Price holding super-steady: launchpad formation or thin ice?

[arepo]

BTC could drop by 75% tomorrow, that's not impossible in a fickle small cap market.  But personally, I only intend to sell if and when the newsflow indicates that Bitcoin has hit a wall of insurmountable problems.  I don't think that charts patterns are an optimal guidance mechanism at this stage of Bitcoin's adoption curve.

this is a terrible misconception that just about everyone has. charts are not meant to predict the influence of news, but rather make observations about market forces like the behavior of an asset that is overbought.

as price goes up, the incentive to take profit goes up. if an asset were incredibly overbought and an influx of new money began flowing into it, market forces may prevent the 'obvious' rally from happening because selling pressure would increase in proportion.

kind of like what is happening right now, in spite of the reddit announcement.

charts will never predict single movements by large actors, or anything like that, and no one is claiming that they have the power to.

[Transisto]

All you people have been staring at the charts way too much the last couple of years. Everybody here seems to think that a "healthy" correction is due. And I bet that $27 sounds expensive to most of you who have a base price of say $5. You guys need to cut off that linear thinking. Everything right now is pointing at bitcoin becoming widely adopted on the internet and when that happens, $27 for a bitcoin is NOTHING. Real bitcoin adoption is not going to adhere to some silly indicator saying that we're overbought. I'm fully convinced that this is the last stop for everybody who wanted to make a quick buck to get out.

+1

What I would like them to do to estimate future Bitcoin price,

The safe 1% (no explanation)

MarketASize(yearly) divided by 21m divided by 100
+
MarketBSize(yearly) divided by 21m divided by 100
+
MarketCSize(yearly) divided by 21m divided by 100

(we all know 21m is not real availability, 15m is more accurate)

For example  
drugTrade 2003 : 350b$ / 21 000 000 / 100 = 166$ per btc  

A UN report said "the global drug trade generated an estimated US$321.6 billion in 2003."

There is some problem in your assumption: why yearly, not daily or monthly? There is no magic in the Earth's orbital period

My assumption is not worth shit, I agree, what I'm trying to show is bitcoin market cap vs that of "bitcoin friendly" markets.

My assumption also remove any possibility of speculation from those who've for long benefited from these lucrative markets.

I would guess Mr dot com and the like would like pieice of the action AND a stable market, showing confidence to their customers.

[TraderTimm]

I've said over and over if price violates my trendlines then I switch my tack. But lets move past the "screw you bull/bear" part of the conversation.

I know what moving averages are. They lag price. I also know what MACD is, and being composed of lagging inputs, also lags price. They also normalize price action and "smooth" it, to make things a bit more comprehensible to the trader.

This still doesn't remove the fact that they are - LAGGING indicators that do little else but mimic price movement. This, among other reasons, is why they are completely decorative and shouldn't be used to prognosticate about anything.

trendlines are subjective and are not superior to charting but should be taken on equal footing for a more complete picture.

by your definition, all indicators are lagging indicators. the MACD goes 'up and down' as an echo to price but there's more to it. sometimes the price makes new highs but the MACD fails to. other times, the opposite happens. the crossovers of the slower and faster moving averages also represent information about the rate of change in price compared to its historical rate of change. these are all very important observations. indicators do much, much more than mimic price movement. have you checked out chart school? i don't mean to be condescending, but you don't seem to know much about the MACD.

Oh my, we're going to the old tried-and-true method of forum battling where we call each other out on our knowledge? How quaint.

I'm not biting. I've done this stuff before - I don't use trendlines to predict, and I have my own proprietary set of indicators that don't have the traits all the standard "lunchbox" variety of indicators do. But this took time, a LOT of time to develop. I know how hard it is to look at a chart and formulate trading rules.

I suppose this is where I'm supposed to trivialize your education or something, but you know what? I have a more interesting thing going on - watching BTC trade.

Enjoy.

[arepo]

im impressed. creating proprietary indicators that work is indeed an accomplishment.

i wasn't trying to get bites, but you made a blanket statement that was just incorrect. lagging indicators are not useless just because they represent an echo.

the whole point of indicators is simply to visualize data that isn't accessible through conventional means. a price figure and historical graph and volume bars by period hide so much information.

if you don't like the MACD, that's fine. i don't like a lot of indicators that are "tried and true".

and anyway, i, too am enjoying watching BTC trade. mainly because i feel vindicated after all the flaming and derision about my bearish predictions...

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

BTC could drop by 75% tomorrow, that's not impossible in a fickle small cap market.  But personally, I only intend to sell if and when the newsflow indicates that Bitcoin has hit a wall of insurmountable problems.  I don't think that charts patterns are an optimal guidance mechanism at this stage of Bitcoin's adoption curve.

this is a terrible misconception that just about everyone has. charts are not meant to predict the influence of news, but rather make observations about market forces like the behavior of an asset that is overbought.

as price goes up, the incentive to take profit goes up. if an asset were incredibly overbought and an influx of new money began flowing into it, market forces may prevent the 'obvious' rally from happening because selling pressure would increase in proportion.

kind of like what is happening right now, in spite of the reddit announcement.

charts will never predict single movements by large actors, or anything like that, and no one is claiming that they have the power to.

Hmmm...I didn't imply anywhere that TA would be a predictor of newsflow, quite the opposite .  My whole point was that TA is not useful in a small illiquid market like BTC, because the impact of news can totally overwhelm chart formations at any given time.

Using TA in Bitcoin is like using TA to analyze a Canadian oil exploring microcap.  Overbought, oversold, support, resistance, all miss the forest for the trees given that the next drill hole can yield a new oil field, or render the project uneconomic.

I think anyone trying to get too smart with TA in Bitcoin risks losing their position in what could turn out to be one of the greatest investment opportunities of all time.  I admit, perhaps I'm biased towards an investing style that has worked well for me, identifying trends based on fundamentals, with multiyear holding periods.

If I'm wrong, then to those who make money calling tops and bottoms, I salute you.  But in meatspace, I've yet to meet anyone who can successfully and consistently short-term trade volatile explorecos or tech startups.  Hence my skepticism of similar strategies in the Bitcoin universe.

[notig]

BTC could drop by 75% tomorrow, that's not impossible in a fickle small cap market.  But personally, I only intend to sell if and when the newsflow indicates that Bitcoin has hit a wall of insurmountable problems.  I don't think that charts patterns are an optimal guidance mechanism at this stage of Bitcoin's adoption curve.

this is a terrible misconception that just about everyone has. charts are not meant to predict the influence of news, but rather make observations about market forces like the behavior of an asset that is overbought.

as price goes up, the incentive to take profit goes up. if an asset were incredibly overbought and an influx of new money began flowing into it, market forces may prevent the 'obvious' rally from happening because selling pressure would increase in proportion.

kind of like what is happening right now, in spite of the reddit announcement.

charts will never predict single movements by large actors, or anything like that, and no one is claiming that they have the power to.

Hmmm...I didn't imply anywhere that TA would be a predictor of newsflow, quite the opposite .  My whole point was that TA is not useful in a small illiquid market like BTC, because the impact of news can totally overwhelm chart formations at any given time.

Using TA in Bitcoin is like using TA to analyze a Canadian oil exploring microcap.  Overbought, oversold, support, resistance, all miss the forest for the trees given that the next drill hole can yield a new oil field, or render the project uneconomic.

I think anyone trying to get too smart with TA in Bitcoin risks losing their position in what could turn out to be one of the greatest investment opportunities of all time.  I admit, perhaps I'm biased towards an investing style that has worked well for me, identifying trends based on fundamentals, with multiyear holding periods.

If I'm wrong, then to those who make money calling tops and bottoms, I salute you.  But in meatspace, I've yet to meet anyone who can successfully and consistently short-term trade volatile explorecos or tech startups.  Hence my skepticism of similar strategies in the Bitcoin universe.

+1  .  Do you invest for a living or just for retirement purposes?

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

+1  .  Do you invest for a living or just for retirement purposes?

Thanks, I made enough $$ investing to retire younger than most, now I'm just trying to put the icing on my financial cake through Bitcoin and other outlets (including some TA-based short-term trading in markets which are more liquid, slower-moving, and not news-driven).

BTW I'm not a permabull on Bitcoin or anything else, quite the opposite, skeptical nature, have a decent track record spotting bubbles and long-term tops and bailing out (too?) early.  Sold all my tech stocks in 1998 and put house for sale in 2006.

But I really think Bitcoin is a once in a lifetime event, a hydra with many disruptive heads.  To try to trade it is like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller.  At this volatile embryonic stage, it will live and die by fundamental newsflow and crush any speculators putting all their eggs in a TA basket.  Mini bubbles, collapses, and dramatic reversals will throw off all but the strongest and nimblest hands.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate the bears on this forum, it takes courage, and it's always good to hear polite opposing viewpoints like arepo's, even if at this stage I'm more open to fundamental arguments rather than TA arguments.  The TA tactics will undoubtedly have their day in the sun once the BTC market matures and deepens, although that could be quite a few years from now, assuming Bitcoin succeeds as a viable currency.