PlanZ

Positionmanagement: Position management is one of the harder parts in this game. For me it's time now to get clarity about it. My portfolio used to be a complete mess as i just bought here and there in the beginning of my trading career often without a real setup nor a stop loss. I was lucky, had good teachers and made some good decisions along my journey so it played out quiet well for me till now, but with a better position management it could have worked out a lot better. Most in crypto probably start out with buying some random coins at random prices, because some random guy said it's a good project. Without looking at the chart and having a deeper understanding of what you are seeing it's like flying a plane for the first time with closed eyes while sitting backwards in the cockpit. I mean you probably wont die from trading, even if thats not that uncommon, but you will likely loose your all your money which you might need for your basic needs. If you want to be a successful longterm trader, which is harder than going to Olympia, you need to learn to mange your risk and thus your positions. Most traders need a hard wakeup call in form of a big loss to really get it. For most people this is the end of their trading career, for true traders it's the beginning. The current price action right now creates a new generation of traders and a new generation of broke newbies. Wouldn’t it be nice if you can save yourself the experience of a painful big loss? Trading should be treated like a business. To start a business you need a plan, discipline and courage. Clean up your portfolio, define your setups, have invalidation for every trade and stick to your plan no matter how you feel right now and you can achieve were 90% of traders fail: Becoming profitable. ———————————————— 1. When should i risk how much of my portfolio? There is no case in the world where you should risk more than 5% of your portfolio. If you go with 10% risk and lose 10 times in a row your account will be gone and believe me the probability of loosing 10 times in a row is real. In the beginning you should not even risk more than 1-2% to be honest. The learning effect will be the same and you will have lost a lot less money in the end. Risk means in that case the amount money you can loose with your stop loss. Let assume your account is 1000$. You want to take a trade with 2% risk, that means you go with a 20$ stop loss. Sounds boring yes, but if you are able to refine your entries you will find a lot 7R+ setups which mean you can 7x your 20$ best case. Not that bad for one single trade, without risking your life saving all at once. You should define what kind of trade you have first. Is it? Optimal: 3-5% risk. Semi optimal: 1-2% risk. Semi risky: 0.1-1% risk. Risky: 0.01%-0.1% risk. To define if a trade is one of the above you should analyse each trade equally with different parameters. 1.1 Defining the timeframe: There are a lot of different situations, which require different strategies. First you should start with defining on which timeframe this trade is going to play. You should do that because the lower the TF the lower the probability of a reaction. It's a liquidity game and if you find are clear HTF level you can assume there is a lot more liquidity than if you find a LTF level, thus its more probable of being a reversal level. HTF (12h+) = optimal MTF (4h+) = semi optimal LTF (15min+) = semi risky MTF (<15min) = risky In the beginning it doesn’t make sense to trade LTFs or below. It will just confuse you and you are not ready for the speed in which these plays come. Your emotions will get the better of you and you will make stupid decisions. See it as leagues like in a game. If you can handle HTFs and MTFs you can try your luck with the higher leagues. Handle means in this case to be actually sustainable profitable with track record. Every trade you take below MTFs should be considered semi risky if you don’t know exactly what you are doing, no matter how strong the level is that you have. If you find a weekly OB and go through smaller TFs to refine the level you can still treat it as HTF level, even if you enter on lower timeframes. If the level is wide you should try to refine it as much as possible but don’t get lost in LTFs and overfine too much. When i got a wide level i like to enter with a small amount of my defined % risk and scale into it the further we go into the level, but with a clear defined stop. That means i can enter at the beginning of the area with lets say 0.5% risk and scale in with 1-2 more entries to bring my average down, till i filled the position with 2% risk. This is how i make sure to not miss the setup because of over-refining but also don’t miss the opportunity to bring my average down. 1.2 Defining the strength of a level: This text is only about position management and so i will not dive deep into what makes a level stronger than others, but you should look for: Premium or Discount? Hidden or obvious? Supply&Demand Order blocks Liquidity blocks Fair value gaps Fibonacci confluence The more of those you can find at a specific level over different timeframes the more optimal your level will be. When you go through the different layers of timeframes you will find these patterns over and over in each layer. Mark them out and overlay them. The area which is the brightest will be the most powerful. It takes some practice and patience but you will soon start to see the signs on the charts. To define the quality of the area i made a checklist: Long or short? Aka do i look for a premium or discount area? If my wished setup is in the right area it gives it +1 confluence of being a strong setup. Is it a for retail hidden level? If yes that gives me another strong confluence of being a powerful level. Hidden levels are the jokers of setups, especially on HTFs. How many different signs can i find through different timeframes? The lower i go the less meaning i give them. Are these areas touched already or not? If they are touched some liquidity is already taken and the probability of being a reversal level is lower. If the level is a monthly OB and price touched it, there will still be lot more liquidity left than on a 1h OB, but some of it is gone so it reduces the quality of the setup. Are there significant strong fibs above the 0.5 to be found in the area? If yes it will give me +1 confluence? As you can see every setup is going to be completely different and you will need some experience to define your setups precisely. For the beginning i would recommend you only take 10% of the free money you have for trading and go with 1-2% risk. Thats the best way to learn in my opinion, cause its hurts a little but not so much to get you rekt. If you structure your setups like this and acquire a powerful understanding of TA you will become a very profitable trader over time. ———————————————— 2. HTF trend: I often made the mistake of giving my setups “unrealistic” target in terms of the overall trend. So don’t do it like i did, but rather like this: HTF down: Longs = scalps Shorts = swing HTF up: Longs = swings Shorts = scalps Scalps: A scalp should have a realistic targets. That means it's not too far way from your entry and it does not fight the overall trend. Aggressive Take profits and trailing should be used. Swings: Swings ride the trend. Your targets can be further away from your target and you will likely sit for longer in these positions. Your trailing should be wider and your TPs not as aggressive, as you can get probably more out of this position with enough patience. 2.1 Catching the top or bottom: Despite the fact that we are in a HTF downtrend its still wise to look for swing longs as you want to catch the bottom, but only do that on HTF optimal levels and move your SL as soon as possible. On HTFs levels the probability of having a strong reaction is very high so you can remove the risk while being in a HTF downtrend and have to opportunity to catch the bottom. Same goes for HTF uptrends. If you want to swing short the macro top you will probably need some shots, but with risk- and position-management it shouldn’t be problem to be wrong. For HTF spot plays in the current situation i like to open a second perp position in the area as well if possible. I play these perp positions as scalp so i don’t miss out the opportunity to make some money and can recover a potential spot stop. 2.2 HTF liquidity charts: To define if its time to look for a long or short and how to treat them its wise to have a look at following charts: 1. $BTC 2. $TOTAL 3. $TOTAL 2 4. $TOTAL 3 5. $OTHERS 6. $USDT.D 7. $BVOL 8. $BVOL 24H 9. $DXY 10. $SPX 11. $NASDAQ 12. $M1SL As said the whole market is a liquidity game and the money always flows from one asset into another. The analysis of these charts is a whole other topic for itself and i will cover it in the future in a separate chapter. 3. Stop loss management: Before you enter a position you should aways have a clear and defined invalidation for your thesis. If you are playing this game for a little longer already you probably got stoped a lot of times. If your game is already better you might be stoped at breakeven quiet often and if you collected some experience you know how to get stoped in profit. It's completely normal to take stops in every stage of your career. It's an essential part of this game. One key element with SL management is to not be to anxious and move it too soon, cause more often than not there will be a second touch of the level, especially on HTFs as big orders need time to be filled. Another key element is to move it not too late and trail positions properly. If you scalp you should rather move it sooner than later. With a breakeven stop nothing is lost, even if the price goes in your direction after you got stoped. Spot positions should also be trailed before you pay back too much. The most important thing with the stop is probably where to put it. Remember one simple rule: You should put your stop where your idea would be clearly invalidated and behind some technical barrier. While trailing you also look for areas which the price will likely hit again and then you put your stop behind these liquidity areas. Its as you would look for another entry. 4. Taking profits: Without taking profits you will never be profitable. Thats what a lot of people are finding out in the moment. Many were in nice profits and paid all back due to greed and lack of understanding. I can tell you from experience it's very painful to end up in a position which was once very profitable and went into a deep loss. Having realistic targets on every timeframe is not that easy as it sounds. Best way to structure a trade in my opinion is to have a least 3 TPs while the last can also be a trailing stop. It gets difficult once price reaches price discovery but you can still use Fibs and realistic market cap targets. If a position goes not as far as you wanted it to go, you should take profits as soon as the structure shifts against you. In crypto people tend to forget how much money they are dealing with, because once the mania hits most people get an explicit target of money that they want to have and if its not reached the market cannot be done yet. But believe me it can be and it will be done at some point. Learn to read the signs of the market and take what it gives you rather what you expect to get from it.

Deep Dive into BVOL: As you can see in the 2018 to 2021 bullrun, all major HTF pivot points happend at the "resistance" in BVOL. It's like a switch. Everytime BVOL reaches for the red box we see at least a MTF change in trend (notice that MTF means in that context several weeks to months, while HTF means months to years). Its not very precise to the exact day, but its still a major tool to decide if its time to look for longs or shorts on the MTFs/HTFs. Even Luna seems like it was programmed to some degree. In our current cycle i go deeper into each points as i remember better how the sentiment, news and exact PA was. The grey box marks out what i would call a complete change of program, because since then the structure of BVOL and BTC changed completely. As you can see the structure of quite a lot. A lot less volatilty and BTC went from a more like ZickZick fractal to an exhausting range, drop, pump, range pattern. There is no clear instruction on this chart such as: "Wen green box you buying big!", but i found definitely something remarkable. Most important seems the upper red and the lower green box, which i gave more density in colour. After we saw the HTF change in program, every touch at the upper red box was basically a top, with very intense bullish sentiment. Every touch with the green box was a nice buy area with a horrible looking PA, combined with even more horrible news. Recession, War, Liquidity fears and all these things only came up once we reached for that green boxes. These sentiments intensified once we got closer to the lower green box. This chart seems to uncover the algos behind the BTC PA and the news sentiment, maybe even for the global markets as a whole. In the middle of the chart we were basically in no man's land. News were either neutral or countered each other from time to time. Looking at this i have to admit that if i had just bought BTC in the green and sell in the red would have made me more money than with shitcoin chasing. This chart has to be combined with other liquidity related or general charts and an understanding for TA. It should not act as trigger alone, but it's still a powerful confluence. nitter.gq/Moneytaur_/status/1794…