I honestly feel 80% of trading is common sense and 20% is technical analysis..
It sounds simple but only buy things on large pullbacks. Most people think things will continue to run forever and are afraid to buy things when way down. Here are some rules I follow:
1) When something is on a major pullback, wait for the ABC correction to play out. I think Elliot Wave Theory is complete nonsense but what isn't nonsense is the ABC corrective pattern.. you must wait through the bull trap and wait for C to completely play out which comes to rule number 2.
2) When looking at Fibonacci Retracements, wait for the golden pocket for your FIRST buy order. If this does not happen, then do not enter trade.. it most likely has not finished C correction or its just generally not following safe rules to enter and just avoid it to find something else.
3) Never buy all in at one spot... my general rule is once something is in position in golden pocket, I start to buy small at first.. if it reaches the next fib area I will buy double.. if it goes to the next fib extension after that, I buy double again.. for example .1 btc, .2btc, .4btc, etc. I know as price goes down I will be less at risk so I tend to assume more of a position... if it drops heavily for whatever reason, I just dump some bags as I get back up at where I started buying.
4) Play both sides of the chart. NEVER EVER be in all alt positions.. and never hold your entire stack to one point. If you start going on a run, dump some at just before every fib level. Stay active in trades and cover the top and bottom.
5) Always keep a moonbag. Try to keep 10% of your profits as a bag you never let go of in case in the future it absolutely moons. I sold ethereum way too early and if I only had a moon bag I would be very happy right now.
6) Any trade where you make BTC is a good trade. 10%..300%....30000%... its all good.. take profits and take profits often, there are no gaurantees with alt coins especially, so don't hold on to too many when in profit.
7) Use BTC instead of USD.. I know a lot of newcomers don't see the value in this but it will absolutely wreck you.... If you don't believe me look at Ripple on Coinmarketcap chart for 2017... That Moon in June 2017, if you sold that, then bought it back in December and rode that rise up would have yielded you a 130X bitcoin return with only maybe a 25X USD return.. USD valuations will make it seem like you are doing better than you are... Everyone in 2017 made money with USD valuation.. that just isn't good enough. Just don't do it.
8 ) Don't stare at charts all day.. its just not productive. You'll tend to overtrade and won't be worth it in the long run.
9) Use longer time charts... 1Week 1Day or 4hour for beginners. I've traded for a long time and still use these almost 90% of the time.. the only time you would use short candles if you're trading with margins, which isn't something new traders should be doing anyways.
10) Have fun..
anything worth doing is worth doing bad at first. Just make sure you are having fun doing it.
Good luck... start by doing some paper trading as you learn... theoretical trades will give you alot of experience.. see if you notice times where you are becoming emotional and figure out why. Emotional trading will lead you getting rekt. Fomo and Fear are not words in our vocabularies.. its just RULES RULES RULES!