A week as a cryptocurrency trader - Results

Yes. Trader. As mentioned earlier, I've not exactly been a trader and not very well versed in TA. To prepare myself, I've taken plenty of time recently to understand the crypto market, technology behinds it and picking up various TA skills, discipline and risk management before my foray into the crypto world.

Hopefully, that this will be a rewarding journey. The initiation of Crypto-investing/trading comes with 2 intention - to build a bigger war-chest and at the same time learning from the crazy and volatile alternative market. (Though, there's no guarantee that it will be assisting me with building a bigger war-chest.)

The week had been a really interesting week for the crypto world. Seeing BCH battle out with BTC earlier and the rise of several alt coins.

Earlier this week, I've made plans to devote some time into crypto-trading after weeks of practicing and monitoring. And hereby, now, I'll be writing about the results, thoughts and lesson from based on the trades executed. Do note that for the trades executed in the past week, 95% of the analysis done is based on TA, and I will not go into detail of showing/explaining with charts for the transactions that had already been executed.


So how's my week in "timing the market" ?

Here's the transactions done in this week:

Note: Transaction fees are factored into the price of buying/selling.

I've executed 2 day trades for USD/BTC and BTC/ETC and a short term trade for ETH.

Summary of transactions
Do note that I've no stop-loss as I'm prepared to lose every single cent. 
A fluctuation of 10-20% in an hour is pretty common for cryptocurrency.

Traded pair: USD/BTC
Entry Price: 5,750.00
Target Price: 6,250.00

Entered at 5,750 with a TP of 6,250. As I believe that BTC will be bouncing around and might settle for a lower price. However, just after I've sold, Bitcoin actually rallied and moving towards the 7000 mark.

If anyone realize, BTC today is hovering around the 8000 mark and this will translates to about 39% gain if I'm holding onto BTC.

Traded pair: BTC/ETC
Entry Price: 15.01
Target Price: 17.80

Entered at 15.01 with a TP of 17.80. TA was done on ETC right before exiting position with BTC and heavy support was seen at 15 range with positive divergence. Another note to add on, is a small speculative flavor for the ETC Summit that is taking place back then.

Traded pair: ETC/ETH
Entry Price: 316.96
Target Price: 360.00

Entered at 316.96 with a TP of 360.00. Ethereum is something that I had been monitoring for some time and with several attempt of breaking the 310 and 315 resistance earlier, they finally succeeded in breaking the wall and went as high as 320. Consolidation can be seen at the 315 range and symmetrical triangle are seen prior to entering the trade. ETH seem to be awaiting for a breakout. A day after the trade, ETH is looming around 33X range. Was planning to take profit and move onto LTC, which is displaying a similar pattern at the 6X range. However, I stayed onto Ethereum, believing that there should be another breakout in days. Exited at 360.00 on 19/11/17 after another breakout.

1. Lessons learnt: Be discipline. If you miss the boat, so be it, do not chase after the boat.

In the process, I've lost several opportunities to buy into others rising pairs spotted as I'm rather hesitant. And quite honestly, there's this few moments, I actually had the thoughts to chase after the boat that had left the port! Fortunately, I remained discipline and reminded myself to hold onto my pants. Hours later, the boat started rowing back. Some even knock onto the pier and sank!

Thinking back now, if I were to really chase after the boat. I would have probably drowned or get smacked by the boat when the boat is coming back!

2. Lessons learnt: Having a game plan, do not be greedy.
Have a game plan. Set your target price. Hit and run.

I've received a notification from Blockfolio on Sunday morning that ETH had crossed the 345 mark. Shortly after, I've set my selling order at 360.00 for ETH. However, after I've sold it, ETH continued to rally to the 370 range, before a small correction to the 35X range, and currently it's hovering around 360.

How nice would it be if I set my selling order at 370? 

Do not fall into the trap of waiting for the highest point to sell and lowest point to buy. There will always be a better moment to buy or sell. 

3. Lesson learnt: The Bull helps, and be less emotional towards your trades
This week had been a bull-market for the crypto world. Should the bear come out, I do not think that I will be getting the same results. 

At a point when ETH dived back into the 32X range, correcting from the 34X range on 15/11/17. I was actually contemplating to lock my profit and jumping onto another ship, fearing that the sell-down is actually coming. 

Ethereum continues to be a good candidate to hold onto for the future of technology. However, as this is a short term trade, it's best to take my profit.

Just as I wanted to jump into for another trade.. a sentence flashed pass my mind.
"If we don't take money off the table, unrealized profit will soon turn into losses very quickly!"


Now time for some results:

I've remitted 500 USD to my Gemini account via DBS on 27/10/17 at a rate of 1.3694 before the execution of any trades this week. As such, my capital in SGD is $684.70.

The spread is pretty high for banks. Rates for buying back today stands at 1.342









As such, converting my ending funds to SGD. 

I'll be receiving S$979.73 worth which translates to a gain of 43.09% or S$295.03 over the week of trading! To be honest, my performance is not impressive at all when being compared with many out there. However, I'm still contented with the performance and lessons learnt this far. 

Beginner's luck I believe, and definitely the bull does play a big part in helping me.

And yes. You can see right on top that the Forex spread is actually eating into 3% of my profits. Really bad rates yea?

You can check on DBS forex rate here. 

Note: Investing in cryptocurrency is very risky. Please do your due-diligence before any actions. Having that said, I'm prepared to lose every cents that I've input into the crypto world should anything fall through. I do not recommend investing in cryptocurrency.

Read:
Transaction cost - Are you a trader or an investor? 
Cryptocurrency? I'm in too
Cryptocurrency for Dummies - Part 1 and a short story
Cryptocurrency for Dummies - Part 2 (Rules for crypto-investing?)
Cryptocurrency for Dummies - Part 3 (When do you start?)
Cryptocurrency for Dummies - Part 4 (Guide to start investing in Cryptocurrency)