DCA - is for those who do not like to be nervousIn the fast-paced and often volatile world of cryptocurrency, finding best investment strategy can be a daunting task. While many traders seek quick gains through active trading, a more prudent and less stressful approach exists: Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA).
What is DCA?
DCA is an investment strategy that involves investing a fixed amount of money into a particular asset at regular intervals, regardless of the asset's price. This approach aims to reduce the impact of market volatility on investment returns by averaging out the purchase price over time.
Why is DCA the Sleep-Well Strategy?
DCA offers several advantages that make it an ideal strategy for investors seeking long-term growth and peace of mind:
Emotional Discipline: DCA eliminates the emotional decision-making that often plagues traders. By investing consistently, regardless of price fluctuations, you avoid the urge to buy high and sell low.
Reduced Risk: DCA averages out the purchase price, reducing the overall impact of market volatility. You may buy some coins at higher prices, but you'll also benefit from lower prices, evening out your investment cost.
Long-Term Focus: DCA encourages a long-term investment mindset, discouraging impulsive decisions based on short-term price movements. It's about building wealth gradually and consistently over time.
DCA vs. Trading:
DCA stands in stark contrast to active trading, which involves buying and selling assets frequently to capitalize on short-term price movements. While active trading may appeal to experienced traders with high-risk tolerance, it often leads to emotional decision-making and can be time-consuming and stressful.
DCA: A Proven Strategy with Remarkable Returns
To illustrate the effectiveness of DCA, let's examine the returns of some prominent cryptocurrencies over the past few years, assuming a monthly DCA investment of $100:
Bitcoin (BTC): Investing $100 monthly in BTC since January 2019 would have yielded a staggering 112% return, with a total investment of $12,000 growing to $25,440.
Ethereum (ETH): A DCA approach for ETH since January 2019 would have resulted in an impressive 770% return.
Solana (SOL): DCA into SOL since January 2021 would have generated a remarkable 304% return
Fetch.ai (FET): Investing $100 monthly in FET since January 2019 would have yielded an exceptional 776% return
Understanding the Coins: Technology and Applications
Bitcoin (BTC): The world's first and most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that enables peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries.
Ethereum (ETH): A decentralized blockchain platform, Ethereum supports a wide range of applications, including smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Solana (SOL): A high-performance blockchain known for its scalability and speed, Solana aims to provide a faster and more efficient alternative to Ethereum.
Fetch.ai (FET): An AI-powered decentralized platform, Fetch.ai facilitates the development of autonomous agents for various applications, including open marketplaces and data monetization.
Conclusion:
DCA is a powerful investment strategy that allows individuals to build wealth in cryptocurrency while minimizing risk and emotional stress. By consistently investing fixed amounts, regardless of market fluctuations, DCA investors can reap significant rewards over the long term. Embrace DCA, sleep well, and let your investments grow steadily towards a brighter financial future.
Opportunity
Chaikin Oscillator From ScratchHi, traders!
Today we'll speak about one of the most pretty instrument of divergence detection.
The Chaikin oscillator is named for its creator Marc Chaikin.1
The oscillator measures the accumulation-distribution line of moving average convergence-divergence (MACD). To calculate the Chaikin oscillator, subtract a 10-day exponential moving average (EMA) of the accumulation-distribution line from a 3-day EMA of the accumulation-distribution line. This measures momentum predicted by oscillations around the accumulation-distribution line.
The purpose of the Chaikin oscillator is to identify underlying momentum during fluctuations in accumulation-distribution. Specifically, it applies the MACD indicator to accumulation-distribution rather than closing prices.
For example, a trader wants to determine whether a coin price is more likely to go up or to fall and MACD is trending higher. The Chaikin oscillator generates a bullish divergence when it crosses above a baseline. The baseline is called the accumulation-distribution line. A cross above that line indicates that traders are accumulating, which is typically bullish.
The Chaikin oscillator utilizes two primary buy and sell signals. First, a positive divergence is confirmed with a center-line crossover above the accumulation-distribution line, signaling a potential buying opportunity. Second, a negative divergence is confirmed with a center-line crossover below the accumulation-distribution line, signaling a potential selling opportunity.
A positive divergence signals a coin price is likely to rise, given the increase in accumulation. A negative divergence signals a coin price is likely to fall, given the increase in distribution.
DISCLAMER: Information is provided only for educational purposes. Do your own study before taking any actions or decisions at the real market.
Setting Alarms For Fun and ProfitOne of the most attractive things about being a trader is that once you become proficient with your trading system you don't have to spend all day in front of your computer like an extra in the Walking Dead. There's a lot more to life than trading. The goal is that once we have developed that skill, we can “trade to live” and not “live to trade.”
I like to teach that trading is like fishing - Your job is to go into the water, cast a few lines, and wait for the fish to come and snag a hook. The keyword there is wait . Once you set your lines, you don't have to babysit them: go do something else. (We trade to live, after all!)
Likewise, with trading, once you have developed a certain level of skill in "setting your lines", you should only need to spend about 30-60 minutes in front of your computer "working". Then you simply need to wait until the trade, that is price, gets snagged onto your hook. In the meantime, go do whatever it is in life that you enjoy doing.
How do fishermen then know when a fish has taken the bait? Some fishermen attach a small bell on the end of their pole, a “fishing buddy”, and as the fish jerks the line the bell alerts the fisherman that “he’s got a live one!”
How is is that Alarms can instantly become your "fishing buddy?" Let us count the ways:
First: Management of Buying Power
Let's say you have a $10,000 trading account. You wake up, do your morning routine, head to your home office (or the kitchen table) and “go fishing” in the Futures markets. You find three great opportunities for Soybeans, Oil, and Copper. The margin requirements for each of them (per contract) is $4,500, $5,800, and $7,300, respectively.
Futures trading requires that you have a certain amount of capital in your account per trade setup, known as the margin, or buying power, at the time you setup your trade. This "margin" is set aside in your account and can't be used, even if the trade hasn't been triggered or entered. If you wanted to setup all three of those trades before you headed to work you would need $17,600 in your account. But you only have $10,000. What do you do?
In the past, when I ran into this situation, I would have to guess (or hope) I would choose the correct trade to place before I left for work, and send just that one trade to my broker. Inevitably, I would choose the one losing trade, or the one that didn't get hit , and it ended up that one or more of the other trades turned out to be winners - the trades I did not take - all because I couldn't put on all three at the same time. Aaargh!!! Every day I felt like the trading gods were against me!
Here's where alarms can become your best friend.
Let's say at any given moment if you received an alarm, you would be able to respond to that alarm within an hour. You could setup an alert line 1/24th the daily ATR away from your entry price. For example, at the time I am writing this, the Daily ATR for Crude Oil is 1.7708 - the average distance or range that Oil trades in a day. Divide that by 24 and on average, oil moves about .0738 per hour.
If you are looking to go long oil at $73, you would draw a horizontal line at 73.0738, and set an alert on the line, giving you about an hour to check that the trade is still valid. When price activates your alert, you can log into your trading platform, verify that you still want to take the trade, right-click the long-short tool (which you had setup beforehand) and send the trade to your broker, whereby then and only then will the $5,800 be allocated from your Buying Power.
It is unlikely that all three trades will hit at the same time so this gives you the "buffer time" needed to efficiently manage the available capital in your account to take as many trades as possible.
Using alerts in this manner can help you minimize the number of missed opportunities you might experience because of the limited amount of buying power you may have.
Second: Trade Opportunity Alerts
In the futures market, I have what I call my "31 Flavors" - the 31 Futures contracts that I actively trade. On any given morning I might find 5 assets where I’m looking for a long opportunity, another 5 assets that I’m looking for a short, and the rest aren’t in any trend or environment where I’m looking to trade.
Many indicators let you set an alarm when a certain condition occurs. For instance, I can set an alarm on the ten high-probability assets I have flagged to let me know “Hey, Captain: a Sabre Long opportunity just formed on the S&P;”, or “Hey Captain, a short opportunity with the pattern you are looking for just popped up on Crude Oil.”
Likewise, if you are following a Moving Average strategy, you can setup an alarm saying “Hey, Trader: XYZ just crossed the 89 Moving Average” or "ABC just crossed the 40 day Moving Average.
At the time of this writing TradingView will let you setup up to 400 of these alerts. (P.S. - If you need more than 400 alerts, you're probably overtrading... just sayin') :-)
When the alert is triggered you can just take a few minutes out of your day outside of your normal trading hours to check in and see if that mid-day opportunity is worth setting up. After a couple minutes, you can get back to what it was you were doing.
The myth of the day trader who is glued to his or her computer all day in fear of missing an opportunity is just that - a myth, because alerts free you up to do what is important. Remember, we are trading to live - we aren't living to trade.
Finally: Trade Management
Let's say you are a swing trader. Trades you enter may take anywhere from 3 to 30 days to hit their target. Say, however, you have a hard and fast rule to take 3R profit from all of your trades because you would rather take 3R any day rather than see price go to 5R, or 7R, just to have it come on back and stop you out for a loss due to emotions or lack of paying attention, because, yes, you trade to live - you're not tethered to your computer or smartphone all day. You've got better things to do. (At least I hope you do!)
You can setup an alarm to let you know that a trade you have running achieves 3R of profit, whereby you can then move your stop, then check in on it each morning and/or evening to see how you may want to lock in more profit or call it a day and cash in on your winning trade.
Conclusion:
In short: Use alarms to make your trading more efficient, more effective, and ultimately, more profitable.
Are there any other ways that you use alarms to maximize your trading game? Let us know in the comments... I'm sure we are all, myself included, dramatically under-utilize this very powerful trading tool.
Trade well, everybody!
A Trader's ThanksgivingThanksgiving is a distinctly American holiday, where our nation takes pause to reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for due to the actions of a courageous band of dedicated men and women who crossed a dangerous ocean to an unknown continent for the simple hope... of freedom. As traders, I am glad that we all, regardless of our national origin, our political bent, our religious affiliation, (or most importantly, a preference of Star Wars over Star Trek), we indeed have so much to be thankful for.
In my early days of trading classes a common statement from my classmates to our instructors was "I wish I started trading 20 years ago like you did!" And inexorably the instructor would say, "No you don't... *today* it's so much better to learn how to trade... The entry level is so low... you don't have to go to an exchange every day... you have immediate access to a global market with a simple app download or a click of a browser," and the list went on...
As a trader, I am thankful that we can make money regardless of economic ups and downs, that every day can be a "green day" in our account even when the S&P, Crude Oil, or whatever it was that had a red-candle day because we have the ability to go short as well as long!
As a trader, I am thankful that we have access to a world of free information like BarChart or CMEGroup that can tell us things like what is the current contract, when are economic reports coming out, and technical analysis.
As a trader, I'm thankful to all the free tools available, like the free version of TradingView, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, YouTube, and so on.
As a trader, I'm thankful for the overall giving nature of our community, that traders generally and genuinely like helping fellow traders. Unlike Corporate America where it is dog-eat dog, or owning a business in a niche market where there is great competition to attract a limited number of customers, the opportunity for all traders are for all intents and purposes, *infinite*, and we all share in the collective success of the entire group!
As a trader, I'm thankful that I have no one to ask permission to take time for a family emergency, a medical emergency, a vacation, or anything that would normally interrupt or cripple a business owner's income or an employee's job security, and when I'm ready to get back to trading, the market will be right there waiting for me.
As a trader, I'm thankful that we have access to markets nearly 24x7 so we can work as much or as little as we like or need, and opportunity isn't governed by asking someone for the privilege to work for *them*.
Dear Reader, fellow Trader, what are YOU thankful for? Share your thoughts with our awesome community below!
Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you are!
-Anthony
Opportunity in Gadang (9261.kl)?Gadang has a good background in the last 4 weeks.
- Price moving sideways with minimal spread and volume is low.
- It has Sp, followed by a few Test with low volume.
- Price went up few bars before went down in the last bar. Assuming this is a pullback, we need to the see the price movement and volume.
- If pullback succeed, may consider entry at the following:
Entry: 0.725
Stop Loss: 0.71
- We may take partial profit at 0.78 (Resistance line).
Where was I over the last 62 days?!Trends are not easy to spot when they're developing. I'm sure I looked at AUDCAD many times across several time frames in last 80 days. Now I'm seeing the trend on 12H better, having missed the boat several times! Jeeez this is so annoying!
I suspect that several times I must have thought, "Nah.. it's about to reverse soon. " - and just ignored it very swiftly. This is a mistake, that I need to self-correct.
Do share your lessons learned too. :) :)
Research! Research! Research! I smell blood.I don't disagree with the notion that right now we are set up almost identical to the market in 2014. I don't disagree that we probably have a while longer before we see a bull run. But I am pretty confident we aren't going to see 2+ years of bear market and I don't think we will see a 2+ years of bull market after. I think what we are experiencing is the final days of true manipulation, the beginning days of true adoption, and a culmination of some really strong forces. The noise will continue, but the rise will be more steady. Let me explain...
Maybe we haven't hit rock bottom but with the bulls crying their eyes out and people shorting so sure of themselves, I would say that it's a pretty good time for some or all to get wrekt. Think about it. There is a moment when you can make both animals cry. The minute of reversal where it's obvious that a massive gain is coming, but hasn't yet so the shorts get liquidated because of the lack of coverage. And then there are the bulls that so badly want something to moon, but in reality it's going to be a slow steady climb.
Going back to the rate of adoption, think of the bell-curve that happens. No where in that curve is there a break. Adoption and price accelerate through about 1/3 of the total life cycle. There is however sometimes a chasm, much like the described perilous valley in the accepting of humanoid robots, that causes confusion before all of the early adopters get on board. The only thing there is to determine is how long the life of a cycle will be. In my last post I messed around with GDPs of five countries. I found at just one percent of their GDP in crypto-currency, the number is actually a little more than what the current market cap was listed at that day of 299B.
In a perfect world right now we would see enough growth through adoption that we could take profits and new money coming in would offset the profit taking. But instead let's see what a macro story can tell us. Right now there just aren't enough retail stores taking crypto to make a difference but what happens when that threshold is crossed.
1. Some one buys something with crypto.
2. Price of crypto goes up due to fiat entering a market.
3. Amount of fiat in cirrculation goes down
4. No reason to sell crypto for fiat because enough retail to sustain oneself.
5. You get paid in crypto from work.
6. You buy more stuff gradually shifting more GDP to crypto.
6. Cycle repeats.
This is what we should be striving for but due to where we are in this adoption cycle right now we are still ironing out wrinkles and people don't see a bigger picture. So Research, Research, Research! Prop up your own currency and figure out how you can make actual differences. Lastly, sniff around for the blood. Look at opposing views and see who is either scared or overly-confident. Just like bulls think the market will go up even in the short term, bears tend to think they will continue going down in the long term.
Refer to my Buddhist approach to investing for inner peace if you seek the middle ground. ;-)