Buy low sell higher.
Seems clear enough, you don't want to be closing a position at a loss. Except... is it really a loss? You bought the token with BTC, Ether or LTC somewhere and those tokens fluctuate against fiat so while you may be selling for a lower quantity of sats you may well be ending up with a higher dollar amount. Yes, it would be nice if your gain was against BTC as well as fiat but unless you intend to start paying your bills with a crypto credit / debit / payment magic card then it really does not matter.Opportunity cost !!!
If you end up in a bad position because your chosen token has gone down against your purchasing token then there is a temptation (and advice) to get out of that position in order to line up a more profitable trade as soon as possible. You make a short term loss (maybe even a fiat loss) but if you can line up a profitable trade with your purchasing token in the near future then the loss goes away... right? Well, yes and no: Presuming that your next trade is profitable then you make some gains and that's a good thing. If your next trade isn't profitable then you've compunded two losses and if you manage to do this repeatedly you can end up wondering where all the massive crypto profits you' ve been told about went. If you are taking positions for trade in tokens with some sort of long term potential then carrying a bag is not such a bad thing. If you manage to take and exit from 2 or 3 bad positions in a row then trading is probably not your thing or you are getting bad advice. Time to read up on how markets work, take a close look at the "tips" you are getting and see where you went wrong.Only invest what you're prepared to lose.
No. That isn't investment, that's gambling. You have to be sanguine about some losses but don't just throw money into the market with hope in your heart and that the law of attraction will reward your positive vibes. That isn't how the universe works and it definitely isn't how investment works. It is however how con artists regularly fleece people, I'm sure they believe that their positive feelings about robbing people really motivate the universe to reward them.This project has such promise!
If you're investing or trading then actually find out something about the token you plan to take a position with. If the token has regular updates to their development github, they have at least one active community team member providing positive helpful support in their reddit, riot, twitter, telegram or carrier pigeon group then that's a positive sign. If the project has one coder who regularly takes time out of actually working on code to be personally offended by any questions of his ability, integrity or capability then that's a bad sign. A very Bad Sign.
Promises are like wishes, fill one hand with promise and shit in the other and see which one fills up quicker. Measurable progress is more important than promise.Buy the rumor sell the news
Well, I have profited from this one so I can't really criticise it but at the same time I have a suspicion that a lot of traders in the market are waiting for the community managers or just random people to tell them the rumor when in fact you can get advanced notice of "rumors" from http://coinmarketcal.com/ weeks or moths in advance of the events which will spike interest and price action. Take a long view and enter a position gradually to enjoy the benefits of excitement over the "rumor". Prices go down as well as up so place low bids for the token at least a week before some meaningful event and wait for the tokens to come to you. Meaninfgul event is a difficult thing to identify, the market is constantly welcoming new folk to fleece, when I was new folk I was dragged into all sorts of excitement about new websites, new wallets, new exchanges but ultimately I was being fleeced by people with a strategic approach to profits. Developer conferences are generally not a meaningful event, there's little sexy about someone with aspergers syndrome and no charisma describing permutations of cryptographic algorithms unless you're into that sort of thing.
Please note: I have nothing against people with aspergers folk or those without charisma because I am both but I do know that it doesn't generate irrational market excitement as much as someone in a bikini waving pompoms for some reason.Fundamentalists
Stock traders are very concerned about fundamental value, they use arcane measures of market share, profitability, colour of the new CEO's eyes to determine whether the value is represented in the stock price and act accordingly. Crypto is largely a bunch of ideas which may someday produce something worth having. Some of these ideas stay ideas and some produce wonderous things which shall change the world. Many of the wonderful ideas which will change the world actually won't do any such thing, they'll run into technical, legal or just plain personality based problems and then go nowhere. Try to only buy the ones which have both good ideas, good people and good support.
More on this in another exciting episode of "What I reckon" coming soon!!!!