CryptoCurrency Day Trading Test – Trades 7-8

Well trade# 7 is not so lucky.  As previously mentioned in a previous post, trade #7 was my first venture into the Bitcoin trading world of Crypto.  I purchased $57.25 worth of Bitcoin (BTC/USD) which was worth at the time 50,313 per bitcoin.  Good thing I only purchased 0.00113787 of a bitcoin, or $57.25 worth.  Basically it has been in a multi-week downtrend since that point, with its usual volitivity.  As I am writing this on 5/31/21, 1 Bitcoin is worth 37039, a drop of 0ver 26%.  During that time it has traded in a range from about 51000 down to just below 30,000.  What I should have done is sell when I had a loss of 5% or so, which would have meant, a max loss of $2.50 or so.  I was still holding the trade when it dipped below 30,000 per bitcoin. But I did sell when the price recovered on May 26th when Bitcoin was over 40,000.  So my $57.25 investment decreased in value to $45.67 on 5/26/21, the completion of trade #7, a loss of 20.2%. Ouch!  And besides the loss, I violated several of my trading rules:  1. Don’t hold trades too long (more than 10 days versus goal of several hours)!   2. Sell at a loss, generally at twice the anticipated profit!   Since my goal with these Crypto trades is generally to make 2.5% per trade, at 5% loss is when I should have sold.  Now in my defense, my broker does not appear to offer stop loss trade options for Crypto, and there is no way to watch the charts 24×7, but still I need to watch it better.

So, now I need to move on.  Trade #8 was also in Bitcoin, and a much better result!  This was entered on 5/29 a little before midnight, and the sale back into USD happened (via my limit price) at about 2:30am, giving me a profit of $2.00 (or 4.4%), with a new net of $47.67.  

I have decided that in future test trades of Crypto, I will not put the full amount on each trade, I will break it into smaller amounts, so as not to risk the entire trading account, in one trade.  This is more closely related to how I regularly trade Index options, which I generally trade 20-25% (of my available trading funds) in the market at any one time.  For purposes of this Crypto Currency test, I plan to only trade 50% at one time for the next few trades.  This will make my progress a little slower, but will reduce risk.

Crypto Currency Day Trading Test – Trades 3-6

Ok here is my update on this little Crypto Currency trading test.  Basically my objective with this test is to either lose this $50 in Crypto Currency, OR double it.  So far nothing but gains, but I still am not a long term believer in Crypto currency, but OK to trade it with short term trades so I am willing to be proved wrong…

So with trade#3, I purchased $52.32 worth of Ethereum (ETH) currency when the charts looked like it may go up, and as you can see from my table below, I was able to sell it for a profit of 2.9% so the new USD$ equivalent was $53.83.   This trade took only a little less than 2 hours, which is what i am trying to do.

My next two trades I went back to LiteCoin (LTC), and was rewarded with gains of 1.9% and 1.6%, although was disappointed that trade 4 took about 1.5 days which is way beyond what I was hoping for, while trade 5 took about 8 hours.   So for trade 6, I went back to Ethereum (ETH) on 5/14 and had a gain of of 1.53% for a 3 hour trade.  All in all, my net test to date gain after trade 6, was a gain of 13.4% gain, which is not too bad for about 10 days.

Later that day on 5/14 I decided I had neglected Bitcoin(BTC) for long enough, and invested my $57.25 in BTC.  I think my timing was a bit off as Bitcoin has not cooperated yet with a gain.  As we speak, I have a “paper” loss of around $2.00 but I have hope to at least escape with a small gain in the next day or so.  We shall see, I will post it in a future update.

Crypto Currency Day Trading Test, Day 2

My trade on Day 2 of this test, was again using Litecoin, happened after midnight May 09, 2021, I checked my technical charts saw a pullback of LTE that looked interesting, so i used my total available funds for this test of $51.09 and purchased LTE again.  After confirmation of the purchase, I set a limit order to sell at around 2% gain, and went to sleep.  I checked it this morning, and saw that I did sell it, and after transaction cost, saw that I had a gain in this trade of 1.82%, or a new net cash for this test of $52.32, which is a little over 3.5% gain, since I started yesterday.

Hopefully I will continue to see similar opportunities in the days ahead!

Gonna dive into Crypto currency starting today, May 8, 2021.  Better late than never.  I have been trading stocks and options, since the mid 1970’s (Off and on) and following investing and trading even longer (1960s).   So today I decided to invest a gigantic amount ($50), actually $50.50 to be exact.  And I will try and record either my success at increasing this amount, or (more likely) my failure at losing this $50.  I do not intend to just buy a currency, and just sit on it, but to trade it at least several times a week, perhaps more, time permitting.   I am retired, but do work occasionally and there are also grandkids, genealogy, Atlanta Braves, fishing, etc.  Since Crypto currency is traded 24×7, 365 I am not bound by any exchange time rules, just by how much time I have, and how well the trading gods treat me.  

First off, while I do know day trading, I know almost nothing about Crypto Currency, or whether it is even a good idea.  Basically it is a stored value that some people believe in, and others (like me?) are still skeptical about.  There are different types of Crypto currencies like the well-known Bitcoin (which as I sit here is worth over $59,000 per Bitcoin.  The equally famous (or infamous DOGEcoin) which supposedly Elon Musk will mention tonight on Saturday Night Live, as well as many, many more types of Crypto currencies are also out there.   A very good thing about Crypto trading is that one does not have to purchase a “whole” coin, but can purchase a tiny fraction of a coin.  This is a very good thing, given my budget for this experiment.

My first foray into this trading earlier today was with a lesser known crypto currency, Litecoin (ticker symbol LTE).  As I continue this experiment I may trade several of these Cryptos with my massive $50, at least the ones my broker supports which are currently Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Etherium (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC)

Trade #1 Today, May 8, 2021.   Decided to look at Litecoin for my first trade.  After looking at my charts for at least an hour  I saw a buying opportunity on my charts, and decided to purchase $50.50 worth of Litecoin at that time (8:11am):

As you can see, I bought approximately .1468 of a Litecoin which at the time I bought it was priced at $343.94 per Litecoin.  Once my purchase was confirmed, I looked at my charts some more and decided to attempt to sell it same day, if the price moved in my favor, so I put a limit order to try and sell at just a little less than $348.  

So a blind squirrel does occasionally find an acorn, and I was successful (@ 2:06PM)  in selling this litecoin at $347.96, which increased my Crypto currency total to $51.09 a profit (before taxes) of $.59 cents.  A whole .09 per hour.  But it was about a 1% gain on the amount invested so all in all, not displeased with the result. 

The real test will be can I continue increasing my cryptocurrency, or not.  Time will tell.

One additional thing, I did a lookback at the charts, and had I purchased Bitcoin at the same time with the same amount of USD cash, it would have been a similar gain.