What do you do in stagnant markets?

[Elwar]

In all honesty, the best thing to do is buy.

Stability fuels the rocket.

[Lethn]

Thanks for all the posts guys that was really helpful, looks like I should work on my manga and jewellery some more ;P I don't have enough Bitcoin that I can make people think twice about selling or buying so it's better for me to just wait until I break even and get the hell out.

[CaptainBeck]

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

I guess you could call this hodl-ing.

Teen: You guys holding?

Jay: Shit, everything but coke, heroin and your cock.

[piramida]

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?

You can trade the small movements with an automated bot, which is impossible to do by hand. Or you can sit back, relax, and buy any dips. You also can use bitcoin for buying goods since the price is stable. What you definitely should not do - is stare too much at the charts because then you would be impulse-trading tiny movements, which are, all of the time, just meaningless noise. Set buy orders 10%, 20%, 30% below current price and you don't have to even look at the price for days.

[Lethn]

Woot more advice Yeah, I've gone ahead and just sold to get out, I only was on a very minor loss so I'm okay with that and I didn't want to have to worry about the price dropping more, time to exercise some buying patience now I've learned how to hold so I can get the best deal.

I wish games like X Rebirth were working properly because then I'd just go and play that instead

[piramida]

I've gone ahead and just sold to get out, I only was on a very minor loss

My condolences. Selling bitcoin with small profit is pretty silly, selling bitcoin at a loss, didn't think it is possible. Well, everyone must make mistakes I guess.

[T.Stuart]

I've gone ahead and just sold to get out

Not the right time to sell at a loss... sorry!

EDIT: Not that it is ever really the right time to sell at a loss (presuming no medical emergencies etc) 

[Lethn]

lol! Well it was only something like 0.009 so I'm okay with that, I'm trading altcoins because I want more Bitcoins and don't care for paper money, plus it will help me pay for stuff, I haven't done too badly for myself really considering I only started out with £8 worth that I mined. I currently have around £80 in profit so in the end if it goes disastrously wrong I'll have only lost £8 but I don't want to do that because I've got plans.

It is really difficult to make sure you don't impulse buy for sure but if I've taught myself to hold I can teach myself to buy in a disciplined way as well.

[T.Stuart]

lol! Well it was only something like 0.009 so I'm okay with that, I'm trading altcoins because I want more Bitcoins and don't care for paper money, plus it will help me pay for stuff, I haven't done too badly for myself really considering I only started out with £8 worth that I mined. I currently have around £80 in profit so in the end if it goes disastrously wrong I'll have only lost £8 but I don't want to do that because I've got plans.

It is really difficult to make sure you don't impulse buy for sure but if I've taught myself to hold I can teach myself to buy in a disciplined way as well.

Well then you are safe with your rather large profit margin! Still not the time to sell though, he he 

[Lethn]

Yeah, just need patience and other things to occupy myself with while the cryptocurrencies do their thing >_< what I find baffling is I've actually seen Dogecoin and PPCoin have a crazy spike in activity but I'm not falling for it! No!

[T.Stuart]

Yeah, just need patience and other things to occupy myself with while the cryptocurrencies do their thing >_< what I find baffling is I've actually seen Dogecoin and PPCoin have a crazy spike in activity but I'm not falling for it! No!

Perhaps I need to get more motivated and follow some of the pump and dumps, but I just can't get enthusiastic about them! 

[Lethn]

I stay away from those pump and dumps like the plague myself especially if the coin doesn't have anything behind it.

[GigaCoin]

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.

I usually use this period to buy into large dips

[MatTheCat]

I've gone ahead and just sold to get out, I only was on a very minor loss

My condolences. Selling bitcoin with small profit is pretty silly, selling bitcoin at a loss, didn't think it is possible. Well, everyone must make mistakes I guess.

Take no notice of this chump Lethn.

He tried to laugh me out the place when I announced that I was selling $1100 coins for $1000, and buying back in between $600 - $700.

He said to me that I would be, "crying when I was buying back in at $1300"

(I was laughing when I plunged back in at an average of $640 and then sold at average of $880).

[T.Stuart]

I've gone ahead and just sold to get out, I only was on a very minor loss

My condolences. Selling bitcoin with small profit is pretty silly, selling bitcoin at a loss, didn't think it is possible. Well, everyone must make mistakes I guess.

Take no notice of this chump Lethn.

He tried to laugh me out the place when I announced that I was selling $1100 coins for $1000, and buying back in between $600 - $700.

He said to me that I would be, "crying when I was buying back in at $1300"

(I was laughing when I plunged back in at an average of $640 and then sold at average of $880).

But you trade on Bitstamp don't you? How did you sell at $880? It hasn't got near that price (not even on Gox) since the time you must have "plunged back in" (I've been aware of your strongly bearish sentiments up until recently so this trade must have been over the last few days). Do you have another outlet?

[MatTheCat]

But you trade on Bitstamp don't you? How did you sell at $880? It hasn't got near that price (not even on Gox) since the time you must have "plunged back in" (I've been aware of your strongly bearish sentiments up until recently so this trade must have been over the last few days). Do you have another outlet?

I did well on Dec 2013 crash Mk I. I bought in at average price of $640 and sold on average at $880.

Dec 2013 crash Mk II I did not so good on. I had my original buy-ins at $400 - $500, but had spent too much time on forums like this listening to all dearanged idiots with their '2 da moon' and 'hodl' nonsense. Although I make a show of shooting these muppets down and I do like to remind Paramida as much as possible about his general wrongness on Bitcoin since Dec 2013, I  do actually think it was a post that he made stating:

"Lol, Sooooo many people have their buy-ins at $500 - $600, that it just isn't going to happen"

That somehow managed to fk with my own prognosis on Bitcoin.

With allowing my mind to be too exposed to all this sort of talk I decided that I had better raise by buy-in tranches to be sure I don't miss out. So I did. I raised em up $100 to $500 - $600. Of course, it hit as low as $380. The news was horrific at the time and the chart consisted of waterfall after waterfall, therefore I started 'babysitting' my investment and lost my nerve after a bounce back to $550 subsided to sub $500 and started to form a 'bearish' pennant on the 5 min chart. I therefore took the decision to 'cut my losses' and sold everything at $490. Two hours later it was away up at $600. Now we are in low $700 range. So my weak nerves turned what could have been a 2000 GBP profit into a 900 GBP loss.

Although I done badly here, I did at least place my bets and my predictions in the right direction, in stark contrast to the bulk of the 'advice' administered on Bitcoin nutter forums such as this one.

I don't give a fk about being a 'bear' or a 'bull', I am only interested in winning, but especially interested in not losing. I bought some coin at $720 the other day, just as soon as slight bullish trend had confirmed. BTC got as high as $765 and I ended up selling at $750. Since then, slight bearish trend has reconfirmed. With that in mind, Bitcoin right now is not a buy for me at these prices. For me to buy a $700 Bitcoin, the market will have to be pointing blatantly upwards or it would have had to have trended in this range for a good few weeks, if not months. Otherwise I have my buy-ins set for $100 - $250, but will keep my eyes on market for opportunities.

[GigaCoin]

But you trade on Bitstamp don't you? How did you sell at $880? It hasn't got near that price (not even on Gox) since the time you must have "plunged back in" (I've been aware of your strongly bearish sentiments up until recently so this trade must have been over the last few days). Do you have another outlet?

I did well on Dec 2013 crash Mk I. I bought in at average price of $640 and sold on average at $880.

Dec 2013 crash Mk II I did not so good on. I had my original buy-ins at $400 - $500, but had spent too much time on forums like this listening to all dearanged idiots with their '2 da moon' and 'hodl' nonsense. Although I make a show of shooting these muppets down and I do like to remind Paramida as much as possible about his general wrongness on Bitcoin since Dec 2013, I  do actually think it was a post that he made stating:

"Lol, Sooooo many people have their buy-ins at $500 - $600, that it just isn't going to happen"

That somehow managed to fk with my own prognosis on Bitcoin.

With allowing my mind to be too exposed to all this sort of talk I decided that I had better raise by buy-in tranches to be sure I don't miss out. So I did. I raised em up $100 to $500 - $600. Of course, it hit as low as $380. The news was horrific at the time and the chart consisted of waterfall after waterfall, therefore I started 'babysitting' my investment and lost my nerve after a bounce back to $550 subsided to sub $500 and started to form a 'bearish' pennant on the 5 min chart. I therefore took the decision to 'cut my losses' and sold everything at $490. Two hours later it was away up at $600. Now we are in low $700 range. So my weak nerves turned what could have been a 2000 GBP profit into a 900 GBP loss.

Although I done badly here, I did at least place my bets and my predictions in the right direction, in stark contrast to the bulk of the 'advice' administered on Bitcoin nutter forums such as this one.

I don't give a fk about being a 'bear' or a 'bull', I am only interested in winning, but especially interested in not losing. I bought some coin at $720 the other day, just as soon as slight bullish trend had confirmed. BTC got as high as $765 and I ended up selling at $750. Since then, slight bearish trend has reconfirmed. With that in mind, Bitcoin right now is not a buy for me at these prices. For me to buy a $700 Bitcoin, the market will have to be pointing blatantly upwards or it would have had to have trended in this range for a good few weeks, if not months. Otherwise I have my buy-ins set for $100 - $250, but will keep my eyes on market for opportunities.

I respect everyone's own decision to make their strategies, plans for their Bitcoin and crypto investment portfolios. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, however i know you've been around since March around the same time i joined in, so you bought in some stash at significantly lower prices, when you bought it again in December you say purchased at the $400-$500 range, an excellent large-dip entry actually (from $1250 ath).

Still your cost average should be fairly low even with those prices, why didn't you just hold on to your cost averaged-coins? It may have been a better strategy than chasing the prices.

Bitcoin breaking April's $250 ATH is very unlikely imo, we will need some major negative news (like an american ban, which seems more and more unlikely with latest developments)

Just my 2 satoshis

[T.Stuart]

Bitcoin breaking April's $250 ATH is very unlikely imo, we will need some major negative news (like an american ban, which seems more and more unlikely with latest developments)

$250 is not going to happen. $450 is right on when looking at the past.

American ban is not going to happen. Quite the opposite is happening and there is absolutely no reason why it will stop.

[MatTheCat]

I respect everyone's own decision to make their strategies, plans for their Bitcoin and crypto investment portfolios. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, however i know you've been around since March around the same time i joined in, so you bought in some stash at significantly lower prices, when you bought it again in December you say purchased at the $400-$500 range, an excellent large-dip entry actually (from $1250 ath).

Still your cost average should be fairly low even with those prices, why didn't you just hold on to your cost averaged-coins? It may have been a better strategy than chasing the prices.

Bitcoin breaking April's $250 ATH is very unlikely imo, we will need some major negative news (like an american ban, which seems more and more unlikely with latest developments)

Just my 2 satoshis

I never invested in Bitcoin in earnest until late November. Before then, Bitcoins bought and spend in their hundreds on Silk Road.

Of course, back in 2012 and  even 2011 I had always talked a lot about investing 1000 GBP into Bitcoin (that would have netted me 100K) but never did, and after the April 2013 crash, I predicted a life cycle of repeating bubbles and bursts for Bitcoin until one day, the whole thing became completely untenable and was replaced by some establishment alternative. With that said, you would have thought that I would have made an investment.....but.......

Am I annoyed with myself that I haven't been involved in the investment opportunity of a lifetime until it was (possibly) too late?

Oh yes!

Bitcoin breaking April's $250 ATH is very unlikely imo, we will need some major negative news (like an american ban, which seems more and more unlikely with latest developments)

$250 is not going to happen. $450 is right on when looking at the past.

American ban is not going to happen. Quite the opposite is happening and there is absolutely no reason why it will stop.

Like almost everyone else on here, you are simply talking your book.

With Bitcoin, everything is possible. This has been proven on upside and downside many times already. U think that the only extremes to come are upside extremes? If I had your confidence, I would be going all in....but I don't. So I won't.

[Ibian]

It's NOT too late. The fundamentals are simple. Supply is fixed (capped, to be precise) and the demand keeps growing. Buy and wait for a year. Even just a small amount, trade with the rest or whatever you want. You'll see.