Something, something, something, technical analysis

[Wary]

I am saying that kinematics can be used to predict the future with certainty, but TA cannot. TA therefore is pseudoscience.

Then you should use kinematics to predict future BTC prices. With certainty. But seriously, you've made 4 posts, but I still cannot understand which my statement, exactly, you are trying to refute?

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[MatTheCat]

Said it before, but that particular trendline isn't really on my radar, if for no other reason that I never considered it sustainable in the first place. If we break out downwards, and we don't find support at 560, and we don't find support at ~530, then I'll have to reconsider my bullish outlook. Until then, I consider 'stretched out upwards consolidation' still more likely than 'mother of all bull traps'.

I suspect that you are right. I think the trendline will be breached, but it won't prove nearly as significant as many traders believe it will be. Try as I might, I just can't seem to rekindle the same bearish spirit that I had during the first part of 2014. Although, I would suggest that a correction right down to around $520 wouldn't be out of the question. $520 is the 61.8% Fib retracement from $420. The sort of retracement level where large money becomes very interesting in taking positions.

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

What about going back to more prosaic discussion of the current price movement? Where do you think is support and resistance? What chance the triangle will resolve up or down?

Not sure what you have in mind.

This one?




Daily RSI, Williams %R and MFI closed below 50, and don't seem to move for now. I can see us break out downwards, but I'd expect we find support at $533/$534 (3d BB, 23% fib $1160 to $340)

I was thinking of even smaller triangle, restricted from the top at $600-$613 and at the bottom by a rising support that stopped the falls at $540 and later $550. I use to be pretty sure we will break up out of it, but now I am more and more concerned that almost everybody turned bullish - even DanV is near term bullish . So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already, even leveraged long (I am referring to record high Bitfinex USD swaps and raising rates). Looks like even couple weeks or 2 months of flat price action can force some of these leveraged longs to liquidate ... It is more meta-TA than TA, but still concerning.

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

Daily RSI, Williams %R and MFI closed below 50, and don't seem to move for now. I can see us break out downwards, but I'd expect we find support at $533/$534 (3d BB, 23% fib $1160 to $340)

As someone who is long Bitcoin, would it not concern you a bit that a break downwards, would mean breaking that trendline which dates back to Jan 2013, the very beginnings of the massive bull run that peaked in November 2013. When looking at charts through the lens of EW analysis, the breach of such a trendline would generally be seen as confirmation that the market was in a correction phase.

Said it before, but that particular trendline isn't really on my radar, if for no other reason that I never considered it sustainable in the first place. If we break out downwards, and we don't find support at 560, and we don't find support at ~530, then I'll have to reconsider my bullish outlook. Until then, I consider 'stretched out upwards consolidation' still more likely than 'mother of all bull traps'.

Yeah, I would also be very surprised if it turned out to be a bull trap - and agree that long term exponentially growing support has to be breached soon, we do not seem to be ready for such quickly raising prices. Perhaps than sentiment will turn more bearish, so I will be more comfortable buying

[MatTheCat]

I was thinking of even smaller triangle, restricted from the top at $600-$613 and at the bottom by a rising support that stopped the falls at $540 and later $550. I use to be pretty sure we will break up out of it, but now I am more and more concerned that almost everybody turned bullish - even DanV is near term bullish . So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already, even leveraged long (I am referring to record high Bitfinex USD swaps and raising rates). Looks like even couple weeks or 2 months of flat price action can force some of these leveraged longs to liquidate ... It is more meta-TA than TA, but still concerning.

Any of these leveraged longs that got into Bitcoin anywhere above $540-ish last month, and who are still holding their positions, will be already underwater due to the compound interest rates of around 0.2% per day, or worse. I would tend to believe that maxed out state of the USD swaps is more like some whale (or the exchange itself) buying out the USD swap rate supply in order to decrease the supply and raise the USD swap rate price, into which he can then lend?

I dunno. But I find it hard to believe that all of those maxxed out USD swaps are sitting in leveraged long trades with 0.2% per day interest, whilst this market grinds along for the past two weeks going knowhere fast, yet pointing increasingly down. Or if I am wrong and there is a heap of leveraged longs feeling the creeping strain of those extortionate interest rates, then perhaps there will be some serious downside fireworks to come.

[Wary]

So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already

If the auction bidders, after losing the auction, will stick to their decision to buy BTC... Super-optimistic scenario: If competition at the auction is 10:1, it would mean 180M$ of fresh money. If almost nobody sells after the auction, like in rally stage, 1$ of fresh money pushes BTC capitalisation to 20$. Which increases the price on 180M$*20*(600/13000000000)=$166, i.e. to $770. Then media attention, hype, ATH, 5K$.  

[cbeast]

I am saying that kinematics can be used to predict the future with certainty, but TA cannot. TA therefore is pseudoscience.

Then you should use kinematics to predict future BTC prices. With certainty. But seriously, you've made 4 posts, but I still cannot understand which my statement, exactly, you are trying to refute?

I didn't say you made a statement in my first post. My interpretation was that you were implying that TA is analogous to math and physics when clearly it is analogous to astrology. You then went on to state that you only meant to imply that TA is "descriptive" to markets analogously as kinematics is to physics. You really should have said that to begin with. However, it's still a bad analogy since kinematics is used to make predictions in astrophysics. TA on the other hand is only used to make historical observations and has no demonstrable predictive value.

My refutation is that you made a bad analogy and followed it up with another bad analogy. If however, you compared TA to say "Transactional Analysis" or some other school of psychology, you might have a better analogy. I'm not implying that it would be of lesser value, just less empirical.

[Wary]

I am saying that kinematics can be used to predict the future with certainty, but TA cannot. TA therefore is pseudoscience.

Then you should use kinematics to predict future BTC prices. With certainty. But seriously, you've made 4 posts, but I still cannot understand which my statement, exactly, you are trying to refute?

I didn't say you made a statement in my first post. My interpretation was that you were implying that TA is analogous to math and physics when clearly it is analogous to astrology. You then went on to state that you only meant to imply that TA is "descriptive" to markets analogously as kinematics is to physics. You really should have said that to begin with. However, it's still a bad analogy since kinematics is used to make predictions in astrophysics. TA on the other hand is only used to make historical observations and has no demonstrable predictive value.

My refutation is that you made a bad analogy and followed it up with another bad analogy. If however, you compared TA to say "Transactional Analysis" or some other school of psychology, you might have a better analogy. I'm not implying that it would be of lesser value, just less empirical.

I highlighted the parts of your text that are, IMO, are partly(brown) or completely(red) false. However, I wouldn't like to keep polluting this thread. If you really wish to discuss it further, it would be better to open a separate thread for it, although I cannot promise participation, because we, it seems, cannot agree on anything at all.   Thank you, no hard feelings.


EDIT: As an illustration of one of brown points: Astrophysics Astrophysics (from Greek astron, ἄστρoν "star", and physis, φύσις "nature") is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, especially with "the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space

[cbeast]

I am saying that kinematics can be used to predict the future with certainty, but TA cannot. TA therefore is pseudoscience.

Then you should use kinematics to predict future BTC prices. With certainty. But seriously, you've made 4 posts, but I still cannot understand which my statement, exactly, you are trying to refute?

I didn't say you made a statement in my first post. My interpretation was that you were implying that TA is analogous to math and physics when clearly it is analogous to astrology. You then went on to state that you only meant to imply that TA is "descriptive" to markets analogously as kinematics is to physics. You really should have said that to begin with. However, it's still a bad analogy since kinematics is used to make predictions in astrophysics. TA on the other hand is only used to make historical observations and has no demonstrable predictive value.

My refutation is that you made a bad analogy and followed it up with another bad analogy. If however, you compared TA to say "Transactional Analysis" or some other school of psychology, you might have a better analogy. I'm not implying that it would be of lesser value, just less empirical.

I highlighted the parts of your text that are, IMO, are partly(brown) or completely(red) false. However, I wouldn't like to keep polluting this thread. If you really wish to discuss it further, it would be better to open a separate thread for it, although I cannot promise participation, because we, it seems, cannot agree on anything at all.   Thank you, no hard feelings.


EDIT: As an illustration of one of brown points: Astrophysics Astrophysics (from Greek astron, ἄστρoν "star", and physis, φύσις "nature") is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, especially with "the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space

lol

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already

If the auction bidders, after losing the auction, will stick to their decision to buy BTC... Super-optimistic scenario: If competition at the auction is 10:1, it would mean 180M$ of fresh money. If almost nobody sells after the auction, like in rally stage, 1$ of fresh money pushes BTC capitalisation to 20$. Which increases the price on 180M$*20*(600/13000000000)=$166, i.e. to $770. Then media attention, hype, ATH, 5K$.  

I do not believe that there is a chance SR btc will be sold above the market (unless market suddenly crashes after the bids were made). I also think many /most of the bidders will be opportunistic buyers: for likes of SecondMarket, Bitpay or Coinbase, it always makes sense to buy btc at considerable discount.

I do not understand why many people think that buying these btc from US government should be such "once in a lifetime" opportunity for institutional investors  . There are many other options for them to buy substantial amounts of btc perfectly legally and safely. The second condition likely excludes exchanges , but they can still buy from big miners, SecondMarket, early adopters, btc processors (e.g. Bitpay) etc

[Wary]

I do not believe that there is a chance SR btc will be sold above the market (unless market suddenly crashes after the bids were made).

I've no opinion about this.

I also think many /most of the bidders will be opportunistic buyers: for likes of SecondMarket, Bitpay or Coinbase, it always makes sense to buy btc at considerable discount.

If they are even moderately bullish, they would believe the current price is probably very good discount comparing with half-year from now. So if they won't be able to win on the auction, they would took the second-best option, i.e. buy for market prices.

I do not understand why many people think that buying these btc from US government should be such "once in a lifetime" opportunity for institutional investors  

Agree, that is not a big deal. But a lot of them are now hesitating - to buy or not to buy. The auction adds couple of small weights to the "buy" scale: a bit safer, a bit cheaper.

There are many other options for them to buy substantial amounts of btc perfectly legally and safely. The second condition likely excludes exchanges , but they can still buy from big miners, SecondMarket, early adopters, btc processors (e.g. Bitpay) etc

Agree. But a bitcoin, purchased off-exchange would affects prices in exactly the same way as a bitcoin, purchased on-exchange. It would just take a bit more time for the price change information to propagate.

EDIT: About the last point. The information would propagate quite fast if somebody is doing an arbitrage between on and off-exchange. If nobody does it now yet, somebody would be doing it pretty soon. I imagine, it would be quite a big business in China and other BTC-hostile countries.

EDIT2: To oda.krell  Sorry for hijacking your thread. 

[oda.krell]

So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already

If the auction bidders, after losing the auction, will stick to their decision to buy BTC... Super-optimistic scenario: If competition at the auction is 10:1, it would mean 180M$ of fresh money. If almost nobody sells after the auction, like in rally stage, 1$ of fresh money pushes BTC capitalisation to 20$. Which increases the price on 180M$*20*(600/13000000000)=$166, i.e. to $770. Then media attention, hype, ATH, 5K$.  :)

I do not believe that there is a chance SR btc will be sold above the market (unless market suddenly crashes after the bids were made). I also think many /most of the bidders will be opportunistic buyers: for likes of SecondMarket, Bitpay or Coinbase, it always makes sense to buy btc at considerable discount.

I do not understand why many people think that buying these btc from US government should be such "once in a lifetime" opportunity for institutional investors  ???. There are many other options for them to buy substantial amounts of btc perfectly legally and safely. The second condition likely excludes exchanges ;), but they can still buy from big miners, SecondMarket, early adopters, btc processors (e.g. Bitpay) etc

Me neither. Or at least not significantly above. But neither will they be sold significantly below in all likelihood.

I'm afraid that whole thing will fizzle out without much effect. We probably won't get to know the price per lot immediately anyway (if ever), and will continue to drag on, eventually forgetting about the whole thing.


@wary: Nevermind the hijack :) But I'm afraid a discussion with cbeast about the validity of TA is pointless. I threw out a few links (on the previous page) to academic studies about TA, all three of them peer reviewed (as far as I can tell, it's not my own field, so I don't know the journals well enough), but he seems rather biased, ignoring evidence to the contrary and instead harps on about tangential points.

In any case, there's no point arguing with someone who _opens_ the discussion with "hur dur it's basically astrology"... imagine someone comes into this forum stating "Bitcoin's a ponzie!". (well, happens often enough). The assumption is, predictably, that he's trolling, and not seriously interested in engaging in a discussion.

Same thing here: the validity of TA is up for debate. But the starting positions need to be at least compatible enough to _have_ a discussion, and not just a troll fest.

[windjc]

So who is going to buy btc on the way up when everybody seem long already

If the auction bidders, after losing the auction, will stick to their decision to buy BTC... Super-optimistic scenario: If competition at the auction is 10:1, it would mean 180M$ of fresh money. If almost nobody sells after the auction, like in rally stage, 1$ of fresh money pushes BTC capitalisation to 20$. Which increases the price on 180M$*20*(600/13000000000)=$166, i.e. to $770. Then media attention, hype, ATH, 5K$.  

I do not believe that there is a chance SR btc will be sold above the market (unless market suddenly crashes after the bids were made). I also think many /most of the bidders will be opportunistic buyers: for likes of SecondMarket, Bitpay or Coinbase, it always makes sense to buy btc at considerable discount.

I do not understand why many people think that buying these btc from US government should be such "once in a lifetime" opportunity for institutional investors  . There are many other options for them to buy substantial amounts of btc perfectly legally and safely. The second condition likely excludes exchanges , but they can still buy from big miners, SecondMarket, early adopters, btc processors (e.g. Bitpay) etc

Me neither. Or at least not significantly above. But neither will they be sold significantly below in all likelihood.

I'm afraid that whole thing will fizzle out without much effect. We probably won't get to know the price per lot immediately anyway (if ever), and will continue to drag on, eventually forgetting about the whole thing.


@wary: Nevermind the hijack But I'm afraid a discussion with cbeast about the validity of TA is pointless. I threw out a few links (on the previous page) to academic studies about TA, all three of them peer reviewed (as far as I can tell, it's not my own field, so I don't know the journals well enough), but he seems rather biased, ignoring evidence to the contrary and instead harps on about tangential points.

In any case, there's no point arguing with someone who _opens_ the discussion with "hur dur it's basically astrology"... imagine someone comes into this forum stating "Bitcoin's a ponzie!". (well, happens often enough). The assumption is, predictably, that he's trolling, and not seriously interested in engaging in a discussion.

Same thing here: the validity of TA is up for debate. But the starting positions need to be at least compatible enough to _have_ a discussion, and not just a troll fest.

This idea that these bitcoins are going to go for a discount is ludicrious, imo. This is a blind auction, meaning if ONE, just one, entity bids over the market rate they are going over market rate.

Now all the bidders know most of their competition, its going to make the bid prices go up.

Noone is dumping on exchanges. In fact, its hard for me to comprehend the ignorance/stupidity of anyone who thinks someone is going to buy cheap from the government, transfer that money to an exchange and then try to sell for a profit. That's beyond imagination. These are serious buyers and players, not people/groups looking to go through the hassle to make maybe $5 a bitcoin profit on an illiquid exchange, where they couldn't sell that many coins anyway. Im getting stupidier just writing about this nonsense.

The coins may not go for a big premium, but I wouldn't be surprised at 5%+ over exchange rate.

These players was transparency. They want to legitimize their purchase by buying from the government. Most large investors want SAFETY first.

And there will be competition.

And the market will probably go up, simply because of a release of tension as to the outcome. Probably wont be sustained.

Although, I wouldn't be surprised if the markets has a semi-crash first.

[Bagatell]

The coins may not go for a big premium, but I wouldn't be surprised at 5%+ over exchange rate.

I assume the bids will be for fixed amounts so the exchange rate is kind of moot, no?

[cbeast]

And yes, in order to call it any science at all, you must be able to make some sorts of predictions. Otherwise, you have just another pseudoscience like astrology.

You might want to leave Popper back in the 50's, where he belongs 

His paradigm is still beyond your grasp. 
I'm not against new hypotheses, but TA is simply pattern seeking behavior with no utility. I have my own Bitcoin pseudoscience I call "Rule of Thirds and Superstitious Numbers." It's just as useful as TA. I just don't take it seriously.

[MatTheCat]

I'm not against new hypotheses, but TA is simply pattern seeking behavior with no utility. I have my own Bitcoin pseudoscience I call "Rule of Thirds and Superstitious Numbers." It's just as useful as TA. I just don't take it seriously.

Larry Williams. In 1987, he wins the World Championship in futures trading putting to use TA indicators which he developed himself, to turn $10K to $ 1 million within the space of a year. Someone should have told him that he could have have saved himself the bother of developing his own indicators and just plunked for the 'Rule of Thirds and Superstitious Numbers' method, as it just as good.

[oda.krell]

His paradigm is still beyond your grasp. 
I'm not against new hypotheses, but TA is simply pattern seeking behavior with no utility. I have my own Bitcoin pseudoscience I call "Rule of Thirds and Superstitious Numbers." It's just as useful as TA. I just don't take it seriously.

Right. It's moments like this when I understand the point of self-moderated threads (I still intensely dislike them, though).

I'm still waiting for you to make a coherent point of why you consider TA a "pseudoscience". Is it because of the EMH, that the market is essentially a random walk? Or because "regular" TA, i.e. chart analysis and discretionary trading, is difficult to test (in which case fully automated systems that can be tested shouldn't fall under your dismissive definition, right?).

In any case, it's pretty clear to me you're not actually trying to engage in an (admittedly interesting) discussion about the validity of TA, but are rather interested in getting a rise out of other users. Which is kind of... boring. So unless I'm going to see a post from you on this topic with a minimal amount of effort put into it, I'll file this under trolling.

[Torque]

Noone is dumping on exchanges. In fact, its hard for me to comprehend the ignorance/stupidity of anyone who thinks someone is going to buy cheap from the government, transfer that money to an exchange and then try to sell for a profit. That's beyond imagination. These are serious buyers and players, not people/groups looking to go through the hassle to make maybe $5 a bitcoin profit on an illiquid exchange, where they couldn't sell that many coins anyway. Im getting stupidier just writing about this nonsense.

And the market will probably go up, simply because of a release of tension as to the outcome. Probably wont be sustained.

Although, I wouldn't be surprised if the markets has a semi-crash first.

Can we make your post a sticky in this sub forum?  Or maybe we need a bumper sticker or something.  Like you, every time I hear someone say that these buyers are going to immediately dump their coins on exchanges, I feel like I'm trapped in that movie "Idiocracy."

If the price goes down after the auction, it won't have anything to do with the buyers.  It will simply be troll whale traders just trying to use FUD to incite a panic in order to get cheaper coins.  Most likely a huge bear trap before the start of a run up.

Also, since the last 2 pages this thread has become a pointless bear circle-jerk.

[oda.krell]

Can we make your post a sticky in this sub forum?  Or maybe we need a bumper sticker or something.  Like you, every time I hear someone say that these buyers are going to immediately dump their coins on exchanges, I feel like I'm trapped in that movie "Idiocracy."

Which simply means you don't understand how arbitrage works.

Also, since the last 2 pages this thread has become a pointless bear circle-jerk.

[Torque]

Can we make your post a sticky in this sub forum?  Or maybe we need a bumper sticker or something.  Like you, every time I hear someone say that these buyers are going to immediately dump their coins on exchanges, I feel like I'm trapped in that movie "Idiocracy."

Which simply means you don't understand how arbitrage works.

Which simply means you don't understand that HNW investors are not stupid troll day traders.  Have you even seen the list of auction buyers?  Point me to one on that list that would even care about arbitrage.  Just one.  Go on, I'll wait.

Or is it just more convenient to disregard common sense?