Trading Log

[Hawker]

I've mined over two thousand Bitcoin and my shops have generated 97.  Mining difficulty is high and shop sales are for a fraction of a Bitcoin so to build my stake, I will try day-trading on mtgox.

This is my first attempt and just in case anyone wants to see how a newbie does in the free market, I'm posting a trading log.  I know most day-traders lose their funds so if I do so, feel free to point and laugh.  

If anyone is interested, my only preparation is reading "The Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17639754/Douglas%2C%20Mark%20-%20The%20Disciplined%20Trader%20%281990%29%20-%20ISBN-0132157578%20%5B245%5D.pdf

So far, I have gained 7.4 Bitcoin on top of the 2197 I started with.  I'm hoping to do significantly better once I have verified an OKPay account and am able to do a little arbitrage between BTCE and MtGox.

Day 1 Closing Balance                                                                          BTC Balance                                                                       USD Balance
April 29 @ 0958: Sold 97 for $138.99 each.                                    2100.00000000 BTC                                                           $13,401.13782

Day 3 Closing Balance                                                                          BTC Balance                                                                       USD Balance
April 29 @ 0958: Sold 97 for $138.99 each.                                    2204.35338829 BTC                                                           $22.55013

[fitty]

I've mined over two thousand Bitcoin and my shops have generated 97.  Mining difficulty is high and shop sales are for a fraction of a Bitcoin so to build my stake, I will try day-trading on mtgox.

This is my first attempt and just in case anyone wants to see how a newbie does in the free market, I'm posting a trading log.  I know most day-traders lose their funds so if I do so, feel free to point and laugh.  

If anyone is interested, my only preparation is reading "The Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17639754/Douglas%2C%20Mark%20-%20The%20Disciplined%20Trader%20%281990%29%20-%20ISBN-0132157578%20%5B245%5D.pdf

Event                                                                                 BTC Balance                                                                       USD Balance
April 29 0958: Sold 97 for $138.99 each.                                    2100.00000000 BTC                                                           $13,401.13782

I now have an order for 98 BTC for $136.74 waiting to be executed but the price is over $143 .  Hopefully, I'll have something to post back here within a week or so.

Very good idea. Please keep this updated, will be fun to follow.

Totally off topic, I assume you're a fairly well off guy in his late 30s early 40s, no thoughts of cashing out your 280k and just paying off your mortgage, buying a car and chilling? I know a few miners who had 500-100-1500 BTC and the recent run to 266 was enough for them to say "it's been fun, I'm out!".

[Hawker]

....snip...

Totally off topic, I assume you're a fairly well off guy in his late 30s early 40s, no thoughts of cashing out your 280k and just paying off your mortgage, buying a car and chilling? I know a few miners who had 500-100-1500 BTC and the recent run to 266 was enough for them to say "it's been fun, I'm out!".

I have paid off my mortgage and bought a car.  This is me chilling  I love playing the auction house in online games and Bitcoin is more of the same.

[checkers6676]

I have found that trying to get all in at the "low" and all out at the "peak" of runs and pull backs leads to panic buying and selling, which leads to getting burned. What I do these days is stagger my buy orders down from a set number (If you have $5k to put in and want to be in at $136, make 20x $250 buy orders starting at $139 and going down by $1 each all the way to the $110s.) Same for sell orders, (though this is more to make sure you always have a stake which you clearly do), I have my btc separated into increments of 20 as sell orders every multiple of $25 or so.

[Hawker]

I have found that trying to get all in at the "low" and all out at the "peak" of runs and pull backs leads to panic buying and selling, which leads to getting burned. What I do these days is stagger my buy orders down from a set number (If you have $5k to put in and want to be in at $136, make 20x $250 buy orders starting at $139 and going down by $1 each all the way to the $110s.) Same for sell orders, (though this is more to make sure you always have a stake which you clearly do), I have my btc separated into increments of 20 as sell orders every multiple of $25 or so.

Do you have a bot to do that for you?

[seleme]

Be careful, it's big money to play with.

[checkers6676]

I have found that trying to get all in at the "low" and all out at the "peak" of runs and pull backs leads to panic buying and selling, which leads to getting burned. What I do these days is stagger my buy orders down from a set number (If you have $5k to put in and want to be in at $136, make 20x $250 buy orders starting at $139 and going down by $1 each all the way to the $110s.) Same for sell orders, (though this is more to make sure you always have a stake which you clearly do), I have my btc separated into increments of 20 as sell orders every multiple of $25 or so.

Do you have a bot to do that for you?

I like to do it by hand

[Ploo]

Your transparency is very respectable and you may come to learn through this but selling at the bottom of a rally week was not the right call.

[Hawker]

Your transparency is very respectable and you may come to learn through this but selling at the bottom of a rally week was not the right call.

Yeah - newb mistake.  I had 97 listed at 145, got bored and relisted a lot cheaper.  Now it looks like I may have to wait weeks to get my Bitcoin back and since increasing my stock of Bitcoin is the only objective here, it was a mistake.

[Bitsaurus]

Yeah kicking myself for getting out at $133.  I put in an order for $121 but it only went to $122 and never looked back after that.

[xorglub]

My 2 satoshis :

Do your research before any trade. What was your motivation behind the 97btc sale ? What is your reasoning, why did you think the market would go down ? Document your reasoning, so you can look back and improve upon your successes and mistakes.

I wouldn't start with 100btc trades if you've never traded before. Play with 1btc or so, just to get the hang of it. See how you deal with the grief of money loss, before moving to bigger trades.

2100 btc is a lot, I hope you are not keeping that in your hot wallet at the exchange. Never go all in, in neither direction.

Otherwise this is a great initiative, looking forward to following your trading adventures !

[batcoin]

Have you spent a lot of time just watching the market and getting a feel for how it behaves?

[ManBearPig]

Hi, good luck with trading. It's a great way to lose hard-mined money fast

Just be sure to use ALL your information sources: charts, news, fundamentals, more charts, even more charts.

[Odalv]

I've mined over two thousand Bitcoin and my shops have generated 97.  Mining difficulty is high and shop sales are for a fraction of a Bitcoin so to build my stake, I will try day-trading on mtgox.

This is my first attempt and just in case anyone wants to see how a newbie does in the free market, I'm posting a trading log.  I know most day-traders lose their funds so if I do so, feel free to point and laugh.  

If anyone is interested, my only preparation is reading "The Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17639754/Douglas%2C%20Mark%20-%20The%20Disciplined%20Trader%20%281990%29%20-%20ISBN-0132157578%20%5B245%5D.pdf

Event                                                                                 BTC Balance                                                                       USD Balance
April 29 0958: Sold 97 for $138.99 each.                                    2100.00000000 BTC                                                           $13,401.13782

I now have an order for 98 BTC for $136.74 waiting to be executed but the price is over $143 .  Hopefully, I'll have something to post back here within a week or so.

LOL 0,6% for GOX when you sold and 0,6% when you will buy.  ... are you sure you will make profit ?

[Hawker]

...snip...

LOL 0,6% for GOX when you sold and 0,6% when you will buy.  ... are you sure you will make profit ?

I'll make 1 BTC.  Its not much but the stake I am playing with isn't much either.

[Odalv]

...snip...

LOL 0,6% for GOX when you sold and 0,6% when you will buy.  ... are you sure you will make profit ?

I'll make 1 BTC.  Its not much but the stake I am playing with isn't much either.

I think you will pay 0,6 BTC fee
EDIT: your profit 0,4 BTC (if any)   GOX profit 0,6 BTC + $80

[RationalSpeculator]

Thanks so much for sharing your trading. Very curious how things will work out.

[gweedo]

Any screen shot for proof? How do we know your not just trying to manipulate the market with FUD?

[niko]

I suggest you delay the story, so your current positions are not exposed. Only when your order is executed, you come and tell us what it was. Same value for the reader, but more fair to everyone.

[fitty]

...snip...

LOL 0,6% for GOX when you sold and 0,6% when you will buy.  ... are you sure you will make profit ?

I'll make 1 BTC.  Its not much but the stake I am playing with isn't much either.

You forgot the fees for buying. You get charged selling and buying.

When you buy that 98 BTC, you only get 97.412 BTC. 0.588 BTC is the fee. That assumes you are currently at 0.6%.

Decent MtGox fee calculator. http://bitcoin-fee.sbrk.org/

So you'll make .412 BTC, around $60. MtGox fees are crazy high. They reward heavy traders as you can scale down to 0.25%. https://mtgox.com/fee-schedule