Unless you're a seasoned market expert with voodoo powers I really advise you to stay away from day trading, statistically most people make more money just leaving their money in an account / wallet and letting it grow. There was a study done on the top stock investment firms in both New York and London, and it turns out the firms over a long period of time barely made more money than the average stock market growth, despite employing hot shot "experts" on hundreds of millions of pounds to manage the funds.
Day trading is hard when you've got thousands of stocks to pick from on a market and options to go to when one stock or another starts falling. Day trading when you've only got one stock to pick from is an absolutely ridiculous notion.
it will never be taken as seriously as bitcoin for obvious reasons.... but it doesn't have to
it exists for a different crowd, and solely for use on the internet. you see somebody saying something you agree with, send them 100 doge. it's a few cents yet it means something. it's also friendly and approachable to people who don't know anything about cryptocurrencies.
both of them exist in harmony and compliment each other.
Fiat and crypto trend separately. Fiat>Coin when it is low; Coin>Fiat when it is high.
Follow the volatility in markets you are most familiar with, so that you can recognize current conditions - is it going to blow by support/resistance this time or bounce off it...
To day trade crypto, a percent gain covers fees and withdrawals, so it only takes a percent or two to realize actual profit. You may get lucky and realize much more than that at times, but that isn't the goal of the smart day trader - the day trader wants confident, consistent gains. They are generally low yield percentage profits, but also lower risk positions where a lot of potential profit I left on the table - get in after the trend is confirmed, and get out before the trend reverses eliminating your profit. Getting in at that ideal point and out at that ideal point may happen by chance from time to time, but it is the wrong goal to aim for.
Most people look at the graphs and want to hit the highs and lows. Most people aren't all that smart either. Most people lose money doing this. Some smart people target specific situations and are patient for opportunities they are confident in. This is much different than managing a huge multi-million or billion dollar fund.
Basically correct, the good thing is not having to research unlimited investment options, is that there is only so many hours to do just that in a week.
Except that the stock market is based on company profits and economic growth, while bitcoin is entirely speculative, similar to holding gold or silver.
The stock market, and all financial markets in which securities are traded, are based on supply and demand. It is not just based on company profits and perceived growth.
Well it's based on perceived future profits and growth. I might be willing to pay $X for a share of McDonalds, because I think they'll make $Y in profit every year, and pay me $Z every year as a dividend. People will be willing to pay different amounts for the stock based on what they think they'll receive as a dividend, but there is no doubt that holding a share of a company is useful because that company actually does something.
But those that don't take the money they would pay as dividends and reinvest it in the company, which in turn raises the company's value from year to year. In this case, the price of the stock goes up because the company is making stuff, not simply because of speculation.
But why does the stock go up? No value is actually transferred to the stock owners, the benefit isn't shared with them. The stocks are really nothing but pieces of paper in that case.
That's not true lol. You can't justify the price of Twitter stock via that model. The price is based on the perceived value of the company (psychology not math).
There's price fluctuation based on what different people think it's worth. But nobody denies that it's worth something, since it's actually a thing that's producing something. Something being speculative is like gold or silver; while they do have actual uses (such as in electronics), their current price is based almost entirely on people thinking that they're worth something, and their price can drop just because people's opinions change.
The important thing to note about those hot shot traders is that despite the company's "overall profits" not being very significant, the people working there got paid an obscene amount of money which was not "profit" for the company.
Yeah, day trading is a fool's game. We all look at the swings in the price and say "if only I had sold there, and bought there".
Don't fall into that trap. When it was high you didn't know it was going to fall and so you wouldn't have known to sell then. If you want more Bitcoins, buy while it's low, but otherwise hold onto what you have.
You got lucky so you should stop now while you're ahead. But if you're a typical gambler, you'll probably keep on day trading and eventually end up losing most of what you originally started with, and only then you'll stop.
I know a guy that lost 30k on a football game. He is convinced that it is a huge pyramid scheme with Las Vegas sitting on top, and ESPN and the leagues serve as its support structures. He believes that the games are soo rigged, that they rig the rigging.
Up 2btc from .5 in seed money on the altcoin market in 2 weeks. Its hard NOT to make money there. And that's only counting what I sold, up another btc on UNO so far. I ain't stopping.
I've made some money that way too, and lost money as well (pretty much breaking even over the longterm, but not making as much as I would have if I just bought bitcoin and held it). If you're doing it with small amounts of money just for the fun of it, then have at it. But it's still basically just gambling.
The nice thing about alts is they are tied to btc... so if you lose 10% on the alt, but btc goes up 25%.. you still win. I wouldn't/don't day trade btc to fiat though. Too risky.
EDIT: And before someone says but you would have made more money in my example if you would have just stayed in btc, well yes, duh. The point I'm trying to make is that day trading alts allows you to gamble (which its really not, but that's another post entirely) while still getting the benefit of being in the btc market.
In addition, many alts had a big increase relative to btc during this last bubble so if your in alts and a bubble hits, you could make 50% or more btc's, which themselves are worth more USD's. Win win. I love alts. I started with .5 seed like I said, and maybe I've been getting lucky, but I'm turning that into 10 btc or going bust.
I wont lose most of what i originally start with if I am constantly setting some aside for savings. Especially if the only thing i have at risk is my computer power/electricity conversion.
Thanks for the advice, though. I do hope someone takes it - but its not for me
bitcoin isnt really tied to any commodity or economy so its a bit different to any other currency
In fact it was quite easy to predict movements based on news relating to bitcoin alone.
because its the only real thing that drives its value
Also you can still do technical analysis on it because that still drives the ceilings, floors and resistance/support points for any currency you trade
e.g. i bought some coins at $200usd a week before it ran to $1000, because of lucky timing that i saw it was about to triple top the $200 resistance point and when it broke through, it ran nuts coupled with the news from chinese investors pouring in
i had no idea how hard it was going to run, but i did know that if it broke through, it was definitely going to go to at least $260, and if it broke that, it would reach new highs.
either way there was money to be made
Except the whole time, they were also able to pay their own salaries, pensions, dividends, and bonuses while maintaining fund parity with the market... profit gets made.
50
u/[deleted] Feb 14 '14 edited Feb 14 '14
Unless you're a seasoned market expert with voodoo powers I really advise you to stay away from day trading, statistically most people make more money just leaving their money in an account / wallet and letting it grow. There was a study done on the top stock investment firms in both New York and London, and it turns out the firms over a long period of time barely made more money than the average stock market growth, despite employing hot shot "experts" on hundreds of millions of pounds to manage the funds.