One Big Trade vs Multiple Trades, Which Is Better?

[knowngunman]

I like to be person 2 but if I am making a profit only. Placing 10 to 25 trades a month seems like nothing because I am sure some traders are placing more than that in a week. I am not talking about scalpers.

Checking through some few replies on the first page, I can see how everyone here prefers to be the second person that place multiple trades to minimise the risk of losing all to a single trade. I will definitely choose the path of the second person too.

The first person is likely to lose more than his initial budget and also risk of addiction. Imagine the first person already use his budget for the month and lose it when the month is just getting started. There is a possibility of potential profitable trades coming across his way while he has no money to trade again as per his budget already got drained for the month. There is a high chance he may get tempted to trade with extra money outside the trading budget and probably recover the lost money.

The second person who's using the budget on several trades can easily make use of any available opportunities that come. That's the power of diversification of funds in different trades. Some will pay off and others will not.

[TheUltraElite]

Both of them can be profitable over the long term. They are both taking different approaches to stake their money into crypto and then take advantage of the price change.

Multiple small trades does indicate an attempt to make something out of nothing. While a big trade shows an attempt to increase the capital. Either of which works is good but watch your balance. You dont want to get washed away before anything fullfills properly or just when you sre sure to make a profit.

[Dareo]

-snip-
I won't say one big trade is better or multiple trades are better because they all have their different benefits, for a trader that wants to become a professional then you have to have multiple trades you can't just depend on one trade and call yourself a professional. A professional will need to have lost of experience and that can only be gotten from having multiple trades but if you are after the money then you can decide to choose just one trade but again that won't give you the experience and that might just be like gambling to me. A trader does not gamble you analyse the market and try to predict the market accordingly and you can only do that from having lots of experience.

But I don't think that doing multiple trades will give you more experience. Sometimes you can learn more by doing fewer trades, if each trade is analyzed seriously. In my opinion, it's not about quantity, it's about quality. 2 well planned trades give more value than 10 hasty trades. And big trades are not bad either, if the risk management is right. So I would say, not too many good trades and right decisions are what actually improve a trader.

[dansus021]

This strategy is the same whether you choose a lump sump go all in with some price that you believe this price is a good price to buy or doing Dollar cost averaging that basically dont care what the price is you just buy it regularly.

In theory One Big Trade vs Multiple Trades both ways could be profitable.

Based on my personal experience, I would prefer to be in multiple trades because I didnt know where is the bottom, if I not sure where the bottom is I just bought it regularly If I do profitable and still think the price gonna up I just do average up. If my prediction fail I could average down. It simple like that.

But there is also people who have ton of experience and do one big trade and made lot of money from it, the person isn't me haha.

[tabas]

I can be the both guy. I want to be profitable and it doesn't set me any of the choice. If there are times that I'd be a profitable trader who's done multiple trades, good. And if I am that guy who's done fewer trades and yet, those few trades made me a lot, that's good too. So the gist here, both can be profitable and you are the one to choose which one is applicable to your trading style. But I think the majority will choose the quite lazy approach of doing one big trade and yet highly profitable.

[Awaklara]

I would prefer to be the first person; it seems to suit me best. I don't have much time to open many trades. Although I am also not a trader with large amounts, I only trade occasionally, not every day or frequently.
But the two people mentioned actually have nothing wrong or better. It all depends on the trader's ability, both in terms of skill, capital, and time. Because we know some people trade daily, who may have adjusted their time to trade more.

[ZAINmalik75]

Checking through some few replies on the first page, I can see how everyone here prefers to be the second person that place multiple trades to minimise the risk of losing all to a single trade. I will definitely choose the path of the second person too.

The first person is likely to lose more than his initial budget and also risk of addiction. Imagine the first person already use his budget for the month and lose it when the month is just getting started. There is a possibility of potential profitable trades coming across his way while he has no money to trade again as per his budget already got drained for the month. There is a high chance he may get tempted to trade with extra money outside the trading budget and probably recover the lost money.

The second person who's using the budget on several trades can easily make use of any available opportunities that come. That's the power of diversification of funds in different trades. Some will pay off and others will not.

Trading multiple times increases the risk of losing multiple times as well but I chose person 2 for the same reason you shared. Person 2 took one trade on day 1 of the month and made a loss. He won't be bothered by it because he still has funds, but if he were person 1, who would have used 50% of his capital and lost it, not all of it but some of it because traders use stop losses.

We should use our capital wisely. If we risk it all on one trade, we're probably going to lose if not, then pressure will eat us slowly.
second person is taking less risk by diversifying no matter if the chances of losses increases too but at least he won't lose it all at once.

[Emitdama]

Which person would you rather be, and why? Please give your own reasons, not the ones already mentioned above. Share from your personal experience.

I'd always be person 2 because I don't have the risk appetite needed to risk everything on one trade, no matter how safe the trade looks to be, because the market is volatile and unpredictable, so always better to trade small and have room for recovery with further trades.

Although not all my trades are of the same size and vary depending on how confident I feel about them. Where I feel more confident, I increase the trade size but still I won't go all-in because that's just too risky.

The person 1 type is more suitable for investors who invest big once after doing all the research.

[jaberwock]

When you are trading it is unimportant how big of a profit you made from a single trade, the real value is long term, meaning if you made a profit in all of 2026 or not. You could have 3 trades, you could have 3000 trades, as long as you are in profit, that's good, if you are in a loss, that is bad.

If you insist on trying to do it a single way, and not hybrid and just try to check every trade for what it is, instead of think that every trade is same, then you are going to lose a lot of money. The best way to trade is to check every single trade for what it is, and make an analysis and if you do know what you are doing then you are going to get a great return, if you do not then you are going to end up with some problems.

[Noorooo]

According to my point of view taking one or two trades per month is a good option because in that case your psychology will be much better and you will be more stressfree. Day trading is very hard and stressful compared to long-term trading unless you have 5 to 6 years of experience.

[bitgolden]

If you want to make sure that you are doing something right, you should realize that it is not that easy to make that kind of return if you are careless and this type of question proves that people have no idea about trading and they are making silly decisions.

Reality is that if you really want to make sure that you are making a profit, then the best case would be that you are not looking if the trade is big or small, you look at the analysis of it which will tell you when to buy and when to sell.

[shinratensei_]

According to my point of view taking one or two trades per month is a good option because in that case your psychology will be much better and you will be more stressfree. Day trading is very hard and stressful compared to long-term trading unless you have 5 to 6 years of experience.

Honest question here, is it possible to do two trades per month without constantly monitoring the market? I can't fathom how you can find the right time if you don't monitor the market daily.
Hence it's the same as doing trading for living but with fewer trades therefore, it won't improve psychology in anyway and makes us stress free.

Even with just two trade per month you will find yourself constantly looking at the market and it will cause more stress. Although doing fewer trade in a month seems good, doesn't seem to affect the state of our mental that much.

[michellee]

You can add one more option which is:

Person 3: Places multiple trades but adjusting the capital based on his total balance he had.

At least, that is what I did in trading. If I can make a profit in the first week and that is much, I will increase my balance to trade but not too big, at least add more 20% from my profit before and keep the rest.

But if I lose, I will reduce the balance for a bit and keep trying to steady to make a profit.

[arwin100]

According to my point of view taking one or two trades per month is a good option because in that case your psychology will be much better and you will be more stressfree. Day trading is very hard and stressful compared to long-term trading unless you have 5 to 6 years of experience.

Honest question here, is it possible to do two trades per month without constantly monitoring the market? I can't fathom how you can find the right time if you don't monitor the market daily.
Hence it's the same as doing trading for living but with fewer trades therefore, it won't improve psychology in anyway and makes us stress free.

Even with just two trade per month you will find yourself constantly looking at the market and it will cause more stress. Although doing fewer trade in a month seems good, doesn't seem to affect the state of our mental that much.

Maybe its possible for them if they are busy person and they fine if their trade wins or even lose. Those type of people are risk takers, but for me its not going to work. Because I find it not ideal action to do and we are just wasting our money for doing those situations.

Instead of doing that I might choose to focus only buying Bitcoin, since I think this is more ideal decision to do compare choosing to do two trade each month. Maybe some people earning some profit for doing this, but for sure everything is temporary and maybe on their next trade they won't get anything.

[tygeade]

I would rather become the person 1 because that way, I eliminate excess risk associated with opening multiple trades. Instead of opening multiple positions, I would stick to a single order but would spend more time than expected just to make the necessary research and analysing the markets. Once I am confident about the market position, I would simply invest a considerably larger chunk of my portfolio on the same trade as my confidence will be backed by a strong research. I would then not need to keep monitoring the markets much often but instead, I would keep a small tracker active on my phone which I would check once everyday.

Multiple positions do not work well for me as the research behind every trade stands on a minimum level due to time restrictions. I would consider multiple positions only if I have a lot of spare time on hand or if I find multiple trading opportunities which is quite rare.

[savetheFORUM]

Being person 2 as I have more chances to make a profit and not just trading one time in a month. I avoids using big funds to trade as no guarantee if we may profit or not in trading.

You don't exactly have more chances to make a profit, but rather have more space to make mistakes, I think. Because technically speaking, you are going to earn more if you make one big trade that goes right compared to making 10 where lets say, 7 are profitable.

With placing multiple trades in a month, I can choosing the potential coins, research and finding the coin. I can spread the risks to multiple trades as I don't use much budget to trade.

Yeah, that's true but not necessarily more profitable.

I'd actually love to see the stats or a survey of 100 people who trade big vs who trade small but trade more consistently. My gut feeling tells me that the ones trading big are going to be more profitable because they are more focused and those who trade many times are often unsure of their trades.

[Big Dirams]

Being person 2 as I have more chances to make a profit and not just trading one time in a month. I avoids using big funds to trade as no guarantee if we may profit or not in trading.

You don't exactly have more chances to make a profit, but rather have more space to make mistakes, I think. Because technically speaking, you are going to earn more if you make one big trade that goes right compared to making 10 where let’s say, 7 are profitable.

Well a lot of traders with their reasons and a lot of traders with what they totally prefer. As a trader I’ll rather trade multiple times in a month and share my risk across the market because there are a lot of opportunities coming each day so spreading them out daily with caution can definitely hits profits if a trader is quite knowledgeable and at the same time knowns exactly what they are aiming for.  
 
  Risking all my portfolio onto a single trade a month is just something so risky because In a single position we can totally lose what we have been working for in months. I don’t buy the idea of risking everything on a single position when there are alot of opportunities in the future market.

[Compromise me]

Multiple trades are better than one big trade because in a big trade if your direction is wrong, the loss is also bigger, while the risk is spread across multiple trades. The biggest thing is that it also reduces emotional stress and improves decision-making. It is not necessary that a big trade is always wrong, if the analysis is strong, it can also give profit, but most traders prefer risk management, which is easier with multiple trades. Capital protection is the most important part of trading, so the safest way is to spread the risk, which is possible across multiple trades.

[M47AK16]

Honest question here, is it possible to do two trades per month without constantly monitoring the market? I can't fathom how you can find the right time if you don't monitor the market daily.
Hence it's the same as doing trading for living but with fewer trades therefore, it won't improve psychology in anyway and makes us stress free.

Even with just two trade per month you will find yourself constantly looking at the market and it will cause more stress. Although doing fewer trade in a month seems good, doesn't seem to affect the state of our mental that much.

Maybe its possible for them if they are busy person and they fine if their trade wins or even lose. Those type of people are risk takers, but for me its not going to work. Because I find it not ideal action to do and we are just wasting our money for doing those situations.

Instead of doing that I might choose to focus only buying Bitcoin, since I think this is more ideal decision to do compare choosing to do two trade each month. Maybe some people earning some profit for doing this, but for sure everything is temporary and maybe on their next trade they won't get anything.

You can only make profits in trading if you are a risk taker. There are no profits here without involving risk. You will have to prepare yourself mentally to undergo risk and immense pressure before you can even start trading. You will have to carefully consider if you want to become a scalper or a mid-term/long-term trader because both will have different risk appetites which might not always work for you. I think you are not a risk taker but am amazed to see you active in this section because majority of the community here comes from a risk takers background. Maybe you can start with mid-term holding if ever you have not yet started with your trading journey.

Buying and holding bitcoins is a good plan of action but I would not really call that as trading at least until regular buying and selling is involved. If you simply buy and hold bitcoins means you are a holder and not a trader. You can find some ways to enter trading markets and I am sure you will find excitement over there.

[Joy- maker]

There are two kinds of traders. Which one would you rather be, and why do you think that style of trading is better than the other?
Person 2: Places multiple trades in a month. He has the same capital as Person 1, but he have more setups. Let's say he places 10 to 25 trades per month. He believes it is better to spread risk across multiple trades rather than risking everything at once. He thinks that if he wins 10 trades out of 20, he could still end up profitable.

Which person would you rather be, and why? Please give your own reasons, not the ones already mentioned above. Share from your personal experience.

I don't know for others, but i  am the second type of person. I prefer placing multiple trades about 10 to 20 per month, rather than one to two trades. Because i can't be comfortable risking my capital on one to two trades. I rather spread my risk across different trades for my own sanity. seconding I am not this type of person who believe that, risking my capital on one to two trades can make me profitable, which is why i prefer to place multiple trades instead of risking my capital on one to two trades.