What do you do in stagnant markets?

I wanted to ask any professional traders or people with more experience what they do when markets stop moving and there isn't much activity going on. I realise this is a pretty noobish question but I'm teaching myself how to buy in a disciplined way because I've found I always keep making life harder for myself by panic buying into an altcoin. Do you think it's a good idea to just hang back and observe the prices rather than just rush in and wait for a sensible low price to pop up or is it sometimes worth the risk if you think there's going to be a surge of buyers coming in?

For me I've found that a price rise never usually happen fast and when I buy in at what I think is a new low it always drops further meaning I have to wait longer in order to make any money but I don't like the idea of a price spike suddenly happening and me not being there for the profit taking. Sad

I'm not a pro trader by any means... but one choice is just to hodl if you're feeling nervous, and might not be a bad idea. But another method would be to set entry/exit points and stick with them. It's going to be unprofitable for awhile but should make up for itself hopefully once a new trend sets in, which is rarely long in the world of bitcoin. Things do seem to be slowing down though, all this sideways/oscillating movement for the past week has kind of sucked.

Maturbate - If the price don't move at least you will.

look at the logarithmic chart for the past couple of years at http://bitcoincharts.com/

Try drawing a straight line somewhere "fair" between the highs and the lows. Choose a few points on this line from the time when you will have your money ready. Check the corresponding prices.

Depending on how long you will stay in for and also the market conditions at the time you might decide to give yourself some leeway with the actual price you will pay: a lot of positive news coverage / near-future events for example might make you may decide to buy in a little higher than the line.

In my humble opinion this method will work for most people looking at investing for 6 months to several years from now. Some might disagree with me, saying that a few months is too short-term, but given the current situation if you buy in between the extremes at some point now I think you will soon be sitting pretty.

Sell all your coins on an exchange then use the resulting money to leverage short on Bitfinex as much as possible. After that borrow as much money as possible and use that to get even more margin for your short and max it out.

Only this way you can get a feeling how the dumber half of this forum feels right now. They're just leverage long... Tongue

Seeing the effects of hacks, hype, news, etc. on prices throughout this year it is safer to look at the "long" term. Leveraging your bets on something that swings so much on news and whale trading is playing Russian roulette.

Just wait till the holidays are over. I would think most people are looking for tax deductions right now.

Quote from: the_sunship on December 28, 2013, 10:18:45 PM

Just wait till the holidays are over. I would think most people are looking for tax deductions right now.

Meaning?

Set up a buy order for a coin you want at a LOT lower price than you think is reasonable and then chill. Either it'll hit or it won't. Give it a few days. You'll be surprised how low markets can go!

Quote from: TheTribesman on December 28, 2013, 10:23:50 PM

Set up a buy order for a coin you want at a LOT lower price than you think is reasonable and then chill. Either it'll hit or it won't. Give it a few days. You'll be surprised how low markets can go!

Be prepared to move your orders - my lowest orders never get filled ! Cheesy

I'm no expert but have read quite some on trading.

Traders hate markets that go sideways. Markets must go up or down so you can go long or short.
A diehard trader will pull out his money and invest it in another market that does go up or down. Why wait (hodl) if you can hop on a train that is going somewhere.

Bitcoin is another game alltogether. If it moves it goes so fast that you better hodl until it goes to da moon or you will miss a lot of money.
No other investment can go up 10-100% in a matter of hours and has a long-term uptrend since it was invented. With normal stocks you hope to make 10% in a year.

If there's a period of relative stability (and that's a big if right now) it's time to look into the alt markets.

There's not much stability in BTC but when it does happen I've noticed a marked increase in the trading of alts resulting in some very large price movements.

Stare at charts all day piecing together useless TA and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Quote from: Lethn on December 28, 2013, 06:27:53 PM

Work hard at a job and invest when it crashes. Has worked for me for 2 years.

I do absolutely nothing when a market stagnates. Overtrading can be your worst enemy (well, one of your worst enemies - there are plenty of them when trading). In fact, tradeable opportunities are few and far between. In the past year, there have only really been 4 tradeable opportunities on a daily chart and these are still very difficult to spot in real time. I try to take only the most obvious of obvious trades and I am often wrong.

2013 has been very generous to the bulls, including me. I don't know what 2014 has in store, but good luck.

I'm with Ben.
What ever your position is right now, hold it and sit on your hands. Set a stop sell (if long) or a stop buy (if short) and wait. It'll break this consolidation soon enough.

Quote from: HeliKopterBen on December 29, 2013, 05:10:35 AM

I try to take only the most obvious of obvious trades and I am often wrong.

2013 has been very generous to the bulls, including me. I don't know what 2014 has in store, but good luck.

Its good to hear an honest post amongst all the bs and hubris. There's a degree of luck in trading that people often overlook.

Quote from: pbody on December 29, 2013, 05:52:55 AM

Its good to hear an honest post amongst all the bs and hubris. There's a degree of luck in trading that people often overlook.

Its 80% predicting human behavior.