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Catching

Catching a Falling Knife with AMD on the 30 minute chartBetting on a price increase after a sharp price decrease is called "catching a falling knife". In fact, you may have heard someone say, "don't try to catch a falling knife." The analogy is meant to sound dangerous because it is very risky to buy a stock that is dropping rapidly. The hope is that if you time it right, you will get in at the bottom and make big profits. The opposite is true as well, but catching a knife thrown upward sounds like an even worse idea. I would like to suggest that it's possible to profit from a knife-catching strategy if you manage your risk and timing properly. In the chart for AMD, I've marked the opportunities to catch a falling (or rising) knife, which have been occurring on a daily basis for the past week. For AMD, a price bottom has typically been forming after the price has dropped significantly over the previous day. And a top has formed after the price has risen significantly over the previous day. Sometimes it's not clear if a bottom or top has formed such as on October 25. In that case, it's a coin flip (50% chance of being right). The key to success in this strategy is to set a tight stop loss and to buy or sell short during the pre-market (yellow-shaded area). There were at least 6 excellent opportunities last week to do this. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention to AMD until the morning of Friday, October 28. I saw the opportunity and realized that there was no way my order would have a chance to go through when the market opened if the price was making a dramatic move. I bought a half hour before the market opened (9:00 AM Eastern) and set my stop loss below the low reached post-market the previous day. Once the market opened, the price was already climbing and I got out before 10:00 AM Eastern. My risk-reward ratio was 1:5. That is, I risked 1 dollar for every 5 dollars I profited. Not too shabby. It appears that Monday is going to be another great opportunity, and I will be watching the pre-market closely. I will be setting a stop loss at 62.30 and a take profit of around 59.50. Although I will be watching for the right time to get out, which is usually when the price reverses, and I chicken out as I did on the 28th. Monday's trade will be going against the larger trend which I believe is heading to 73 by the end of November. See the link to my longer-term analysis of AMD. This is not a 100% fool-proof strategy, and the conditions that make this look easy can change completely and without notice. Also, the volatility can stop you out too soon. Take a look at October 22 for an example of where I would have been stopped out and lost out on the subsequent big move. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, and the above statements are not investment advice. My comments are only intended for educational purposes. You are solely responsible for your own trading decisions. I'd like to add that developing these analyses is a powerful educational tool for the one doing the analysis (namely me). It helps me formulate my thoughts and plan my trades so that I can make the best decisions possible. I'm training my brain to eventually do this automatically when I glance at a chart. It's a skill that I hope will benefit me for the rest of my life. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing. Give some thought to publishing your own ideas. I highly recommend it. Have a profitable week!
NASDAQ:AMD
by cdnbuzzard
Defensively aggressive laddering dips - "Knife Juggling" I contest that Crypto is currently not bull and bear, but pigeons and eagles. "Just buy the dip" and "HODL" are two bromides of wisdom for the pigeons, kindly given by the eagles. Ways to keep skittish retail from panic selling and causing even more volatility. But clearly in a volatile market with big swings (10-20% within hours), buying dips is a good strategy. But we are sagely warned against 'catching knives' - get confirmation before buying. Great, but whenever Bitcoin shits itself the market drops with it, and Bitcoin is more erratic than modern politics, which means you can timidly wait a long time for a good entry... and still catch a knife in the hand. HODL is also cute. "Just buy whatever the market is doing, don't try to time the market". Michael Saylor, gigachad himself, bought 500 million worth of Bitcoin for 37.6k average... within a week it was trading consistently under 32k. The circumstances there are a bit different, as held in fund etc, but one can't help but think a bit of timing the market would have been wise. If you bought Bitcoin at 65k, and it slumped to 55k, and then it was clearly heading down, why wouldn't you sell 'at a loss' and buy back in later? More satoshis for the same amount as the original investment, even if the first cash out was less money than you originally put in. Stressful and with some risk, I grant you, but not dumb. This is what all money managers do, but we are told dilligently not to do it - one rule for the pigeons, one rule for the eagles. But one great idea from HODL is the Dollar-Cost Averaging... If you are 'under water' on an investment, you can keep buying back in as the price craters. There is a horrible amount of sunk cost fallacy to it - throwing good money after bad - but you can reduce your break even sale price quickly that way. How does this fit in with catching a falling knife, or rather knife-juggling , you ask? Well, if you keep track of your DCA, and you are using an exchange with lower fees (eg Kraken) rather than something with a high spread (eg Uphold), you can buy dips and sell tops slightly safer. IDEA This is more for swing trading than 'investing'. Invest in bear markets, sell in bulls... let the pigeons get that backwards. With this technique you are still able to aggressively buy dips, as long as you believe the market is in an overall uptrend. It relies upon laddering in (multiple buying points) on the way down, and taking decent profits sensibly on the way up (don't sell all in one go, but take some off the table whenever there is a big move - do not sell below your break even price (BE)). If you are tracking your DCA, as you take profits on peaks, your BE. As your BE price drops, you can use that for your new stop loss limit level, and use BE*1.05 for your stop loss trigger... ensuring you get 5% return whatever. You could also split it, so half your remaining bag stops at that level, whereas the other is stopped as high as possible but decently below a key support to allow retracement. You can then set limit order buys on a small amount above good support lines, which should provide a base in times of market fear. You will often snipe a good deal and it will roar back up. If it is being pushed down by BTC price action, it often recovers quickly, regaining that support level, reducing your risk. NB: If you buy into further dips on the way up, your BE will also rise, so be careful if your BE is close to market or has no support cover. NB: If you buy into further dips below your BE price, because the market has dropped since your first entry, your BE will also drop, thus making it easier to get out of your position without a loss (especially if you bagged some profits when possible) when it next upticks. It does rely on eventual market upticks, but that's crypto. Keep your head, don't panic sell, and try to clear out of your holdings now and then to reassess the market. Be clear what you are investing in, and what you are trading in - they are different strategies. And no shit half the battle is good entries and exits. Sell into strength, buy at peak fear etc, but try to get the meat of the move. Good luck. HOW No Pro, no Show :'( - See comments In arrange QUANTITY and PRICE in two columns, and just copy the trade numbers from Cryptowatch etc. BUY is simply quantity, but SELL is the negative of quantity. (eg 50 | 0.10 ; -50 | 0.15 ) Sum the quantities, which should give you your current holdings (check!) Then use =SUMPRODUCT(B8:B24,C8:C24) to add all the multiplied quantities and prices. You then divide that by the sum of your current holdings (repeat the sum equation or call that cell) Voila. That will give you BE, and *1.05 will give you BE + 5%, giving you your SL price to ensure a profit. Figuring this out has helped me deal with swing trading the schizophrenic BTC/Alt market the last week or two. --- Let me know if it helps, or if you think it is ridiculous/sophomoric/dangerous. I'm also fairly new - but not doing terribly.
TLong
by JohnWukong
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