Buy And Hold - the "hold" bit is easy, but when to buy?

[davidgdg]

Assuming you strategy is B&H. When should you buy? On rises, dips, on a regular basis, all-in at the beginning, or doesn't it really matter?

[ElectricMucus]

I'd imagine they are doing it when they get their pay on the beginning of the month with whatever is left over from the previous month.
The problem they have is that since they more or less buy at the same time they are paying more, like right now takeoff coincided with everybody getting their 14th pay.

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

[TERA]

Everytime there is a sharp correction like today I take a 2:1 margin position at the bottom on bitfinex (using my btc as collateral). After trading all day and the momentum of the correction seems to be over I close the margin positions, take the profits as btc, and add them to my stash.

[teukon]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

[ElectricMucus]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

Yes but those people bought or generated a few coins once upon a time and see how it turns out. I'd say the people that buy at regular intervals are pretty much excluded from this group.

[Tirapon]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

Yes but those people bought or generated a few coins once upon a time and see how it turns out. I'd say the people that buy at regular intervals are pretty much excluded from this group.

Maybe a lot of people start out with the intention of 'cashing out' for profit - But as more infrastructure is developed, they may find they can actually just spend their BTC on the things they wanted to buy, and by that point their BTC are worth a lot more. That's what we're aiming for in my opinion.

[piramida]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

Yes but those people bought or generated a few coins once upon a time and see how it turns out. I'd say the people that buy at regular intervals are pretty much excluded from this group.

And what makes you come to this conclusion? Alot of people invest in bitcoin for longterm value storage and are not envisioning cashing out, at least not until 2020. I know I am.

As for OP, you send fiat to exchange when correction starts and buy when it completes. Hold until you need fiat for some reason, set aside some small amount for speculation if you like the risk but never play with all.

[ElectricMucus]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

Yes but those people bought or generated a few coins once upon a time and see how it turns out. I'd say the people that buy at regular intervals are pretty much excluded from this group.

And what makes you come to this conclusion? Alot of people invest in bitcoin for longterm value storage and are not envisioning cashing out, at least not until 2020. I know I am.

see then it's 2020 for you.

The conclusion comes in hindsight, people who are prone to frequent buying should be prone to frequent trading, which includes selling. There are bound to be exceptions but in general I think this is true.

[theonewhowaskazu]

You buy when the stochrsi is moving out of oversold territory. This last year, that's had 100% accuracy of predicting at least a short-term bottom.

[adamstgBit]

You buy when the stochrsi is moving out of oversold territory. This last year, that's had 100% accuracy of predicting at least a short-term bottom.

yup, stochrsi  is an important indicator, watch it on many time frames.

[bigasic]

good time to  buy right now? opinions? Or is the correction not done?

[thezerg]

But make no mistake, in the end everybody is in it to eventually cash out.

Maybe many people but not everybody.  Some would like to see the experiment largely succeed and for Bitcoin to become a widespread, useful tool.  For them, bitcoins are a form of cash.

Yes but those people bought or generated a few coins once upon a time and see how it turns out. I'd say the people that buy at regular intervals are pretty much excluded from this group.

And what makes you come to this conclusion? Alot of people invest in bitcoin for longterm value storage and are not envisioning cashing out, at least not until 2020. I know I am.

see then it's 2020 for you.

The conclusion comes in hindsight, people who are prone to frequent buying should be prone to frequent trading, which includes selling. There are bound to be exceptions but in general I think this is true.

I swear you've become the Proudhon bear.  Of COURSE the point is to cash out some day.  In other words, the point is to buy goods and services with your money.  What other purpose does money have?  Dying with a positive balance (ignoring some careful giving to your descendants of course) is just a waste of a last big party!    But when one person is spending his money another is saving his.

Judging by how Camp-Bx has been trailing (its small but only USA so its an interesting data point) that's what's been happening for the last few months... US savers are "cashing out" and Chinese are saving.

Its working just how $ works.

[adamstgBit]

good time to  buy right now? opinions? Or is the correction not done?

oh ya its prime time to buy IMHO.

we may see lower prices still in the next few weeks, but months out... I honestly think we will be much higher. HOPEFULLY we do not dramicly over shoot and come to a permanly high plateau instead, but over shoot and crazy crash is fun too.

[xephyr]

good time to  buy right now? opinions? Or is the correction not done?

Stochastic RSI signaled a buy 12 hours ago on daily MtGox. Price went to $360 and is testing the $300 level again. No one know if the correction is over. If you feel stongly that btc will trade below $300 just space your buys over a few days.

[MaxBTC1]

good time to  buy right now? opinions? Or is the correction not done?

oh ya its prime time to buy IMHO.

we may see lower prices still in the next few weeks, but months out... I honestly think we will be much higher. HOPEFULLY we do not dramicly over shoot and come to a permanly high plateau instead, but over shoot and crazy crash is fun too.

This.  Everyone knows bitcoin has potential but when it increases at such ridiculous rates a crash is always going to happen.

[thezerg]

good time to  buy right now? opinions? Or is the correction not done?

take a look at the 6 month gox or bitstamp chart.  You can imagine a line from jun 30 to about oct 15.  I'll call this L1.  It is kind of the baseline trend -- perhaps how fast bitcoin's value is intrinsically increasing during this bull cycle.  Anything below this line is a good buy.

But post "bubble", bitcoin tends to finish 2-5x higher then previously so waiting for this line may never happen.

Now you can draw another steeper line from oct 15 to approx Nov 1.  Let's call this the L2 baseline.  This is the speculation trendline.  Anything faster than this will indicate an impending blow-off (which is why we are seeing one now).

Now ask yourself if you think that this pull-back is the end of a major bubble cycle (like the 2 we had previously), or just a correction?  If you think its the end of the cycle, hold out for something near or below L1.  If you think L2 will continue for another month or more, then buy now ($250 to $280 on bitstamp).

Personally, I think L2 will continue.  We haven't risen far enough over the prior ATH to shake out lots of coins.  And in the 2012Q1 "bubble" pullbacks of 20-40% similar to this one were practically a weekly occurrence due to lack of fiat on the exchanges and manipulator activity (as proven by simultaneous DDOS attack).  Sometimes it is better to talk in time rather than percentage to gain some perspective and calm the panic feelings -- we've "corrected" by less then a week, its nothing.

Also, keep in mind that in an exponential increasing situation NOW is almost always a good time to buy.  I mean even the guys who bought in in April at $266 are now seeing $327 (comparing gox to gox).  They are 22% up -- that's an awesome yearly return for anything that is not Bitcoin!

So don't wait too long if you think Bitcoin's exponential adoption is going to continue.  You just can't fight an exponential  , and so even as a trader you should be in fiat < 5% of the time.

[mgio]

If your strategy is "buy and hold" then the answer is to buy as soon as possible.

Buy and hold does not involve day trading or trying to time the dips and rises in the market.

If your strategy is buy and hold you believe that bitcoin will generally increase over time which means the lowest price is RIGHT NOW.
So you should spend all of the fiat you wish to investment to buy asap.

Here is an example where I messed up:

I am a buy in hold investor. I bought a bunch of coins last November at about $10.80.

They were doing well so in January I decided to buy more. They were at about $13.75 at the time. They had been going up and down and I got greedy and decided to buy in at $13.30.

Well they went into the $13.30s but never hit $13.30. And then they began to rise. I held off waiting for them to go down. Eventually they rose to $17.25 a couple of days later and I just bought.
They never went down that low again (as of now).

I missed out on an extra 80 coins or so if I had just bought right away!

Don't try to time the market unless you have good reason to believe it will go up or down. If you are a long term investor, do what the strategy says, buy as soon as possible, and hold long term.

[Coinseeker]

If your strategy is "buy and hold" then the answer is to buy as soon as possible.

I was actually surprised it took this many posts to get to this obvious and simple answer.  It's almost like a "Who's in Grant's tomb" question.  

[theonewhowaskazu]

You buy when the stochrsi is moving out of oversold territory. This last year, that's had 100% accuracy of predicting at least a short-term bottom.

yup, stochrsi  is an important indicator, watch it on many time frames.

Hands down its the best indicator ever. Never before has an indicator indicated indications as well as the stochrsi.

[ElectricMucus]

You buy when the stochrsi is moving out of oversold territory. This last year, that's had 100% accuracy of predicting at least a short-term bottom.

yup, stochrsi  is an important indicator, watch it on many time frames.

Hands down its the best indicator ever. Never before has an indicator indicated indications as well as the stochrsi.

For this kind of stuff there is an even better solution, BBs, SMA@2 & 20 and plain RSI. (That's how I started trading Bitcoins)
The problem with it is if you are using leverage you will eventually be wiped out and if not left on the wrong side. Same goes for stochrsi which is less extreme but prone to the same risk.