A very recent event led me to make a chain of stupid not well thought through actions resulting in an unwanted outcome. It is interesting how our brains are wired. While we know better, in the spur of the moment we may find ourselves making decisions that go against what we should be doing when following our analyses and believes. At normal circumstances we may act 'wisely', but when something unexpected happens, we may react in a way that will be counterproductive.
photo and creation by edje
Accidents with commercial aeroplanes give us a lot of insights regarding humans reactions when something out of the norm happens. Since decades, commercial aeroplanes are highly automated. Aeroplanes can fly itself without human intervention. Many can land itself completely automated as well. Though aeroplanes are self-driven (so to speak), for good reasons we still have pilots in the cockpit; Humans that can analyse the systems and intervene when necessary. However, we learned from most of the aeroplane accidents: While the systems are trying to prevent the accident from happening, a series of wrong decisions made by humans (air traffic control and pilots) usually results in the accident actually happening.
As you may know, I'm bearish for Bitcoin. It hasn't been longer than a day or so ago, I wrote a whole post about this here named it "Hopes & Dreams versus Logic". This was after the pump allegedly triggered by mister Tesla Musk. Soon after I discovered the pump, I decided to sell the little BTC I had for a stable coin. A single pump should not change my outlook for BTC, and my actions should follow the conclusions of my analyses. Especially when the signals don't change the fundamentals in the analyses that led to the conclusion. As I've pointed out in references post, the pump didn't change the bear-ish developments of BTC at all (see also chart below). Time to monetise a little.
As it turned out yesterday afternoon, I seemed I made a 'wise' decision. Having sold at the 37k$ mark, around a 10% loss was prevented when BTC came all the way down to the 33.5k$ mark.
BTC/USDT pair at Bittrex with some TA: up to 30hrs ago
Yesterday evening I was following BTC for hours and hours while watching a few movies. Smartphone at hand, BTC charts opened and self-updating every single second, barely remember anymore what the movies are about. Guess I was too focussed on what BTC will be doing. For the short term it gave many signs it'll break the 34.5k$ mark. Super low volume though. I thought: "With such low volume, nothing will go." Usually, it'll try a few times and then it'll drop to whatever resistant level down below which is likely around the 33.5k$ mark.
Not being a trader at all (I'm more an investor type, longer-term instead of shorter-term focussed), for some reason I didn't want to miss out when BTC would indeed break 34.5k$ level.
The first action was to set a conditional buy order for a level little higher than it's resistant level it needed to break: 34.8k$ I decided for. When setting the order, I was very surprised the order got filled immediately. Fortunately, it was half of my previous BTC funds I bought. While I strongly believed I wasn't making an error, I tried again to set a conditional order for the other half of my original BTC stack. But also that one got filled immediately. I was dumbstruck! "WTF?", was screaming between my ears. So loud, I didn't hear anything else anymore: Not the TV, not my laptop fans, not anything!
Sometime after my mind settled down a little, I discovered I was making a huge error! I didn't use the conditional crypto purchase feature, but the spot purchase feature of the exchange. How a fool I am!
The logical reaction to my errors should've been: Sell my BTC, take the commission losses I incurred (can't be more than 0,2% or something) and set a proper conditional purchase order. But I decided not to do so. BTC was growing and growing towards 34.5k$, almost glued to that level. And then, it broke! For a split second it touched the 34.8k$, the level I would've set my conditional purchase order. This led me to the thought: "Even if I wouldn't have made errors in setting the conditional buy order, I would've owned BTC by know anyway. Let's keep them and see what happens." Shortly after that, I fell asleep on my couch, lights and TV still on.
This morning, a little shock. "What happened yesterday?", I thought. Knowing I made stupid mistakes on BTC yesterday, still thinking bear-ish, I was not at all pleased I just passed out on my couch before my next step for my BTC holdings. Quickly I checked BTC levels and got confirmation of what I was 'fearing': Overnight I lost around 3% in $ value and at the time of staring to write this post, BTC dropped a little more.
BTC/USDT pair at Bittrex with some TA: up to a few hours ago
Currently still holding on to my BTC, hoping for BTC to find its way up so I can minimise my losses before selling and put these funds in a coin that has more upside potential. Like Ether. Though this coin shows not to be able to break all-time-high, still this one is more bullish than BTC is.
And then, just before finishing this post, I noticed an instant breakout of BTC almost back to levels I purchased at, yesterday. With a little more volume, but still, the volume is not great. I suppose I'll be selling very soon 🙃
BTC/USDT pair at Binance: up to a few minutes ago
all images by edje unless stated otherwise
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14:50 (UTC+1): getting confirmation again and again the Bears got to BTC (33.6k$ now)
Ah man, that sounds like a different kind of horror movie altogether! Was the film Airplane as well in the background as that would be perfect! 😁
Hahahahaha, that would be FANTASTIC... But it wasn't. As a matter of fact, it was a kinda not so good movie, or at least I didn't think it was super or something though IMDB gives it a 7.4 out of 10. The movie: "My Sister's Keeper". Maybe because of that movie I started to make stupid decisions, who knows 🙃
Ah, you are braver than I am... I don't toy around with BTC on spot trading! Doge on the other hand, quickly moved that to exchange to try and get some quick dollars out of that...
DOGE... So funny what happened with that one. You succeeded with monetisaiton before the (partially) dump?
Yes, I managed and even managed to recover the original position for the next time. . There was no way on earth that Doge could get anywhere near the height of what was being bandied around. I'm even surprised that it neared 10 cents! I mean, to reach 1 USD, it would be about 1/5th the market cap of Bitcoin, and that would be just ludicrous... or at least cause some serious changes in the crypto landscape.
Super you could recoupe some!
Crypto space is full of Dreamers and people with lots of Hopes, even those who use Logic, since they shill whatever works best for their own holdings. Espacially those voicing the loudest on Twitter and all. Its game.
I've had similar problems with trading. It's hard to step back and look at the big picture. With exchange fees and price fluctuations no one know if you will break even.
Personally I only put a small fraction on the exchange and set a limit sale that I am comfortable with and wait.
Yet the FUD drives and tempts me to put more in a sale.
Take it easy. Things come around
Agree with you to go slow... Usually do this.... But sometimes the interest in short term trades popup and get the best of me :) Years ago tried daytrading, but figured after three weeks of 10+ hrs a day trading, that is not for me. I like the thorough research and when I like something, to take an investment approach: Put (come) money down, and wait until something happens with the company or project. Along the way, I may be requested to give advise, which I kinda like as well, in case the company/project owners are sincere when asking and treat my input as such.
How nerve wracking that must've been.
But good analogy of the airplane though; makes it more digestible if you will haha
Was a little playing at my nerves. Didn't plan to write so much about the BTC stuff I went through, but more about how humans seem to fall into traps of one decision after the other resulting in a totally wrong or unwanted outcome, something we seem to be doing when we make decisions in the spur of the moment. While writing, this post was the result. Strange how the mind likes to write one thing, and when sitting down to write, our fingers types something else :)
I totally get what you mean, as when I'm starting to write something I have another end-game in mind and then at the end I see it has become something entirely different or that I went the other way with the theme 😅
Always an adventure 🤣
💃🎶🕺
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