Speculators, speak up.

[kiwiasian]

Rarely do I see the voices of any speculators here.

What price are you buying at? 7/10/2011
What price do you plan to sell?
What do you expect the price to increase to?
In what time frame are you expecting all of this to happen?

[Cluster2k]

Rarely do I see the voices of any speculators here.

If they answer your questions, do you expect to hear the truth?  It's like a bunch of poker players at a table discussing a hand.  They're all telling lies to each other to get the upper hand.

I would tell anything to fulfill my trading goal.

[Alex Beckenham]

Speculating is a secondary consideration for me, but I'll play along...

Buying anywhere from $13-18 at the moment... don't care about the price too much, I just buy whenever I get spare money.

I plan to sell at $100 - but probably only half of my total coins or less.

Will sell them for that price some time in the next 12 months.

[Rassah]

I'm buying whenever I get some spare money. Since I'm using Bitcoin as my main long-term savings account (money I use maybe once or twice a year for things like vacation or electronics), I buy at whatever the market is at every two weeks.
I don't plan to sell at any specific price. When I need the money, such as when I need to pay my credit card for an expensive trip, is when I sell (I use credit cards for everything due to the cash back bonuses). I don't plan to ever sell all or some specific amount of my Bitcoin. As long as it stays above $14 overall, there's no reason for me to keep my money in USD.
I expect the price to keep going up over the months/years. There are too many variables involved to make any sort of price predictions, but I wouldn't be surprised if 1 BTC was worth $100 or more by next Summer. Based on the growth of the new sellers and new services (banks, escrows, etc), I think it may reach $100 by the end of the year, but I am likely completely wrong (it may be much lower, or much higher). Either way, I think the huge spike in growth we saw over the last two months was a bit of an anomaly, and it will have slower and more steady growth from now on. (again, I'm likely VERY wrong)

[CurbsideProphet]

I'm buying whenever I get some spare money. Since I'm using Bitcoin as my main long-term savings account (money I use maybe once or twice a year for things like vacation or electronics), I buy at whatever the market is at every two weeks.

Bitcoin is your main savings account?  Bitcoin is still very much in its infancy and highly experimental.  Making Bitcoin your main savings account is extremely.... I'm not going to sugar coat it, stupid. 

You should only invest what you're willing to lose, this is not a savings account. 

[Rassah]

I'm buying whenever I get some spare money. Since I'm using Bitcoin as my main long-term savings account (money I use maybe once or twice a year for things like vacation or electronics), I buy at whatever the market is at every two weeks.

Bitcoin is your main savings account?  Bitcoin is still very much in its infancy and highly experimental.  Making Bitcoin your main savings account is extremely.... I'm not going to sugar coat it, stupid. 

You should only invest what you're willing to lose, this is not a savings account. 

It's not my main savings account. That's in ING, and is used monthly to pay bills and such. This is my long-term one, where I know I won't need the money for quite a while. While I'll need to pay for a new Android tablet in about two weeks, and pay for a short trip to London around January, the larger expenses won't come due until at least 1.5 years from now. I fully expect Bitcoin to survive that long and increase in value substantially. If Bitcoin collapses in value and I lose all my money, though, although the loss will be substantial (close to $10k), it's nowhere near the amount I have invested in my other accounts/mutual funds, and the bills that will be due then I'll still be able to pay with my earned income. I'm essentially gambling on either having to pay those large expenses over a long period of time with my normal income, or with a single huge windfall from Bitcoin.

By the way, I guess this is one of those examples where people wining about "early adopters" should put up or shut up. I'm not an early early adopter, but I still got in somewhat early, and am taking a considerable risk with Bitcoin. Thus, I expect to be paid back a considerable return. Yet those complaining about "early adopters" seem to still be sitting on the sidelines, doing nothing but complaining, despite it still being pretty early to get into this.

[CurbsideProphet]

That's cool, I get the whole no risk no reward mantra.  It was just a little scary when you said it was your main savings account.  You're just an anonymous guy on the net (like I am to you) but when I read that I just felt like I had to say something.  I'm glad you've got a plan set up.  I'm with you, I want Bitcoin to succeed, but at the same time I don't want someone out on the street if it fails.  Clearly that's not going to happen to you so I was mistaken but I figured it was better to speak up and be wrong than say nothing.

Best of luck to you.  BTW, as an android dev, I'm glad you chose one of those tablets over the iPad.  I personally like the Samsung but everyone has their own preference.

[Oldminer]

As trading decisions are largely based on opinions and thoughts of the traders themselves (and even more so than facts & figures), I doubt you will get many people here answering your questions. Well not those that know what their talking about anyway lol

[Edward50]

I'm holding out to single digits to buy.

[angelo95]

I am doing 10s of trades everyday. Buy low sell high.

[bitcoinBull]

My first purchase was in March and I started out conservative, quick to sell hoping to buy more cheaper.  It worked a couple of times, but because there wasn't much downside volatility back then, I usually lost potential gains and was forced to buy back higher.  Since I was also quick to buy, the losses didn't seem much but they started adding up.  And as the real gains multiplied, so did the potential gains (which started feeling more like losses).

By the time it broke $10, I had learned a lesson trading bitcoin: "don't sell", and felt a little wiser during the quick rise to $30.  Needless to say, when it crashed to $10 and I still hadn't moved, I was even wiser (or at least more experienced).  Kudos to anyone able to make that perfect trade, and triple their holdings.


Moral of my story: two lessons learned.  #1) you can lose a lot of potential gains selling repeatedly at mis-predicted tops during a furious bull run.  #2) you can lose a lot of potential gains by not selling at an actual top. A lot.

The perfect trade (eg. sell all at $30 and go all in at $10.50) is obvious in retrospect but just too difficult to predict.  Trying to time the perfect trade is not worth the risk (upside against the downside) because markets are unpredictable, so selling portions reduces that risk.  But try not to sell mid-run, because it goes up fast and furious.


My speculation going forward:  Another bull run will come.  I will not sell at $30 because that is the old high, and when old highs are broken it can go parabolic to a new high.  I'll hold on as tight as I can during the run, and start selling portions at potential tops on the way to $100, but probably not more than half by the time it goes to $100.  Hard to say where a parabola will stop, but they do come down.  I'll pay close attention to the price over difficulty ratio (see charts in my sig) when attempting to predict tops.

I would expect another bull run to start by August (3-month cycle) or a little later, certainly before the end of the year.  It will go above $30 and could approach $100.  How quickly it rises and how hard or from where it falls (a dip or a crash) will depend on if difficulty growth keeps pace (price over difficulty ratio).  I would be both surprised and not surprised if it passes $100, say to $300 before year's end or in 1Q 2012.  I'll look at the difficulty to predict a bottom.

$10 may be tested again before $20 but I expect it to hold and bounce as before.  I would dump below $9 (new historic low in the ratio).  A rise above $20 sets the stage for the the next rally (over $30).

[tomcollins]

I like a different philosophy.

I consider Bitcoins a high risk/high reward type of investment.  Every so often, I'll adjust my investments.  I don't want to have a huge percentage of my portfolio in such investments.  So if Bitcoin goes up a bunch, sell some to keep my risk level low and get some profits.  The more I make, the more I can afford to keep in risky investments, so I don't sell as much each time.

[grod]

Any miner that's hoarding bitcoins is also speculating.  Their buy price was roughly the average price on mtgox over the time their coins were generated (this means effectively $0 for some) and they're expecting a higher future price.

Me, I don't have a set price target.  I sell when the upward trends reverse, and buy when the dowards trends reverse.  Overall I keep buying lower-ish, but also selling lower-ish.  It really doesn't matter to me if BTC is at $100,000,000 or .01, I'm not a buy and hold faithful.  I hold a few coins in case this thing does go to the moon and beyond, but it'll be a tiny, tiny portion of my investment.

Oh, and I sell most of the coins I generate within a week of generating them.

[piramida]

Looking at BTCUSD and BTCEUR graphs this last three days, I wonder if there is any currency which is more stable, short-term, than BTC is now? Comparing to EURUSD pair, it's like an amazingly stable currency

[Rassah]

Any miner that's hoarding bitcoins is also speculating.  Their buy price was roughly the average price on mtgox over the time their coins were generated (this means effectively $0 for some) and they're expecting a higher future price.

Me, I don't have a set price target.  I sell when the upward trends reverse, and buy when the dowards trends reverse.  Overall I keep buying lower-ish, but also selling lower-ish.  It really doesn't matter to me if BTC is at $100,000,000 or .01, I'm not a buy and hold faithful.  I hold a few coins in case this thing does go to the moon and beyond, but it'll be a tiny, tiny portion of my investment.

Oh, and I sell most of the coins I generate within a week of generating them.

How do you know if the trends reverse? I was thinking of doing it, but chickened out and held instead, only to find out that I was glad I did, since holding turned out to be better (like, for instance, it was a prevalent assumptions that prices rise on Monday and drop over the weekend because banks close on weekends, but that didn't happen this past weekend)

[grod]

Basic technical analysis DOES work on bitcoin, so long as you use a short enough interval.  Any data older than a week is not useful for trading IMO.   As far as the weekend effect -- miners are learning.  Like you, they are adjusting their strategy.  They now hold their coins over the weekend to dump on Monday.   Being flexible, constantly re-evaluating and adjusting your trading strategy is mandatory here.

To answer your question: I look for support levels and bounces from them, then it's all steel balls and leaps of faith.   Win some, hopefully lose fewer some.  If it were easy everyone would be doing it.

[Leon]

Ive bought $2000 worth of BTC and plan to never sell, but to buy once they have enough value that i can use them at walmart.

[Rassah]

Ive bought $2000 worth of BTC and plan to never sell, but to buy once they have enough value that i can use them at buy walmart.

fixed!

Yeah, wishfull thinking 

[bitcoinTrader]

Already have ordered macbook with bitcoins   (first person to do )

I will be recovering my investment + some profit at 25-30 range.

Some part will be invested (shares + trading)

The remaining I will keep as saving.

[Shinobi]

Please promise me that if your house of cards come crashing down, do *not* go postal and kill anyone, ok? This kind of risk-taking makes me shudder.

I'm buying whenever I get some spare money. Since I'm using Bitcoin as my main long-term savings account (money I use maybe once or twice a year for things like vacation or electronics), I buy at whatever the market is at every two weeks.

Bitcoin is your main savings account?  Bitcoin is still very much in its infancy and highly experimental.  Making Bitcoin your main savings account is extremely.... I'm not going to sugar coat it, stupid. 

You should only invest what you're willing to lose, this is not a savings account. 

It's not my main savings account. That's in ING, and is used monthly to pay bills and such. This is my long-term one, where I know I won't need the money for quite a while. While I'll need to pay for a new Android tablet in about two weeks, and pay for a short trip to London around January, the larger expenses won't come due until at least 1.5 years from now. I fully expect Bitcoin to survive that long and increase in value substantially. If Bitcoin collapses in value and I lose all my money, though, although the loss will be substantial (close to $10k), it's nowhere near the amount I have invested in my other accounts/mutual funds, and the bills that will be due then I'll still be able to pay with my earned income. I'm essentially gambling on either having to pay those large expenses over a long period of time with my normal income, or with a single huge windfall from Bitcoin.

By the way, I guess this is one of those examples where people wining about "early adopters" should put up or shut up. I'm not an early early adopter, but I still got in somewhat early, and am taking a considerable risk with Bitcoin. Thus, I expect to be paid back a considerable return. Yet those complaining about "early adopters" seem to still be sitting on the sidelines, doing nothing but complaining, despite it still being pretty early to get into this.