Imagine a guy called Zhou, in his early forties, who manages construction projects and can’t stand watching the charts. On August 17, he bought $1,000 worth of $LINK at the opening price of 9.39, then deleted the app and said he wouldn’t reinstall it until the end of the year.
Then, early on November 15, after his coworkers started talking about the market plunge the day before, he got curious and reinstalled the app. He saw that the November 14 daily candle had closed at 8.885. His holdings were worth 946.22 USDT, down 5.38% (not including fees).
His first reaction was, “I knew this stuff was unreliable.” But if you look back over those 90 daily candles (Binance spot LINKUSDT, UTC, August 17 to November 14, closed data only; today’s candle excluded), the story is completely different:
Over those 90 days, based on closing prices, he was in profit on 89 of them. The only day that closed below his purchase price was November 14—the day before he reinstalled the app. LINK fell 9.87% from open to close that day, and its intraday low of 8.574 was also its lowest price in those 90 days.
His best moment came on September 28, when it closed at 15.452 and his $1,000 had grown to 1,645.58 USDT, an unrealized gain of 64.56%. The next day, it even reached 15.777 intraday. From the September 28 closing high to November 14, it fell 42.50%.
Over the same period, $BTC was up 1.99% from its August 17 opening price to its November 14 closing price, while LINK was down 5.38%.
If Zhou had gotten curious and reinstalled the app at the end of September, he might have thought he was a genius. But he happened to check on the worst day of the 90, and felt he’d been ripped off. In fact, he hadn’t changed his position at all; the only thing that changed was which day he looked at.
That’s the other side of deleting the app and holding: you avoid the daily emotional swings, but give up the chance to make decisions along the way. Without a profit-taking plan, the day you eventually end up selling after “just holding” has a fair amount of luck involved.
If you were Zhou, would you have sold some on September 28? Or are you only starting to think about that question now?
Then, early on November 15, after his coworkers started talking about the market plunge the day before, he got curious and reinstalled the app. He saw that the November 14 daily candle had closed at 8.885. His holdings were worth 946.22 USDT, down 5.38% (not including fees).
His first reaction was, “I knew this stuff was unreliable.” But if you look back over those 90 daily candles (Binance spot LINKUSDT, UTC, August 17 to November 14, closed data only; today’s candle excluded), the story is completely different:
Over those 90 days, based on closing prices, he was in profit on 89 of them. The only day that closed below his purchase price was November 14—the day before he reinstalled the app. LINK fell 9.87% from open to close that day, and its intraday low of 8.574 was also its lowest price in those 90 days.
His best moment came on September 28, when it closed at 15.452 and his $1,000 had grown to 1,645.58 USDT, an unrealized gain of 64.56%. The next day, it even reached 15.777 intraday. From the September 28 closing high to November 14, it fell 42.50%.
Over the same period, $BTC was up 1.99% from its August 17 opening price to its November 14 closing price, while LINK was down 5.38%.
If Zhou had gotten curious and reinstalled the app at the end of September, he might have thought he was a genius. But he happened to check on the worst day of the 90, and felt he’d been ripped off. In fact, he hadn’t changed his position at all; the only thing that changed was which day he looked at.
That’s the other side of deleting the app and holding: you avoid the daily emotional swings, but give up the chance to make decisions along the way. Without a profit-taking plan, the day you eventually end up selling after “just holding” has a fair amount of luck involved.
If you were Zhou, would you have sold some on September 28? Or are you only starting to think about that question now?