It's called a correction (waveaddict's bitcoin charting subscription thread)

[SkRRJyTC]

I seriously think I am cursed.

Whatever strategy I follow fails.

Even the coin flipping guy isn't making as much of a loss as me.  How is that statistically possible?  Own up; somewhere there is an anti-me making thousands.

I can honestly say that every single trading decision I have made was the wrong one.  I should offer a service to tell you all what I'm doing so you can do the opposite.

Short term is full of manipulators, man

Surely sometimes I should fall on the same side as a manipulator?

Am I alone in this?  Are other small traders just dripping money slowly into the jaws of manipulators?

You are not alone.

[proudhon]

I seriously think I am cursed.

Whatever strategy I follow fails.

Even the coin flipping guy isn't making as much of a loss as me.  How is that statistically possible?  Own up; somewhere there is an anti-me making thousands.

I can honestly say that every single trading decision I have made was the wrong one.  I should offer a service to tell you all what I'm doing so you can do the opposite.

Short term is full of manipulators, man

Surely sometimes I should fall on the same side as a manipulator?

Am I alone in this?  Are other small traders just dripping money slowly into the jaws of manipulators?

TONS of small player are giving money to the big guys.  Thats just the way it works.  My advice is to start not trading more.  In other words, stay out of it until you see an opportunity in your favor that's very likely.  And, decide what you want more, bitcoins or USDs.  Having a divided mind on that last point will kill you.

[pent]

If you open position with emotions, you will probably fail.

No emotions, just dry decision based on indicators, many investigations, forecasts and intuition with correct proportions.

[realnowhereman]

Good advice from all.

I do try hard not to be emotional about this: I try to take losses on the chin and use stop loss positions.  I definitely want more bitcoins, not more dollars -- having decided that very early on.  It just seems that whatever choice I make it is always wrong.  For example: we've just had a big drop -- and if it's the right thing to do, I'd sell and lose.  But when I have done that in the past, the price instantly jumps up.  Then when what I think is a similar situation happens again, I hold having learned my lesson, it dives even more.

So; I took the decision to follow someone else's advice -- "they can hardly be wrong as often as I", I think.  Within the week they are "wrong" (note waveaddict: I am not blaming you, you can only predict as the indicators show -- I am merely bemoaning my seemingly endless bad luck).

If I knew it was the right thing to do, I would just buy as many bitcoins as I could afford and sit on them.  When I have previously decided that "from now on, that's what I'll do", the price has never gone higher than the moment of that decision.

[M4v3R]

One could think that this is a 50/50 game - that you either lose or win. It isn't the case though. MOST of the time you will lose, and if your risk management is wrong, you'll lose big time. Keep that in mind.

[waveaddict]

Let me just ask: Has anyone actually made money from leveraging on bitcoinica?

Personally, I would stay away from that site, but if you must dabble, I would never leverage everything. Always keep a lot of powder ready to buy on dips that you were not expecting in order to average down on your position when the trend is up.

[SkRRJyTC]

Let me just ask: Has anyone actually made money from leveraging on bitcoinica?

Personally, I would stay away from that site, but if you must dabble, I would never leverage everything. Always keep a lot of powder ready to buy on dips that you were not expecting in order to average down on your position when the trend is up.

Ive made money there sometimes... kinda like how sometimes you win a scratch off ticket...

[pent]

Personally I never use bitconica. And any credits at all. My money - my responsibility.

[realnowhereman]

Let me just ask: Has anyone actually made money from leveraging on bitcoinica?

Personally, I would stay away from that site, but if you must dabble, I would never leverage everything. Always keep a lot of powder ready to buy on dips that you were not expecting in order to average down on your position when the trend is up.

<suppresses manic laughter> That's exactly what I did, tried to catch the unexpected 5.15 low in the current upward trend.

I've not been wiped out fortunately.  I try never to be left anywhere near a liquidatable position.  Doesn't mean it isn't depressing to see yet more of your working capital vanish away.  For the twentieth time.

Apologies to all for my moaning.  I'll stop whinging now.

[notme]

Are there going to be any premium email in the near future? I'm wondering what the best ways of trading this volatility are Thanks!

.....dampening bot engaged

2012-03-19 13:04:30 -0400 Profit: 0.010912460000000124 BTC 0.05143000000000342 USD, Base Price: 4.712961147165977, Run Time: 820.262546659

Base price is nonsense when I've got profit in both currencies.

[proudhon]

These swings after big moves are gold.  Especially if you calmly place smaller orders.  I always use times like this to extract some extra USD.

[waveaddict]

Let me just ask: Has anyone actually made money from leveraging on bitcoinica?

Personally, I would stay away from that site, but if you must dabble, I would never leverage everything. Always keep a lot of powder ready to buy on dips that you were not expecting in order to average down on your position when the trend is up.

<suppresses manic laughter> That's exactly what I did, tried to catch the unexpected 5.15 low in the current upward trend.

I've not been wiped out fortunately.  I try never to be left anywhere near a liquidatable position.  Doesn't mean it isn't depressing to see yet more of your working capital vanish away.  For the twentieth time.

Apologies to all for my moaning.  I'll stop whinging now.

Don't worry about it, I am in the same boat as a lot of you guys; over the years though, I have learned to keep a level head when unexpected things occur. This is the nature of the beast though. Corrections are violent in both directions since the whole purpose of a correction is to weed out both bulls and bears so that when the larger trend continues, nobody is left standing.

Everything up until that knife down from 5.18 to 4.9 would have been part of a textbook correction, and so, I would never have called a crash there. That was the last thing that any technical analyst would advise since it was the least likely outcome based solely on the charts.

[N12]

Let me just ask: Has anyone actually made money from leveraging on bitcoinica?

The last time I used Bitcoinica I used 2.5 leverage for the first time on my short. I made decent money with it, yes, although I covered early because I simply shit my pants when I can’t buy back in one instant but with 50 BTC chunks over a long period.

Also let me tell you guys, Bitcoinica is just waiting to blow up, people can still use 10:1 leverage for large amounts when they create lots of accounts. Eventually, they will owe their clients a lot of Bitcoins …

[realnowhereman]

Don't worry about it, I am in the same boat as a lot of you guys; over the years though, I have learned to keep a level head when unexpected things occur.

On that subject then; what would your experience say about loss-cutting?  When you're the wrong side of a trend, and you know you are, but would still like to minimise losses -- what's the best way to pick an "exit number" if you like?

[waveaddict]

Don't worry about it, I am in the same boat as a lot of you guys; over the years though, I have learned to keep a level head when unexpected things occur.

On that subject then; what would your experience say about loss-cutting?  When you're the wrong side of a trend, and you know you are, but would still like to minimise losses -- what's the best way to pick an "exit number" if you like?

I would never hold a loss that is larger than 10 - 15% unless there is a very good reason. Most of time if you hold a losing position past that point, you are too invested in making up that loss and emotions start taking over.

And rule #1 of investing is to not let emotions take over your decision making.

hope that helps,

[SkRRJyTC]

I thought we had a lot of good reasons to hold long... big volume up through $5, triangle continuation pattern, parallel channel support, SMA support, positive daily MACD...

I need to learn to watch for bear signals... I only see bull signals.

[waveaddict]

I thought we had a lot of good reasons to hold long... big volume up through $5, triangle continuation pattern, parallel channel support, SMA support, positive daily MACD...

I need to learn to watch for bear signals... I only see bull signals.

that is the thing...there were so many more bullish signals than bearish ones. Remember, I was never really super bullish about this whole move past 5 longer term. I was always keeping an eye on the bearish evidence.

Furthermore, what happened proves why technical analysis will never be an exact science and why you should 'never' bet the farm on any pattern or indicator no mater how likely the outcome is. This will always be a game of probabilities, and so, sometimes the low probability outcomes win.

[SkRRJyTC]

I thought we had a lot of good reasons to hold long... big volume up through $5, triangle continuation pattern, parallel channel support, SMA support, positive daily MACD...

I need to learn to watch for bear signals... I only see bull signals.

that is the thing...there were so many more bullish signals than bearish ones. Remember, I was never really super bullish about this whole move past 5 longer term. I was always keeping an eye on the bearish evidence.

Furthermore, what happened proves why technical analysis will never be an exact science and why you should 'never' bet the farm on any pattern or indicator no mater how likely the outcome is. This will always be a game of probabilities, and so, sometimes the low probability outcomes win.

Sometimes you go all-in on pocket AA... and lose.  Its a shame that I am better at managing my poker bankroll than I am at managing my trading balance, because the risk management idea is exactly the same.

[waveaddict]

correction started at about 5.26  the lowest point was  4.84, 4,99 is 38,2% on this scale
i am wrong on this ??

You would actually measure the Fib move from the top which was 5.45 so 38% of that would be 5.073. If we get there and then breach 4.84 then we know that we are dealing with a wave 4 right now.

God, I wish I had a website right now with a chat section so that I could actually talk to you guys without all the public watching.

EDIT: I meant 4.84 and not 3.84

[SkRRJyTC]

correction started at about 5.26  the lowest point was  4.84, 4,99 is 38,2% on this scale
i am wrong on this ??

You would actually measure the Fib move from the top which was 5.45 so 38% of that would be 5.073. If we get there and then breach 3.84 then we know that we are dealing with a wave 4 right now.

God, I wish I had a website right now with a chat section so that I could actually talk to you guys without all the public watching.

Until you get a website set up... http://www.chatzy.com/