That's a story!
Happiest memory (thus far) of trading?
- Thread starter pinetboltz
- Start date
My best, and most life-changing trading experience was being long cryptocurrencies during 2017.
Having grown up seeing prices for everything triple (1970s and early 1980s inflation), I've always been an "inflation hawk". When Trump was elected in 2016 and I heard of his plans for massive tax cuts, I again became very concerned about inflation. I asked myself - is there any currency that cannot be printed arbitrarily? I then remembered cryptocurrencies. A friend of mine had done some Bitcoin mining years before, and I vaguely remembered he had told me only a set amount would be mined/printed. So I started studying cryptocurrencies in December 2016. After much study to understand how they worked, I settled on Bitcoin as the one I wanted to invest in. I assumed there must be a fund of some kind, that I could invest in, but there was none. I could buy Bitcoin for big premiums through eBay, and I bought a small amount and spent it as a test, but it would be too difficult and not cost effective to invest this way.
Eventually, I found Coinbase, and opened an account at the start of 2017. They would only let me transfer something like $2000 a week from my bank, so I bought one Bitcoin at a time. That company also traded Ethereum. After doing the research on how Ethereum is used and its algorithms, I decided what the heck, I would go ahead and split my investment between Bitcoin and Ethereum. So every week I bought either Bitcoin or Ethereum. I had a set amount I wanted to invest in cryptocurrency. In a couple months, I had reached that amount - actually, I had only invested about 80% that much but it was already up by over 20%. So I stopped buying.
I watched the account (using the tracker on Coinbase's phone ap) double and then triple through the summer. I showed some friends the price graph, and the all told me to sell right then because it was up so much. But I've been trading most of my adult life, and I knew there was still far more upside potential. By October, I realized I had enough money that I could probably retire right then (not just because of Bitcoin, but I've always been somewhat competent at investing and conservative in spending). I was 53 years old. I told my boss that I was seriously considering retiring. I told him I had done the calculations and could continue living my present (pretty modest) lifestyle with money I already had saved up and invested. He was shocked and didn't say much. A few days later, he came back and told me I would not be able to retire since "You will never be able to afford your health insurance!" (my company paid for a good portion of employee health insurance). I did the research and decided I would still be able to afford that, but based on how earnestly he was trying to talk me out of retiring I decided to stay for another couple of years.
Just a few months later in January 2018 - in fact, on the day I had sold the last of the 2/3 of my cryptocurrency investments (I planned to hold 1/3 of them), I got word of the death of a relative. I was administrator of the estate, which would take plenty of my time, plus I would inherit a bit of money as well. I realized that the "writing was on the wall", so decided to go through with retirement. I stayed with the company a few more months to smoothly close out the things I was responsible for, then retired during the summer. Now I get to spend time doing volunteer work (which I was already pretty active in while still working full time), hobbies, and of course studying the markets so I can preserve my capital and stay retired.
I made over 1000% on Bitcoin, and over 1500% on Ethereum, in under a year. The inflation I had been concerned about has not yet happened. But that concern led me to cryptocurrencies, which happened to take off at that time. A lifetime of interest in markets and occasional trading made me competent at picking a good exit point before cryptocurrencies tanked later in 2018.
Well my trading is far from perfect. I did re-invest in Bitcoin in late 2018, doubling the amount I had left over from the 1/3 I had kept invested. That is down so far, but even if Bitcoin goes to 0 I still have the majority of my original profits.
Having grown up seeing prices for everything triple (1970s and early 1980s inflation), I've always been an "inflation hawk". When Trump was elected in 2016 and I heard of his plans for massive tax cuts, I again became very concerned about inflation. I asked myself - is there any currency that cannot be printed arbitrarily? I then remembered cryptocurrencies. A friend of mine had done some Bitcoin mining years before, and I vaguely remembered he had told me only a set amount would be mined/printed. So I started studying cryptocurrencies in December 2016. After much study to understand how they worked, I settled on Bitcoin as the one I wanted to invest in. I assumed there must be a fund of some kind, that I could invest in, but there was none. I could buy Bitcoin for big premiums through eBay, and I bought a small amount and spent it as a test, but it would be too difficult and not cost effective to invest this way.
Eventually, I found Coinbase, and opened an account at the start of 2017. They would only let me transfer something like $2000 a week from my bank, so I bought one Bitcoin at a time. That company also traded Ethereum. After doing the research on how Ethereum is used and its algorithms, I decided what the heck, I would go ahead and split my investment between Bitcoin and Ethereum. So every week I bought either Bitcoin or Ethereum. I had a set amount I wanted to invest in cryptocurrency. In a couple months, I had reached that amount - actually, I had only invested about 80% that much but it was already up by over 20%. So I stopped buying.
I watched the account (using the tracker on Coinbase's phone ap) double and then triple through the summer. I showed some friends the price graph, and the all told me to sell right then because it was up so much. But I've been trading most of my adult life, and I knew there was still far more upside potential. By October, I realized I had enough money that I could probably retire right then (not just because of Bitcoin, but I've always been somewhat competent at investing and conservative in spending). I was 53 years old. I told my boss that I was seriously considering retiring. I told him I had done the calculations and could continue living my present (pretty modest) lifestyle with money I already had saved up and invested. He was shocked and didn't say much. A few days later, he came back and told me I would not be able to retire since "You will never be able to afford your health insurance!" (my company paid for a good portion of employee health insurance). I did the research and decided I would still be able to afford that, but based on how earnestly he was trying to talk me out of retiring I decided to stay for another couple of years.
Just a few months later in January 2018 - in fact, on the day I had sold the last of the 2/3 of my cryptocurrency investments (I planned to hold 1/3 of them), I got word of the death of a relative. I was administrator of the estate, which would take plenty of my time, plus I would inherit a bit of money as well. I realized that the "writing was on the wall", so decided to go through with retirement. I stayed with the company a few more months to smoothly close out the things I was responsible for, then retired during the summer. Now I get to spend time doing volunteer work (which I was already pretty active in while still working full time), hobbies, and of course studying the markets so I can preserve my capital and stay retired.
I made over 1000% on Bitcoin, and over 1500% on Ethereum, in under a year. The inflation I had been concerned about has not yet happened. But that concern led me to cryptocurrencies, which happened to take off at that time. A lifetime of interest in markets and occasional trading made me competent at picking a good exit point before cryptocurrencies tanked later in 2018.
Well my trading is far from perfect. I did re-invest in Bitcoin in late 2018, doubling the amount I had left over from the 1/3 I had kept invested. That is down so far, but even if Bitcoin goes to 0 I still have the majority of my original profits.
February 2009. After an awful loss in October 2008, where we weren't even aware we had a position, all in one we discovered ETFs, FAS and FAZ.
We did not yet know the word "trader", TA, etc, but for some type of good luck, or reassuming of the one before (1995-2007) suddenly the profits started to pull in. But now I was in the "captain's headquarters", directly participating with placing orders, exiting etc. The world I did not wish to know, but found myself in and knew this was really my place. I remember first big significant profit, similar to a annual salary of a good manager in USA. I remember sitting in this cozy place, looking around at the people, taking lunch in their break and asking myself, why aren't they studying to trade? I felt to have a hyperboloid of prosperity , not death, but with the same power as in "Hyperboloid of Ing. Garin" [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garin_Death_Ray] soul questioning. We quit position before lunch, and in a few hours our profit was that of those people in a month, year, years....What we have to do with all this money flow, coming back now to us, in what I assumed to be a more competent way to trade? What about our children, when can we give it to them? Where are the boards of the so called "real world" and what is real? What are we called to do with this mastery that is coming to us?
This repeated day after day...strange and nice.
Sorrows, dealing with lies, terrible not-discounted brokers ( better to be called frauders). Finally, August 2013, made 10% in one trade with UBS Bahamas and hoped it will now follow and grow.
Those are my best memories so far, better to come.
We did not yet know the word "trader", TA, etc, but for some type of good luck, or reassuming of the one before (1995-2007) suddenly the profits started to pull in. But now I was in the "captain's headquarters", directly participating with placing orders, exiting etc. The world I did not wish to know, but found myself in and knew this was really my place. I remember first big significant profit, similar to a annual salary of a good manager in USA. I remember sitting in this cozy place, looking around at the people, taking lunch in their break and asking myself, why aren't they studying to trade? I felt to have a hyperboloid of prosperity , not death, but with the same power as in "Hyperboloid of Ing. Garin" [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garin_Death_Ray] soul questioning. We quit position before lunch, and in a few hours our profit was that of those people in a month, year, years....What we have to do with all this money flow, coming back now to us, in what I assumed to be a more competent way to trade? What about our children, when can we give it to them? Where are the boards of the so called "real world" and what is real? What are we called to do with this mastery that is coming to us?
This repeated day after day...strange and nice.
Sorrows, dealing with lies, terrible not-discounted brokers ( better to be called frauders). Finally, August 2013, made 10% in one trade with UBS Bahamas and hoped it will now follow and grow.
Those are my best memories so far, better to come.
Nice play and congrats on the retirement!
Someone here told us sometime ago we should keep our emotions in check.
MattZ
Sponsor
The source code on some of these old platforms is better than many of the software today. I am not talking about stability, not graphics or UI.
That kind of happened to me.
I was attempting to go trading via algo automation using Sierrachart and IB (not a good combination).
Was single then, moved across from one side of Australia to the other side extreme, working in a coal mining city (Mackay) and working my ass off working in steel and pipe, valves sales during the day and coding nights and early mornings.
I never cooked for 9 months, just ate from out of canned food.
Very stressful as for several weeks could get no accomodation and was living in motels.
My aha moment was discovering how the market operated, maybe it was my desperation of getting the automation to work but it came together for me from there.
I stayed in Mackay 9 months, then moved back to Western Australia as realestate prices at the time was insane living there.
I hear you there brother.