Analysis

[Majormax]

I want to be ready for a shakeout like June 2016, July 2017, September 2017, May 2019, etc. especially after 8 green weekly candles.

What does being ready mean in this context? short the falling price? or wait the dip to long it?

Closing longs, waiting for a new trading setup. Cash/stablecoins on exchanges, waiting to buy the dip. I don't like to short strong uptrends like this.

It partly just means not having my head in the clouds. Many people in my feed are already counting their millions, planning on lambos. They don't expect a crash at all. When the price dumps 10-20% in a day (as happened during those crashes mentioned above) a lot of them will panic and will eventually get shaken out.

I plan to be on the opposite side of that, buying the blood.

My thoughts exactly. Even with price moving 1K higher than my closed longs, I'm also expecting another shakeout as ia the nature of volitile crypto markets. Price is bullish but still facing strong resistance is the main concern right now. Reaching 10K makes me more curious about 8K support level that will now be a 20% pull-back if occurs, instead of being rejected by 9K area as I had previously expected (and got tapped out shorting with a fortunately tight stop loss). But either way, I also prefer buying into capitulation in bull trends than breakouts, as there's a lot more gain to be had for starters.
Buy red sell green.

You obviously have some experience trading different markets. Safer trades are always far better long-term than 'needing to be right' trades. The key to buying capitulation is , how do you tell when the bull trend is no longer a bull (ie it's a bear trend) ?  In BTC that tends to be the primary act of faith : that there is always an underlying bull trend. If you have any doubt of that at all, buying the breakout is safer.

[Wexlike]

Buy red sell green.

Buy blood, sell hopes. 

[dragonvsandroid]

I want to be ready for a shakeout like June 2016, July 2017, September 2017, May 2019, etc. especially after 8 green weekly candles.

What does being ready mean in this context? short the falling price? or wait the dip to long it?

Closing longs, waiting for a new trading setup. Cash/stablecoins on exchanges, waiting to buy the dip. I don't like to short strong uptrends like this.

It partly just means not having my head in the clouds. Many people in my feed are already counting their millions, planning on lambos. They don't expect a crash at all. When the price dumps 10-20% in a day (as happened during those crashes mentioned above) a lot of them will panic and will eventually get shaken out.

I plan to be on the opposite side of that, buying the blood.

My thoughts exactly. Even with price moving 1K higher than my closed longs, I'm also expecting another shakeout as ia the nature of volitile crypto markets. Price is bullish but still facing strong resistance is the main concern right now. Reaching 10K makes me more curious about 8K support level that will now be a 20% pull-back if occurs, instead of being rejected by 9K area as I had previously expected (and got tapped out shorting with a fortunately tight stop loss). But either way, I also prefer buying into capitulation in bull trends than breakouts, as there's a lot more gain to be had for starters.
Buy red sell green.

You obviously have some experience trading different markets. Safer trades are always far better long-term than 'needing to be right' trades. The key to buying capitulation is , how do you tell when the bull trend is no longer a bull (ie it's a bear trend) ?  In BTC that tends to be the primary act of faith : that there is always an underlying bull trend. If you have any doubt of that at all, buying the breakout is safer.

In all honesty, I don't have experience trading other markets that crypto, but I also find value in that by never being surprised by where price can go. I said recently price can now go to 14K or 7k, based on long-term price movements and I stick by that claim, as it may not go to either anytime soon as well.
Bitcoin will always be in a long-term bull trend above the 200 Week MA imo, so above 6K still macro bulllish I believe. Short-term, a break of 8K would be bearish, mid-term probably returning to 7K would make price action " neutral-bullish" (while still long-term a great btfd buying opportunity as would mean a 30% pull back has occurred,  even if 40% to 6k would be more likely to occur).

[JayJuanGee]

10000 is technically the traders perfect shorting point, because there is another harder resistance just above. Whether it breaks or holds we will see.

Oh my!!!!

Good luck with that.  You will likely need it.

I don't doubt that there is a decent amount of incentive for profit taking at these levels; however, there still seems to be little to no convincing narrative suggesting that there is a need for down before up.

So, yeah, I agree that in less than 2 months, BTC prices have large gone from $3,850 to $10,074 without any meaningful correction, but I doubt that the purported resistance in the $10k to $14k territory is as strong as you are making it out to be, and surely it could take up to a year to break through $14k, but I am having a lot of doubts that it is even going to take that long.. and surely at some point soon, we are likely to have $10k as support rather than resistance... and not bad odds that such $10k as support happenings will take place within less than a year... we will see... we will see.

New comment from masterluc -
May 8: In a case of new higher high (higher than 13 Feb 2020 ~ $10500) any bearish scenario will be invalidated.

Yes.. That has been the case for 3-6 months. 10500 was rejected twice and now forms the toughest resistance point.

10000 is also in the process of testing, and if it is rejected, then the bearish scenario is intact for some  time.

10000 is technically the traders perfect shorting point, because there is another harder resistance just above. Whether it breaks or holds we will see.

Bears don't look impressive yet, but it's possible we're slowly forming a multi-day top similar to August 2019 or February 2020.

Sentiment has turned strongly bullish with all the halving hype. Bitfinex longs outnumber shorts 4.66 to 1 now. Bitmex swaps are consistently holding above spot, the Fear & Greed index is showing "greed." I'm afraid to even predict a bearish outcome because going down feels impossible (a top indicator in and of itself).

I'm a big believer in maximum pain theory, and with sentiment this bullish, it's beginning to feel like the direction of maximum pain is down, not up.

I've closed my longs. Time to let the bulls and bears fight over $10K, and $10.5K. I want to be ready for a shakeout like June 2016, July 2017, September 2017, May 2019, etc. especially after 8 green weekly candles.

Gosh... hard to disagree with any of this....

By the way, this week's green candle has not closed, yet, and this week's would be the 8th one....

At this point, it seems quite likely to turn out green, since we only have about 30 hours before this week's candle closes and as long as the BTC price (talking bitstamp, here) stays above $8,930-ish for such closing time, this week's candle will be green.

Putting it from the other side of the coin, 10k is one of the worst possible levels to buy at this time . That remains so 'until its not' , at which point shorts get slaughtered, but I don't think we are there yet.

If any newbie does not have any stake, at all, in bitcoin, then I always recommend getting a bit of a stake before playing around with predicting BTC price movements or the "waiting" game which could cause them to get fucked in chasing the train.. and we have seen that plenty of times in bitcoin.

Many of the more active members here already have a decent stake in bitcoin that has likely either been established a long time ago or has been slowly building such stake over a number of years, and are already considerably profitable in our already existing stake in bitcoin, so a wee lil drop down to sub $7k or even down to $4k is not going to cause a large number of us to either panic or to become unprofitable.... been there, done that (many times).   hahahahaaha

I want to be ready for a shakeout like June 2016, July 2017, September 2017, May 2019, etc. especially after 8 green weekly candles.

What does being ready mean in this context? short the falling price? or wait the dip to long it?

Closing longs, waiting for a new trading setup. Cash/stablecoins on exchanges, waiting to buy the dip. I don't like to short strong uptrends like this.

It partly just means not having my head in the clouds. Many people in my feed are already counting their millions, planning on lambos. They don't expect a crash at all. When the price dumps 10-20% in a day (as happened during those crashes mentioned above) a lot of them will panic and will eventually get shaken out.

I plan to be on the opposite side of that, buying the blood.

My thoughts exactly. Even with price moving 1K higher than my closed longs, I'm also expecting another shakeout as ia the nature of volitile crypto markets. Price is bullish but still facing strong resistance is the main concern right now. Reaching 10K makes me more curious about 8K support level that will now be a 20% pull-back if occurs, instead of being rejected by 9K area as I had previously expected (and got tapped out shorting with a fortunately tight stop loss). But either way, I also prefer buying into capitulation in bull trends than breakouts, as there's a lot more gain to be had for starters.
Buy red sell green.

You obviously have some experience trading different markets. Safer trades are always far better long-term than 'needing to be right' trades. The key to buying capitulation is , how do you tell when the bull trend is no longer a bull (ie it's a bear trend) ?  In BTC that tends to be the primary act of faith : that there is always an underlying bull trend. If you have any doubt of that at all, buying the breakout is safer.

Seems to me that in bitcoin there is just a need to account for the s-curve exponential adoption aspect.  It is not a matter of blindness, but instead a matter of adequately accounting for that new asset dynamic aspect.. that can screw up a lot of people who try to treat bitcoin as if it were a mature asset, when it is not.

Bitcoin will always be in a long-term bull trend above the 200 Week MA imo, so above 6K still macro bulllish I believe. Short-term, a break of 8K would be bearish, mid-term probably returning to 7K would make price action " neutral-bullish" (while still long-term a great btfd buying opportunity as would mean a 30% pull back has occurred,  even if 40% to 6k would be more likely to occur).

This part is well said, DvsA.

[Globb0]

By the way, this week's green candle has not closed, yet, and this week's would be the 8th one....

After everything else. This!

[exstasie]

Bears don't look impressive yet, but it's possible we're slowly forming a multi-day top similar to August 2019 or February 2020.

Sentiment has turned strongly bullish with all the halving hype. Bitfinex longs outnumber shorts 4.66 to 1 now. Bitmex swaps are consistently holding above spot, the Fear & Greed index is showing "greed." I'm afraid to even predict a bearish outcome because going down feels impossible (a top indicator in and of itself).

I'm a big believer in maximum pain theory, and with sentiment this bullish, it's beginning to feel like the direction of maximum pain is down, not up.

I've closed my longs. Time to let the bulls and bears fight over $10K, and $10.5K. I want to be ready for a shakeout like June 2016, July 2017, September 2017, May 2019, etc. especially after 8 green weekly candles.

There you have it, a classic BTC shakeout:



And that ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't stay leveraged long at key resistance levels after extended gains. We just saw some epic liquidations!

Now let's see if this quickly retraces and if bears start piling on shorts. Either (or both) will give us some indication of where sentiment is at, and whether we can expect more carnage.

[Millionero]

Yeah, scramble to win or lose a few hundred dollars, git rekt, drama, blah blah blah.
A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
HODL

[Wexlike]

Yeah, scramble to win or lose a few hundred dollars, git rekt, drama, blah blah blah.
A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
HODL

And here is an example of someone losing a lot of money.

[JayJuanGee]

Yeah, scramble to win or lose a few hundred dollars, git rekt, drama, blah blah blah.
A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
HODL

And here is an example of someone losing a lot of money.

You don't lose it, if you don't sell.   


 

[Majormax]

10000 is technically the traders perfect shorting point, because there is another harder resistance just above. Whether it breaks or holds we will see.

Oh my!!!!

Good luck with that.  You will likely need it.

I don't doubt that there is a decent amount of incentive for profit taking at these levels; however, there still seems to be little to no convincing narrative suggesting that there is a need for down before up.

Its not luck  (Todd).

Profit already. Observing 8600

Now its a better point to go long, or at least close the short, being below the (weak) resistance at 9000.

[Majormax]

Now let's see if this quickly retraces and if bears start piling on shorts. Either (or both) will give us some indication of where sentiment is at, and whether we can expect more carnage.

Yes. This is not now a point to put on new positions, possibly close out if you shorted from ~9900, which was the low risk trade.

The range from 6500 to 10000 has reinforced itself again, and the bearish nature of 10k rejection should make potential longs cautious.

Looking at fundamentals, the big shakeout of miners after halving is going to hit hashrate (as always) and it remains to be seen how long liquidations overhang the market.

Always the caveat that BTC is different from other markets, but its price sure is behaving much more like an established commodity nowadays.

[casperBGD]

Now let's see if this quickly retraces and if bears start piling on shorts. Either (or both) will give us some indication of where sentiment is at, and whether we can expect more carnage.

Yes. This is not now a point to put on new positions, possibly close out if you shorted from ~9900, which was the low risk trade.

The range from 6500 to 10000 has reinforced itself again, and the bearish nature of 10k rejection should make potential longs cautious.

Looking at fundamentals, the big shakeout of miners after halving is going to hit hashrate (as always) and it remains to be seen how long liquidations overhang the market.

Always the caveat that BTC is different from other markets, but its price sure is behaving much more like an established commodity nowadays.

agree, 10k was rejected few times before halving, and it is questionable could it be crossed in near future, without some fundamental positive news

[Globb0]

I spotted the signal but I just cant seem to stomach the risk of margin.

[JayJuanGee]

10000 is technically the traders perfect shorting point, because there is another harder resistance just above. Whether it breaks or holds we will see.

Oh my!!!!

Good luck with that.  You will likely need it.

I don't doubt that there is a decent amount of incentive for profit taking at these levels; however, there still seems to be little to no convincing narrative suggesting that there is a need for down before up.

Its not luck  (Todd).

Seems like luck to me.  If you keep proclaiming (with fists raised) down, sooner or later, you are going to get down, so I doubt that you are any kind of sorcerer in this matter.      

I have already made many posts in which I have been stating that I am a bit nervous in term of NOT having any significant and meaningful correction, since $3,850 (less than 2 months ago).  Yes, here we have had a BIG short term correction, but such correction has not played out yet... so I am not even sure about how meaningful and significant it is.. in terms of impacting the BTC price direction.. even though surely exciting on a short-term basis to experience close to $1,300 downward (close to -14%) in about 10 minutes.  That is surely exciting, but hardly any kind of reflection of anything meaningful unless there is a change in direction or something beyond mere consolidation.


By the way, I am not sure about what you mean by "Todd", and I looked it up on google, which does not cause me much clarity... the meaning was "sly like a fox" or something like that?

You believe that I am being sly, or did you have some other reason for that usage?

Profit already. Observing 8600

Have you changed your practices, Majormax?  Many times, I have heard you state that you make various kinds of short-to-medium term calls in order to help other members to think through "reasonableness," and you are NOT actually trading.

So seems that one of the main ways to profit from these kinds of negative BTC price moves, especially if you are thinking long term, as you proclaim to be doing, is to buy on the mother fucking dip.  AmiNOTrite?    So, in that regard, yes I have profited a wee bit.  How about you?  Or maybe I should be asking, what do you mean by "profit"?

Now its a better point to go long, or at least close the short, being below the (weak) resistance at 9000.

Hey?  We seem to agree about something, or at least, how the fuck would we have been shorting BTC in the first place, but that's just me.  I don't short the corn.  I only long and I only close some longs from time to time... but for the most part none of my longs are leveraged, except in the broader sense of my cashflow  and in the ways that I manage my cashflow that has some strategic uses of debt, but ultimately no real substantial leveraging....

Always the caveat that BTC is different from other markets, but its price sure is behaving much more like an established commodity nowadays.

No, it is not.  

By the way, this week's green candle has not closed, yet, and this week's would be the 8th one....

After everything else. This!

By the way... (as I type this post), we have about 7.5 hours before this weekly candle closes.... Maybe going to be a nail-biter?  In order to turn out green, it has to close above $8,910-ish.

[JayJuanGee]

Now let's see if this quickly retraces and if bears start piling on shorts. Either (or both) will give us some indication of where sentiment is at, and whether we can expect more carnage.

Yes. This is not now a point to put on new positions, possibly close out if you shorted from ~9900, which was the low risk trade.

The range from 6500 to 10000 has reinforced itself again, and the bearish nature of 10k rejection should make potential longs cautious.

Looking at fundamentals, the big shakeout of miners after halving is going to hit hashrate (as always) and it remains to be seen how long liquidations overhang the market.

Always the caveat that BTC is different from other markets, but its price sure is behaving much more like an established commodity nowadays.

agree, 10k was rejected few times before halving, and it is questionable could it be crossed in near future, without some fundamental positive news

Personally, it seems to me that Majormax tends to describe (perhaps dramatically) bitcoin's upwards resistance points as much stronger than they are, and from time to time, he has to modify his previous assertions to account for the fact that bitcoin has a tendency to be way the fuck more upwardly mobile than his lil mainstream price models would (or can) bear attributing.

I spotted the signal but I just cant seem to stomach the risk of margin.

Oh my, Globb0!!!!   If you have potentially accurate information that others do NOT have, then you better get your ass out there and trade it, before it is too late.. and then tell us later... after you already got your orders/bets in place. 

By the way, I am curious?  maybe you can disclose later, but what the fuck is the purported signal?  Are we going up or down?  I still don't see any odds of anything greater than 50% in either direction, especially after our quickie correction from  15-16 hours ago... (of course, looking at the time of your post (7 hours ago), your then information might have been a bit different from what information is available now, at the time of my typing this post).

[Majormax]

...

By the way, I am not sure about what you mean by "Todd", and I looked it up on google, which does not cause me much clarity... the meaning was "sly like a fox" or something like that?

...

Sorry to have confused you !  I was just being a bit lighthearted.  The quote , possibly a bit obscure, but I thought some traders would recognise it,  is Louis Winthorpe (Dan Ackroyd) in Trading Places. I felt it fitted the mood.

Just to be sure, I do not trade myself now. I have done enough of that in my career, successfully,  with other instruments than Crypto, but it takes a heavy psychological toll, and I don't want that any more. I sometimes quote technical info from a traders perspective just for illustration. BTW, I reckon about 40% of my career trades were mistakes and I let go of the need to be right some time ago, so I am certainly no prophet.

You must know I read your posts with interest and respect, because I recognise the amount of thought and research you put in. I will not knowingly snipe at anyone, so some of my apparent sarcasm will be accidental.

[podyx]

So we will see more down do you guys reckon?

[Majormax]

Personally, it seems to me that Majormax tends to describe (perhaps dramatically) bitcoin's upwards resistance points as much stronger than they are..

That's because, in an overall Bull trend the upper resistance points are of most importance to determining the rate of progress. It's just my humble opinion, and there are plenty of those on this forum !

The disagreement with my own assertions gives me far more useful information that any passive agreement, same as any argument/debate. Thats why I might appear provocative. It's never personal !

[JayJuanGee]

...

By the way, I am not sure about what you mean by "Todd", and I looked it up on google, which does not cause me much clarity... the meaning was "sly like a fox" or something like that?

...

Sorry to have confused you !  I was just being a bit lighthearted.  The quote , possibly a bit obscure, but I thought some traders would recognise it,  is Louis Winthorpe (Dan Ackroyd) in Trading Places. I felt it fitted the mood.

Just to be sure, I do not trade myself now. I have done enough of that in my career, successfully,  with other instruments than Crypto, but it takes a heavy psychological toll, and I don't want that any more. I sometimes quote technical info from a traders perspective just for illustration. BTW, I reckon about 40% of my career trades were mistakes and I let go of the need to be right some time ago, so I am certainly no prophet.

You must know I read your posts with interest and respect, because I recognise the amount of thought and research you put in. I will not knowingly snipe at anyone, so some of my apparent sarcasm will be accidental.

I believe that my skin is thick enough to accept a few snipes here and there.  I certainly snipe at you enough, because sometimes you just make me a bit mad with your analysis, which I frequently conjecture that you are tending to error too much in terms of trying to attribute mature features onto bitcoin, and so sure, sometimes I cannot really pinpoint why I am getting so worked up about what I perceive to be your overly bearish analysis, and maybe I become even more worked up when you end up being correct in terms of where the BTC price ends up going.  

But whatever, in the end, maybe even part of my "worked-up-ness" is a kind of exaggeration, too....and in the end, overall BTC's historical price performance (including where we are at currently) has been way the hell more bullish than even I could have imagined to be a realistic turn of events.  

I mean largely my minimum goal, in terms of my BTC investment, was to hope that it performed equally or better than the average of my remaining portfolio (which historically had been around 5.5% average per year), so anything at or above 5.5% average per year would make me feel pretty damned good, and surely, I would even be prepared to receive less stellar BTC price performance because of the fact that I had largely been considering the BTC portion of my investment to be serving as an overall hedge to my remaining portfolio which I perceived to have been way too dollar correlated.

So, ultimately, even if I had screwed up quite a few times in various aspects of my approach to my BTC holdings (which I have a few times), the portion of my overall investment portfolio that is attributed to my BTC holdings has way the hell out performed any and all aspects of my various other investments, and I have no reason to really speculate that in essence, BTC is going to continue to largely outperform all of those other asset allocations, and I am not even trying to talk my book in that respect.  

Before I got into bitcoin, I had thought that I was largely rich enough with my various traditional investments, at least in order to have had prepared myself for a reasonably comfortable life, even if some things kind of go to shit in various ways.  The supplementation of my overall future preparations with BTC has been merely serving as icing on the cake to an already decently good set of preparations....

Sometimes, I may reflect on myself and my own situation, but frequently when I am participating in these various kinds of conversations about bitcoin, I am also trying to account for the various questions and concerns that either bitcoin newbies might have or any members who are in a much earlier state of their wealth and/or btc accumulation stage of life.  

Accordingly, I do try to figure out and argue the case for the hypothetical newbie on a regular basis, and I tend to do that in the real world, too.  When someone asks me about bitcoin, I frequently will tell them to get started right away, and I don't care about what the price is... Of course, one of my reservations is that I will have concerns for anyone who either does not otherwise have their finances in order or someone who perceives themself to have a decently short investment time horizon.. such as anything less than 4 or 5 years.  

Personally, it seems to me that Majormax tends to describe (perhaps dramatically) bitcoin's upwards resistance points as much stronger than they are..

That's because, in an overall Bull trend the upper resistance points are of most importance to determining the rate of progress. It's just my humble opinion, and there are plenty of those on this forum !

Hm?  Maybe this is part of where we differ in our attempts at analyzing where we have been and where we are potentially going.

Of course, both support and resistance is important to attempt to understand, and frequently we might come to differing perspectives when we emphasize one or the other.

You should be seeing some value in some of the charts that show various historical BTC bottoms, too, no?  I mean, if you think about it, and if you look at it, looking at yearly BTC bottoms can be quite informative regarding BTC price direction, overall.

Of course, we frequently get blow off tops and even little baby blow off tops, and maybe part of the difference between our perspectives is that I consider those little blow off tops to be bullish, and you tend to consider them as bearish, even though both of us would conjecture that there has to be a correction at some point in time if the BTC price continues to go up in those kinds of crazy ass ways, that seems to happen on a fairly regular basis, and I have no real reason to speculate that crazy ass ups (and downs) are going to stop in bitcoin any time soon... it is almost guaranteed, so when it happens, from my perspective, there should be little to no need to get overly worked up about it... and perhaps I am wanting to see the glass as being half full... even though I hate to attribute spin motivations to myself... because I believe that I am merely attempting to describe the situation as factual even though my presentation is attempting to assert how wonderful bitcoin tends to be as an investment when we get crazy ass increases in price (even if just on paper for short periods of time), but then the bottoms keep going up too, so in the end, it seems to be less and less likely to be calling for crazy ass bottoms, and it seems to me that even you, majormax have kind of given up on your overly bullish sub $2k assertions... especially in the past couple of years (and yeah, just 2 months ago, we were getting damned close to revisiting lower lows, with that relatively extreme move to $3,850).

The disagreement with my own assertions gives me far more useful information that any passive agreement, same as any argument/debate. Thats why I might appear provocative. It's never personal !

Surely, even though you have explained your perspective so many times, I am not really going to proclaim to understand why, from my perspective, you seem so inclined to present and to argue various downside scenarios, I have not really tended to take any of your arguments and presentations personally because it kind of seems to me that you really believe what you are asserting, so you are trying to be genuine, rather than a beartroll.   So, I don't tend to take your presentations/arguments personally even though frequently, I feel an inclination to either respond or to at least attempt to get to you clarify what you mean... and much of that can be a learning process for me, too (whether I am learning about your position or my own thoughts about the subject matter). #nohomo.

[Bimmerhead]

Yeah, scramble to win or lose a few hundred dollars, git rekt, drama, blah blah blah.
A tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
HODL

And here is an example of someone losing a lot of money.

You don't lose it, if you don't sell.   


 

I never understood this statement.

You think if you don't sell your car it hasn't depreciated? Try using it as loan collateral.