Why I did I loose BTC in this trade sequence?

[neutrinox]

Hi!

I thought I was doing great trades during the last days, usually selling higher and buying lower (with a few exceptions). But MtGox is showing as the end result that I have less BTC than what I started with. I have been breaking my head trying to figure out how to calculate if the numbers are correct. I have to admit I have no idea how to approach this math problem!

Can anyone help me understand why I lost bitcoin in this trade history:

Index_______	Type____________	Info__________________________________________________________________	Price__________	Value___________	Balance___________
4	deposit	xxxxxx		0.5166000	0.5166000
5	out	BTC sold:  0,51660000 BTC at	204.9500	0.5166000	0.0000000
6	in	BTC bought:  0,50839046 BTC at	207.0100	0.5083905	0.5083905
7	fee	BTC bought:  0,50839046 BTC at  (0,6% fee)	207.0100	0.0030503	0.5053401
8	withdraw	xxxxxx		0.5053401	0.0000000
9	deposit	xxxxxx		0.5051401	0.5051401
10	out	BTC sold:  0,50514012 BTC at	255.0000	0.5051401	0.0000000
11	in	BTC bought:  0,26120000 BTC at	249.5000	0.2612000	0.2612000
12	fee	BTC bought:  0,26120000 BTC at (0,6% fee)	249.5000	0.0015672	0.2596328
13	in	BTC bought:  0,09359494 BTC at	242.0000	0.0935949	0.3532277
14	fee	BTC bought:  0,09359494 BTC at  (0,6% fee)	242.0000	0.0005616	0.3526662
15	in	BTC bought:  0,16619210 BTC at 242,00000	242.0000	0.1661921	0.5188583
16	fee	BTC bought:  0,16619210 BTC at 242,00000 (0,6% fee)	242.0000	0.0009972	0.5178611
17	out	BTC sold:  0,25600000 BTC at	249.0000	0.2560000	0.2618611
18	in	BTC bought:  0,25740000 BTC at	246.1230	0.2574000	0.5192611
19	fee	BTC bought:  0,25740000 BTC at  (0,6% fee)	246.1230	0.0015444	0.5177167
20	out	BTC sold:  0,30000000 BTC at	272.5000	0.3000000	0.2177167
21	out	BTC sold:  0,21771672 BTC at	268.9900	0.2177167	0.0000000
22	in	BTC bought:  0,26310000 BTC at	266.1000	0.2631000	0.2631000
23	fee	BTC bought:  0,26310000 BTC at 266,10000 (0,6% fee)	266.1000	0.0015786	0.2615214
24	out	BTC sold:  0,26152140 BTC at	280.9000	0.2615214	0.0000000
25	in	BTC bought:  0,24650000 BTC at	284.0000	0.2465000	0.2465000
26	fee	BTC bought:  0,24650000 BTC at  (0,6% fee)	284.0000	0.0014790	0.2450210
27	out	BTC sold:  0,24502100 BTC at	304.0050	0.2450210	0.0000000
28	in	BTC bought:  0,24710000 BTC at	299.4408	0.2471000	0.2471000
29	fee	BTC bought:  0,24710000 BTC at 299,44078 (0,6% fee)	299.4408	0.0014826	0.2456174
30	in	BTC bought:  0,24340194 BTC at	298.0000	0.2434019	0.4890193
31	fee	BTC bought:  0,24340194 BTC at 298,00000 (0,6% fee)	298.0000	0.0014604	0.4875589
32	out	BTC sold:  0,24300000 BTC at	309.0000	0.2430000	0.2445589

[frankenmint]

Trade fees, plain and simple.

[uk1]

yes fees you need to trade more btc to cover the fee

[neutrinox]

Okay.. So I guess if there is only a profit margin of a few dollars, the trade is not worth making because of the fees? How can one calculate if the trade is worth it or not? For example, if I suspect I can buy for 300 and later sell for 305, how can I calculate if that is worth doing or if the fees make it a lossy trade?

[frankenmint]

Okay.. So I guess if there is only a profit margin of a few dollars, the trade is not worth making because of the fees? How can one calculate if the trade is worth it or not? For example, if I suspect I can buy for 300 and later sell for 305, how can I calculate if that is worth doing or if the fees make it a lossy trade?

exactly - For me I desire a MINIMUM >3% from the trade to be worthwhile (Your time and research should also cost money which is why the gain must be much greater than the fee itself).  I believe that gox charges .6 % on the low side.  Your trade gains MUST exceed that .6% at minium otherwise you are taking a net loss.

[nfurno]

I custom developed a trade bot that made alot of money during this move, let me explain to you how I look at profit forcasting on trades.

1. when you sell, you are charged a 0.6% fee, and the price is at the high point of your trade cycle.
2. when  you buy your btc back, you are also charged at 0.6% fee, and the price is at the low point of your trade cycle, so your fee from your sale was higher than the fee from your purchase.
3. this means you must cover at least 1.2% in profit JUST to cover fees, if the move in price is less than 1.2%, you lost money. If the move in price is less than 2.4%, you made gox more money than you made for yourself.

I wrote a trade backtester that has all mtgox trades ever made up to this second. It then spends days analyzing every buy/sell price combination testing which two prices would have made the most money in any given timeframe i want to look at. This data shows that longer term, larger moves are win. Moves around 12-18% are winners, they happen often enough and at a high enough margin to make you real profits.

In fact, with my trade strategy i have some fixed incremental trades programmed in, but the bot picks the rest of it's trades based on this backtesting technology i put together. It does a way better job at picking prices than i do.

Hope this helps.

[neutrinox]

Hi!

Thanks, this is helpful information!

One question:

You said Gox is charging a fee both on selling and buying. But in the list in my OP, Gox has market fees only when buying BTC. Is the fee somehow hidden when selling BTC?

[deepceleron]

Look at your government currency page, it also has fees being removed from your account.