It seems that every time I go to make a trade in my personal account ONLY, a warning light should go off. Made a very stupid trade today in Nasdaq futures. I didn't look at the support-resistance of the graph, I just got in based on mean-reversion principles from the prior day's trading activity...and that's it! All I used. Didn't look at the previous 5 days. What ended up happening is I ended up buying at a (not THE) previous day's high...right when the futures turned around and stopped me out. The worst part was not buying at the high, but oh, how stupid I was. I lost 2x as much as I was willing to lose because the futures contract is so leveraged...~20 pts on the Nasdaq, $380 USD. And even so, I really wanted 70 pts of cushion. So to re-cap, I forced a trade due to FOMO and a desire to trade and increase my account size...and I lost a terrible $380 in 3 minutes...that's how bad the trade was. Now of course, had the trade been on for 1D, it would likely make money. I still believe in the target direction, but the trade itself was terrible. Unfortunately, I will be needing to paper trade futures for longer until there are consistent profits. I'm apparently only good at trading big moves currently. Anyhow, I am just so bummed.
Yep, now the futures are going above my entry.
These markets move a lot slower than crypto markets--that's for sure. They also have a lot more "false" movement...filler movement at least.
After looking at various time frames, I discovered that the hourly provided the clearest signal...I've developed a new theory: one should trade primarily based on the time-frame which provides the clearest signal. This is a bit revolutionary for me.
I'm a bit disappointed--don't think I have enough capital in my account, actually, to trade futures properly. Suggests I need a 50K account to trade 1 contract...yeah, this is about right. So I need to double my trading account. Because I'd like the ability to trade futures.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
Could have made an additional 2 or 3K todaY with GBTC and BTC, super high probability
Bitcoin was up from ~8300 to ~9700 over the weekend. ~17%
GBTC was up 7% the day prior to the run, with virtually no change in bitcoin.
GBTC was up t0 1357 from 1074, another 26%...
Basically 33% compared to Bitcoin's 17%
I thought this was absurd. HOWEVER, GBTC's NAV was "only" 50% higher than its bitcoin holdings. Y charts shows the average premium, to put it in perspective, to be 45%, dropping to as low as 0%...so yes, I'm sitting on a powder keg in a way. But bear in mind that the NAV premium high was 141%, and it regularly reaches 100%...so I was like...well...it could keep going up! So I'll wait. Wasn't even attuned to the possibility of massive, irrational intra-day movement.
The following chart shows the action. It was very easy to see where the top was, and I easily called the bottom in real time (hadn't been observing the chart when it topped).
The ideal case would have been to sell my 7 GBTC near the high, (short the instrument if possible), and then buy back double at the end of the move. It was obviously short-term overbought, then obviously short term oversold, and thus would likely rise back to a fair value.
And sure enough, it's on the way back up. And let me stress, this was an easy trade.
One of the reasons I didn't trade, is I wasn't paying that much attention, I didn't think the movement could be this exaggerated, and frankly I had in my mind that this was a longer-term trade, and there's no reason--judging by the BTC price--to get out at this time. I also tried trading a little move with little fundamental support (unlike the powerful information I have here) and I failed miserably.
But of course, I'm honestly disappointed I didn't turn a ~20% gain into a 40%-60% gain by adding some trading (which was super easy in this inefficient market) and maybe even adding some more shares on margin at the lows...I'm already taking a tremendous amount of risk overall with this position, so why not take a small amount of risk, comparatively, on a super high probability short term trade? I don't know, but I've missed stuff like this over and over again. This is probably the most glaring example, esp. because the bitcoin price moved so far over 2 days where it was not possible to trade.
You know, a similar strategy works for XIV...there are those days where it totally tanks due to algos position dumping. Different market, and more difficult to trade because of the speed of the algos, but plenty of profit potential.
One last thing, is this shows the power of trading around a longer term investment position. The main thing, of course, is one is (or at least should be) attuned to the movement of their position, so then one is automatically ready to spot these short term opportunities.
But of course, at least I can be ready for next time. And now you know!
GBTC was up 7% the day prior to the run, with virtually no change in bitcoin.
GBTC was up t0 1357 from 1074, another 26%...
Basically 33% compared to Bitcoin's 17%
I thought this was absurd. HOWEVER, GBTC's NAV was "only" 50% higher than its bitcoin holdings. Y charts shows the average premium, to put it in perspective, to be 45%, dropping to as low as 0%...so yes, I'm sitting on a powder keg in a way. But bear in mind that the NAV premium high was 141%, and it regularly reaches 100%...so I was like...well...it could keep going up! So I'll wait. Wasn't even attuned to the possibility of massive, irrational intra-day movement.
The following chart shows the action. It was very easy to see where the top was, and I easily called the bottom in real time (hadn't been observing the chart when it topped).
The ideal case would have been to sell my 7 GBTC near the high, (short the instrument if possible), and then buy back double at the end of the move. It was obviously short-term overbought, then obviously short term oversold, and thus would likely rise back to a fair value.
And sure enough, it's on the way back up. And let me stress, this was an easy trade.
One of the reasons I didn't trade, is I wasn't paying that much attention, I didn't think the movement could be this exaggerated, and frankly I had in my mind that this was a longer-term trade, and there's no reason--judging by the BTC price--to get out at this time. I also tried trading a little move with little fundamental support (unlike the powerful information I have here) and I failed miserably.
But of course, I'm honestly disappointed I didn't turn a ~20% gain into a 40%-60% gain by adding some trading (which was super easy in this inefficient market) and maybe even adding some more shares on margin at the lows...I'm already taking a tremendous amount of risk overall with this position, so why not take a small amount of risk, comparatively, on a super high probability short term trade? I don't know, but I've missed stuff like this over and over again. This is probably the most glaring example, esp. because the bitcoin price moved so far over 2 days where it was not possible to trade.
You know, a similar strategy works for XIV...there are those days where it totally tanks due to algos position dumping. Different market, and more difficult to trade because of the speed of the algos, but plenty of profit potential.
One last thing, is this shows the power of trading around a longer term investment position. The main thing, of course, is one is (or at least should be) attuned to the movement of their position, so then one is automatically ready to spot these short term opportunities.
But of course, at least I can be ready for next time. And now you know!
Monday, November 13, 2017
New ICOs to Invest In
After more diligence,
Looking to invest in Gatcoin's pre-sale--ending this week.
Looking to invest in micro-money after tokens listed on major exchange (missed pre-sale and all that)
Maybe invest in Cashaa (they want to introduce banking services on a wallet-type device.) AFTER they list on an exchange.
After diligence, things I will not invest in:
-bitconnect
I also want to put funds in Dash and Monero "when the time comes", perhaps zcash as well. As to dash, any coin that can rebrand itself 3 times, survive early errors, and has low transaction costs and privacy possibilities...this kind of reliance is what's necessary. And Monero is simply the best in terms of privacy...and it is widely used for its mixing functions. Dash really is a very sleek and interesting ecosystem as well
Also interested in an offshoot of monero, AEON--it serves a different purpose catering more toward mobile users...this could be great or rural communities, also useful is the blockchain pruning AEON undergoes to keep it lite PVIX is also of interest.
In fact, AEON--with market cap of 20M, is mine-able...however, it doesn't really seem like its going anywhere currently, either. Why market cap is so low. However, anything else would not be profitable for me to mine either, so WTH!
Spent a few hours setting up the miner, on my laptop we're projection 0.01 AEON/day, and pool cash out requirement is 0.5 AEON, which would require at least 50 days...hmmm. Well, the only good news is my CPU is only running at about 50% so I could keep this on 24/7 and still use my computer for work normally. We will check back and decide from there
Looking to invest in Gatcoin's pre-sale--ending this week.
Looking to invest in micro-money after tokens listed on major exchange (missed pre-sale and all that)
Maybe invest in Cashaa (they want to introduce banking services on a wallet-type device.) AFTER they list on an exchange.
After diligence, things I will not invest in:
-bitconnect
I also want to put funds in Dash and Monero "when the time comes", perhaps zcash as well. As to dash, any coin that can rebrand itself 3 times, survive early errors, and has low transaction costs and privacy possibilities...this kind of reliance is what's necessary. And Monero is simply the best in terms of privacy...and it is widely used for its mixing functions. Dash really is a very sleek and interesting ecosystem as well
Also interested in an offshoot of monero, AEON--it serves a different purpose catering more toward mobile users...this could be great or rural communities, also useful is the blockchain pruning AEON undergoes to keep it lite PVIX is also of interest.
In fact, AEON--with market cap of 20M, is mine-able...however, it doesn't really seem like its going anywhere currently, either. Why market cap is so low. However, anything else would not be profitable for me to mine either, so WTH!
Spent a few hours setting up the miner, on my laptop we're projection 0.01 AEON/day, and pool cash out requirement is 0.5 AEON, which would require at least 50 days...hmmm. Well, the only good news is my CPU is only running at about 50% so I could keep this on 24/7 and still use my computer for work normally. We will check back and decide from there
Sunday, November 12, 2017
First Cryptocurrency Purchases
I have dabbled in Cryptocurrency previously, mining Quarkcoin on my laptop in 2013 when it first came out...which didn't go anywhere. I also loaded the program on computers at UCSD and hoped that nobody would Somewhat of a contrarian, and unwilling to spend any real $$$ on bitcoin (not having a sizeable war chest either), I bemoaned the fact that mining was unfeasible...in fact, this was the time when the first "retail" ASIC miners started coming out. I also mined Protoshares and Litecoin, Litecoin via pool. I just tried to find my pool and, well, I don't think it exists anymore, and I don't think I ever had enough coin to withdraw either. And if I did, I lost interest far before, since my PC could hardly make a dent. I have 0.2 protoshares in my wallet, which says there is no block source...but that could just be because I never updated the software. With these going at $0.05, however, that is unlikely.
So, after taking a long "break" from crypto, after deciding it had no relevance to my real life, I am back. I purchased some ETH for $310/coin and BTC for $6K coin, much higher prices...in fact, ETH wasn't even around when I was looking at this stuff.
All in all I plan to commit X amount of capital in a partnership style arrangement, 40% my money, 60% another investor's to the crypto world, and, I guess, have fun! We'll see if we can't participate in some ICOs, do some trading, and potentially ride the crypto wave upward while trying to avoid losing coins though poor transfer practices, theft, etc. In the meantime, I will continue to trade in traditional markets as well. Perhaps I can get involved in some of the projects to increase my coding skills as well, since I am intent on entering the dev space...coding is simply an important skill at this point I think...more important than building hardware--sadly or not. Coding still allows freelancing and freestyle, whereas hardware requires complex processes--except for the simple stuff, which I can accomplish with analog components...or if things get more complicated, analog components + microprocessors...and to work with these (say Arduino) I NEED TO KNOW C+! There's just no time in the world to custom-build everything, one must make use o existing technologies.
Obviously one might guess that my eventual aim in this endeavor is 1) to build profitable trading algorithms and 2) to have a career as a base from which to launch my personal lie and business interests.
In any case, I don't believe that Crypto-currencies, at least in their current form, are going to keep risi9ng in price etc. forever, but perhaps I could be wrong. I certainly don't believe that bitcoin will remain the premier currency unless it involves. Faster transaction times, more transaction scopes, lower transaction fees...and really, who likes paying with .2 of a coin for an expensive purchase? This will probably be prohibitive. I could see a coin where $20 is 1 coin or something, maybe even $100 is 1 coin, that would be nice, but quite the reverse gets a bit problematic in my opinion. Bitcoin also only has 21M coins possible to distribute, and I would assume that at least 1M of them have been lost or forgotten, in fact, I assume the amount is probably a bit higher.
Also, the security of the crypto space depends on ridiculously large numbers, and the inability o computers to brute-force raid wallets as a result. Although hackers are constantly monitoring wallets created by common phrases and expressions, and once a payment goes into them, it gets taken out. I have seen this with the brain wallet created by "to be or not to be". You know, a brain wallet is an interesting concept though. like a humanly-memorable pass-code. I like the idea.
With all the effort I will be putting in this space, it is imperative that I learn to trade better.I am simply bad at human trading...ok, maybe not BAD, but not excellent--which is what I want to be. I am hoping of course that computers will allow for intelligently created, and very flexible trading systems. I might need to join a quant and to hone these skills. For sure, as soon as I--and even sooner than I become a developer, I will put this to work. In the meantime, manual trading it is for myself and my investors, looking forward to the future launch of my funds! Lots of work
So, after taking a long "break" from crypto, after deciding it had no relevance to my real life, I am back. I purchased some ETH for $310/coin and BTC for $6K coin, much higher prices...in fact, ETH wasn't even around when I was looking at this stuff.
All in all I plan to commit X amount of capital in a partnership style arrangement, 40% my money, 60% another investor's to the crypto world, and, I guess, have fun! We'll see if we can't participate in some ICOs, do some trading, and potentially ride the crypto wave upward while trying to avoid losing coins though poor transfer practices, theft, etc. In the meantime, I will continue to trade in traditional markets as well. Perhaps I can get involved in some of the projects to increase my coding skills as well, since I am intent on entering the dev space...coding is simply an important skill at this point I think...more important than building hardware--sadly or not. Coding still allows freelancing and freestyle, whereas hardware requires complex processes--except for the simple stuff, which I can accomplish with analog components...or if things get more complicated, analog components + microprocessors...and to work with these (say Arduino) I NEED TO KNOW C+! There's just no time in the world to custom-build everything, one must make use o existing technologies.
Obviously one might guess that my eventual aim in this endeavor is 1) to build profitable trading algorithms and 2) to have a career as a base from which to launch my personal lie and business interests.
In any case, I don't believe that Crypto-currencies, at least in their current form, are going to keep risi9ng in price etc. forever, but perhaps I could be wrong. I certainly don't believe that bitcoin will remain the premier currency unless it involves. Faster transaction times, more transaction scopes, lower transaction fees...and really, who likes paying with .2 of a coin for an expensive purchase? This will probably be prohibitive. I could see a coin where $20 is 1 coin or something, maybe even $100 is 1 coin, that would be nice, but quite the reverse gets a bit problematic in my opinion. Bitcoin also only has 21M coins possible to distribute, and I would assume that at least 1M of them have been lost or forgotten, in fact, I assume the amount is probably a bit higher.
Also, the security of the crypto space depends on ridiculously large numbers, and the inability o computers to brute-force raid wallets as a result. Although hackers are constantly monitoring wallets created by common phrases and expressions, and once a payment goes into them, it gets taken out. I have seen this with the brain wallet created by "to be or not to be". You know, a brain wallet is an interesting concept though. like a humanly-memorable pass-code. I like the idea.
With all the effort I will be putting in this space, it is imperative that I learn to trade better.I am simply bad at human trading...ok, maybe not BAD, but not excellent--which is what I want to be. I am hoping of course that computers will allow for intelligently created, and very flexible trading systems. I might need to join a quant and to hone these skills. For sure, as soon as I--and even sooner than I become a developer, I will put this to work. In the meantime, manual trading it is for myself and my investors, looking forward to the future launch of my funds! Lots of work
Thursday, November 9, 2017
UCO has experienced intense Contago losses
Long dated puts on UCO would have been the most profitable investment EVER! Well, you get the idea.
USO behaved far better, and it is not leveraged as one can see.
However, its performance has not mirrored the index, WTI
Although that WTI doesn't exactly mirror this WTI:
As can be seen, basic commodities such as oil, etc, are excellent things to trade given a fundamental basis in reality. I will be on the lookout for such profit scenarios in the future.
USO behaved far better, and it is not leveraged as one can see.
However, its performance has not mirrored the index, WTI
Although that WTI doesn't exactly mirror this WTI:
As can be seen, basic commodities such as oil, etc, are excellent things to trade given a fundamental basis in reality. I will be on the lookout for such profit scenarios in the future.
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