering using our platform - we include our commission on the profit calculations shown to users.
