I went hiking with the kids for the day and just got back. Here’s a recap from last night through today:
My trading decisions from the middle of the night through this morning were so bad I can’t believe myself:
1. I was originally lying in wait for LIGHT, a daily-chart-level moonshot coin. A 50% gain was totally possible, but I couldn’t watch the charts while driving this morning. When I saw it dump, I took a small profit and got out. It later rallied back to its highs. Thinking about it, that was predictable: when something hasn’t rallied much in the short term, even if it’s going to be sold off, it’ll likely get pumped and dumped repeatedly. I could easily have waited for it to return to its highs before selling. Also, I should have considered that it had already gone up as much as 4x from the bottom, so around 0.32 I could have thought about reducing my position by half first.
2. I stayed up and got up in the middle of the night to watch the charts and buy BMT and KAT, but by the time I woke up, both had dumped. I also stopped out of ORDER and BTR. BMT and ORDER were the same kind of setup: a funding rate charged once per hour, followed by a sudden pump. I was hoping for a second leg, but the market makers aren’t actually that strong. When something pumps suddenly like that, there isn’t enough time to shake out the holders, so there won’t be a second leg. As for KAT and BTR, neither had clearly established a daily-chart trend. I was too eager to get in at the early breakout point, which only exposed me to more uncertainty.
3. ANIME had a decent little trend, and at one point I was sitting on more than 10% unrealized profit. If I was going to sleep, I should at least have set a stop at breakeven. At the very least, a profitable trade shouldn’t turn into a loss.
Rules to make sure I never repeat the same mistakes:
1. When I’m going to sleep in the middle of the night, I need to close out any altcoins I’m holding that aren’t tightly controlled on the daily chart. Either don’t trade them, or if I do, treat it like day labor and take the daily wage. If I really believe in a trade, then I shouldn’t sleep while I’m holding it.
2. For altcoins tightly controlled on the daily chart, hold them with diamond hands (though coins like this are incredibly rare—there may only be 2–3 a month that deserve to be treated this way). If the daily chart doesn’t look good but it suddenly pumps and also meets my short-term monitoring signals, I can trade it, but I should treat it like day labor.
3. No matter how good the setup looks, on any time frame, once I’m in profit, set a stop at breakeven. These nasty market makers will eventually get what’s coming to them. You love causing sudden waterfalls, but you’re also training market participants not to help you lock up supply and maintain a healthy trend. If that’s the way you want to play it, then I’ll just be the ultimate day laborer. Honestly, it’s easy for most of my buys to go into profit; it’s just a question of whether I want to be a day laborer.
My trading decisions from the middle of the night through this morning were so bad I can’t believe myself:
1. I was originally lying in wait for LIGHT, a daily-chart-level moonshot coin. A 50% gain was totally possible, but I couldn’t watch the charts while driving this morning. When I saw it dump, I took a small profit and got out. It later rallied back to its highs. Thinking about it, that was predictable: when something hasn’t rallied much in the short term, even if it’s going to be sold off, it’ll likely get pumped and dumped repeatedly. I could easily have waited for it to return to its highs before selling. Also, I should have considered that it had already gone up as much as 4x from the bottom, so around 0.32 I could have thought about reducing my position by half first.
2. I stayed up and got up in the middle of the night to watch the charts and buy BMT and KAT, but by the time I woke up, both had dumped. I also stopped out of ORDER and BTR. BMT and ORDER were the same kind of setup: a funding rate charged once per hour, followed by a sudden pump. I was hoping for a second leg, but the market makers aren’t actually that strong. When something pumps suddenly like that, there isn’t enough time to shake out the holders, so there won’t be a second leg. As for KAT and BTR, neither had clearly established a daily-chart trend. I was too eager to get in at the early breakout point, which only exposed me to more uncertainty.
3. ANIME had a decent little trend, and at one point I was sitting on more than 10% unrealized profit. If I was going to sleep, I should at least have set a stop at breakeven. At the very least, a profitable trade shouldn’t turn into a loss.
Rules to make sure I never repeat the same mistakes:
1. When I’m going to sleep in the middle of the night, I need to close out any altcoins I’m holding that aren’t tightly controlled on the daily chart. Either don’t trade them, or if I do, treat it like day labor and take the daily wage. If I really believe in a trade, then I shouldn’t sleep while I’m holding it.
2. For altcoins tightly controlled on the daily chart, hold them with diamond hands (though coins like this are incredibly rare—there may only be 2–3 a month that deserve to be treated this way). If the daily chart doesn’t look good but it suddenly pumps and also meets my short-term monitoring signals, I can trade it, but I should treat it like day labor.
3. No matter how good the setup looks, on any time frame, once I’m in profit, set a stop at breakeven. These nasty market makers will eventually get what’s coming to them. You love causing sudden waterfalls, but you’re also training market participants not to help you lock up supply and maintain a healthy trend. If that’s the way you want to play it, then I’ll just be the ultimate day laborer. Honestly, it’s easy for most of my buys to go into profit; it’s just a question of whether I want to be a day laborer.