The European Union has published new regulations applying to retail Forex, CFD, and the few remaining binary options brokerages in its territory. If you have an account with one such brokerage, the regulations will affect you when they come into force during the late spring and summer. This article will outline how the new regulations will impact your bottom line.
Details of the New ESMA Regulations
In March 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the financial regulator and supervisor of the European Union, announced new regulations concerning the provision of contracts for differences (CFDs) and binary options to retail investors. It is unclear exactly when the regulations will come into force, but some time in May or June 2018 looks to be the most likely date, and Forex and CFD brokerages located within the European Union (including the United Kingdom, for the time being) will be forced to comply. The regulations will need to be renewed by ESMA every three months to remain in force over the long term.
The regulation concerning binary options is very simple: they may not be sold. In simple terms, this is the end of binary options as a product sold from within the European Union.
The regulations concerning CFDs are more complex but still relatively straightforward. Firstly, there is some confusion as to what exactly is a CFD, with many traders thinking that spot Forex is not considered a CFD and will therefore be exempt from the new regulations. They are wrong: spot Forex is technically defined as a CFD. In fact, every asset you see available for trading at Forex / CFD brokers will most likely be subject to the new regulations.
The new regulations will implement the following changes for retail client accounts (more on who is a retail client; later).
-
The maximum leverage which can be offered will be 30 to 1. That will apply to major currency pairs such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, etc.
-
Other currency pairs, major equity indices, and gold will be subject to a maximum leverage of 20 to 1.
-
Individual equities cannot be offered with leverage greater than 5 to 1.
-
Cryptocurrencies are subject to a maximum leverage of 2 to 1.
-
Brokers will be required to provide negative balance protection, meaning it will be impossible to lose more money than you deposit.
-
Brokers will be required to close a clients open positions when the account equity reaches 50% of the required minimum margin by all open positions. This ;margin call; provision can be tricky to understand, so will be explained in more detail later.
-
Bonuses or any other form of trading incentives may not be offered.
-
Brokers will be required to display a standardized risk warning which will include the percentage of their clients who lose money over a defined period.
Understanding the ;Margin Call; Regulation
The best way to understand the 50% margin call provision is to use an example. Imagine a client opens an account with a Forex broker, depositing ;100 in total. The client opens a short trade in EUR/USD, by going short one mini-lot (one tenth of a full lot). One full lot of EUR/USD is worth ;10,000, meaning one mini-lot is worth ;1,000. To find out the minimum margin required to support that trade, we divide the size of the trade (;1,000) by 30, which comes to ;33.33. This is the minimum required margin to maintain the trade. Half of that amount is ;16.67. Now assume the trade goes against the client, with the price of EUR/USD rising above the entry price. As soon as the price rises far enough to produce a floating loss of ;83.33 (;100 - ;16.67), the broker must close the trade out, even if the trade has no stop loss or has not yet reached the stop loss. In theory, this means that a client;s account can never reach zero. Examples involving multiple open trades will be more complex, but will operate according to the same principles.
What Will This Mean for Traders?
The regulations will only apply to ;retail clients;, so you might try to apply to be classed as a professional trader. To get a broker to classify you as anything other than a retail client, you will have to show you have financial qualifications, a large amount of liquid assets, plenty of experience trading, and usually that you also trade frequently. Most traders will be unable to qualify, although it is worth noting that one London-based brokerage, IG Group, has stated that their proportion of clients now classified as recently increased from 5% to 15% of their total customers.
The major impact these regulations will have on traders is simple ndash; the maximum trade size they can possibly make at brokers regulated in the European Union will shrink. Many will say that the maximum leverage limits still offer far more than any trader could need, and I agree. I am wary of leverage and I hate to see anyone using leverage greater than 3 to 1 for Forex under any conditions, or any leverage at all for stocks and cryptocurrencies. Commodities can also fluctuate wildly in value. Too many people forget that the biggest danger in leverage is not overly large position sizing, it is that a ldquo;black swan rdquo; event such as the CHF flash crash of 2015 could happen and wipe out your account through huge price slippage. However, there is another factor that is widely forgotten: why assume that a trader rsquo;s account at one Forex broker is all the money they have in the world? For example, a trader might have $10,000 in the bank. If they deposit $1,000 at a broker offering maximum leverage of 300 to 1, they can trade up to $300,000. At a leverage limit of 30 to 1, that trader will have to deposit their entire $10,000 fund to trade at the same size. In a real sense, that trader might now have to take on more risk to operate in the same way, because if the broker goes bust, while beforehand they might lose $1,000 now they could lose $10,000! Even without negative balance protection, that broker would still have to come after them to try to get an extra $9,000 which they theoretically risk. Yet we saw after the CHF crash that brokers don rsquo;t come after every single client whose losses exceeded their deposit, due to legal costs and reputational issues. This shows that although the stated purpose of the regulation is to protect traders from excessive losses, the story is not as simple as you may think.
Beyond having to deposit more margin, and automatic margin calls, the other major change for traders will be that they will enjoy negative balance protection. This is a positive development which hopefully will make brokerages focus more heavily on the risks they are taking with their business model in the market. At the same time, a possible side effect of the new regulation is the potential increase in average deposits, leading to brokerages being more stable and better capitalized with client funds. Two final notes: brokerages will have to report on their websites the percentages of clients who are losing and making money, although the period over which the statistics must refer to is currently not clear. This will help to shed light on the debate over what percentage of retail traders are profitable, although some brokerages have already released what they claim to be accurate statistics showing that clients with larger account sizes tend to perform better as traders. Additionally, bonuses and promotions will be banned. I welcome this, as not only do they trivialize the serious business of trading, they are almost always a trick offering the illusion of free money whilst preventing traders from withdrawing any profits until a large number of trades are made (read the fine print the next time you squo;).
What If Yoursquo;re Not Happy Remaining in the EU?
Traders with accounts at affected brokers who cannot obtain professional status classification and feel they really need higher leverage than the ESMA limits outlined above might look for a solution by opening accounts with brokers outside the European Union. The most obvious destination would be Australia or New Zealand, where it will still be possible to find reasonably well-regulated Forex brokerages offering leverage in the range of 400 to 1. A recent development that is not talked about much is the growing difficulty of transferring funds to and from Forex brokerages in less tightly regulated jurisdictions. You might decide to open an account with a brokerage in Vanuatu, but you may find that a bank within the European Union might just refuse to send your money there for a deposit. This means that going far offshore, depending upon where you live, may not be a feasible option. In any case, the new regule impossible to live with, and overall there is a compelling case that they are a net benefit to any trader, so why migrate?
How to Profit from Cryptocurrencies – Part 1 | Trading Forex
If you are ready to take more concrete steps to profit from cryptocurrencies, it’s time to consider in more detail how you are going to do it. Many people invest in the right assets at the right time, yet still end up losing money because they either don’t plan or, if they do, they don’t stick to it. There are three things you must decide to get started:
- How much should I risk on cryptocurrencies?
- What is my time horizon (i.e. should I invest for the long term or trade in the short term)?
- Which cryptocurrencies should I deal in?
How Much Should I Risk?
Cryptocurrencies are an extremely risky investment. So risky that in fact, you should be prepared for the possibility that the value of ANY cryptocurrency could fall to zero or effectively zero before you would have a chance to liquidate your investment and get out.This does not mean that you should not try to profit from cryptocurrencies. In fact, investments that carry the most risk often carry enormous potential upside in excessive positive returns. All that means is that you should be aware of what you are getting into. You should also be aware that there is little point in anticipating a maximum potential loss of X% - your entire stake could go up in flames. In truth, you must be prepared to lose every penny you invest in cryptocurrencies in a worst-case scenario. So, the question “How Much Should I Risk?” becomes “How Much Can I Afford to Lose?”.
Savvy investors typically dedicate a certain portion of their liquid, investible wealth to risky investments and the remaining portion to safer investments. For example, you could park 85% to 90% of your liquid wealth in an extremely safe investment such as an interest-bearing account at a major insured bank, or ideally U.S. Treasuries, and dedicate the remaining 15% to 10% to more risky investments, and use fractional money management in position sizing. Due to the exceptionally volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, you may want to ensure you don’t put all your “risky” investment fund into cryptocurrencies, just to be on the safe side.
There are two methods you can use to make your operation less risky:
- If you choose to invest, you can invest in more than one cryptocurrency. This diversification should reduce your overall risk.
- If you choose to trade, you might use a broker offering guaranteed stop losses, and trade such small quantities that you are effectively not leveraged or even de-leveraged.
What is My Time Horizon? Should I Invest or Trade?
You need to decide how long you are prepared to wait for potential profits, and how much of your time you are able and willing to devote to your operations. The answers to these questions will decide whether you should be a “trader” or an “investor”. If your timeframe for an in-and-out deal is minutes, hours, or a few days, you are probably better off trading cryptocurrencies through a brokerage, and considering yourself a trader rather than an investor, if you can cope with trading. If you are prepared to stay in the deal for weeks, months, or even years, then you are an investor. There are advantages and disadvantages to being either a trader or investor which you should consider before deciding which path is right for you:In some situations, these differences are a little unclear, so it is useful to look at a couple of real-life examples.
In Case A, Mr. Investor decides that he wants to benefit from a potential long-term rise in price of several cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Monero. He invests equally in all of them, with a total investment of $5,000, while understanding that it is a very risky investment, and that he might lose all or almost all that amount. He opens an account with a cryptocurrency exchange where all these currencies can be bought and sold, deposits $5,000, and then purchases $1,000 worth of each of the currencies at their current market value. He pays a commission of 5% on these purchases to the exchange, which he accepts as the cost of doing business. He plans to cash out his entire investment in 2 years no matter its value, and will cash out the investment in any single currency which rises in value by 1,000% before the 2-year time limit is reached. He checks his portfolio on a weekly basis and tries not to think or it or worry about it, accepting its value will fluctuate strongly.
Mr. Investor does not want to be a trader, for several reasons: he wants to deal in Monero, which is not offered by any major brokerages now. He also has a long-term time frame, and does not want to spend much time managing his investment. A few minutes each week is all he will need to be a long-term investor.
In Case B, Ms. Trader likes to check the market four times each day to decide whether to buy or sell various assets – she is a swing trader. She sees that the larger cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attracting a lot of interest, and moving in strong, volatile trends, and thinks that these are markets she wishes to be involved in. She opens an account with a broker offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and deposits $1,000, a small fraction of her liquid wealth. Using her own analysis as a discretionary filter on top of a complete trading strategy, she buys and sells Bitcoin and Ethereum when she thinks they are more likely to go up or down over the next day or so. She risks only 1% of her account value per trade and uses hard stop losses which are wide enough to accommodate the high volatility of these instruments. She tries to take profit on winning trades when they are in profit by at least 3 times the amount or the risk of the trade, and sometimes leaves part of winning trades open in the hope of riding very strong trends for even greater profits. She can profit from correctly anticipating decreases in value, as well as price increases, as brokerages allow short selling, as well as long trades. She pays a commission to the broker in the form of spread differentials when she enters and exits each trade. She also pays a fee on each open trade every night, which encourages her to close most trades within only a few days from their open. She hopes to double her initial deposit within 6 months to 1 year, but she accepts that using non-guaranteed stop losses means that in the event of a price crash, she could lose most of her account in a matter of seconds. For this reason, she is very interested in the possibility of buying options on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should become available later in 2017 or 2018.
Ms. Trader does not want to be an investor, as she feels that as a skilled trader who is already spending time monitoring markets every few hours during each day, she may as well add the major cryptocurrencies to her list of assets to watch. She also believes she can make more profit in a shorter amount of time than she could by making a long-term investment.
These cases should hopefully give you an idea of whether investing or trading is likely to suit you better. Which type of strategy and lifestyle do you relate to better? It is almost certainly true that if you have not traded already, it is better to become a long-term investor. If you are not already a competent trader in other assets, you are extremely unlikely to make more money trading the major cryptocurrencies than you would by investing in them. As investing is likely to be the way to go for most, the next section will explain the “how” of investing in cryptocurrencies, and the section after that will do the same concerning trading cryptocurrencies.
Source
How to Profit from Cryptocurrencies – Part 1 | Trading Forex
If you are ready to take more concrete steps to profit from cryptocurrencies, it’s time to consider in more detail how you are going to do it. Many people invest in the right assets at the right time, yet still end up losing money because they either don’t plan or, if they do, they don’t stick to it. There are three things you must decide to get started:
- How much should I risk on cryptocurrencies?
- What is my time horizon (i.e. should I invest for the long term or trade in the short term)?
- Which cryptocurrencies should I deal in?
How Much Should I Risk?
Cryptocurrencies are an extremely risky investment. So risky that in fact, you should be prepared for the possibility that the value of ANY cryptocurrency could fall to zero or effectively zero before you would have a chance to liquidate your investment and get out.This does not mean that you should not try to profit from cryptocurrencies. In fact, investments that carry the most risk often carry enormous potential upside in excessive positive returns. All that means is that you should be aware of what you are getting into. You should also be aware that there is little point in anticipating a maximum potential loss of X% - your entire stake could go up in flames. In truth, you must be prepared to lose every penny you invest in cryptocurrencies in a worst-case scenario. So, the question “How Much Should I Risk?” becomes “How Much Can I Afford to Lose?”.
Savvy investors typically dedicate a certain portion of their liquid, investible wealth to risky investments and the remaining portion to safer investments. For example, you could park 85% to 90% of your liquid wealth in an extremely safe investment such as an interest-bearing account at a major insured bank, or ideally U.S. Treasuries, and dedicate the remaining 15% to 10% to more risky investments, and use fractional money management in position sizing. Due to the exceptionally volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, you may want to ensure you don’t put all your “risky” investment fund into cryptocurrencies, just to be on the safe side.
There are two methods you can use to make your operation less risky:
- If you choose to invest, you can invest in more than one cryptocurrency. This diversification should reduce your overall risk.
- If you choose to trade, you might use a broker offering guaranteed stop losses, and trade such small quantities that you are effectively not leveraged or even de-leveraged.
What is My Time Horizon? Should I Invest or Trade?
You need to decide how long you are prepared to wait for potential profits, and how much of your time you are able and willing to devote to your operations. The answers to these questions will decide whether you should be a “trader” or an “investor”. If your timeframe for an in-and-out deal is minutes, hours, or a few days, you are probably better off trading cryptocurrencies through a brokerage, and considering yourself a trader rather than an investor, if you can cope with trading. If you are prepared to stay in the deal for weeks, months, or even years, then you are an investor. There are advantages and disadvantages to being either a trader or investor which you should consider before deciding which path is right for you:In some situations, these differences are a little unclear, so it is useful to look at a couple of real-life examples.
In Case A, Mr. Investor decides that he wants to benefit from a potential long-term rise in price of several cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Monero. He invests equally in all of them, with a total investment of $5,000, while understanding that it is a very risky investment, and that he might lose all or almost all that amount. He opens an account with a cryptocurrency exchange where all these currencies can be bought and sold, deposits $5,000, and then purchases $1,000 worth of each of the currencies at their current market value. He pays a commission of 5% on these purchases to the exchange, which he accepts as the cost of doing business. He plans to cash out his entire investment in 2 years no matter its value, and will cash out the investment in any single currency which rises in value by 1,000% before the 2-year time limit is reached. He checks his portfolio on a weekly basis and tries not to think or it or worry about it, accepting its value will fluctuate strongly.
Mr. Investor does not want to be a trader, for several reasons: he wants to deal in Monero, which is not offered by any major brokerages now. He also has a long-term time frame, and does not want to spend much time managing his investment. A few minutes each week is all he will need to be a long-term investor.
In Case B, Ms. Trader likes to check the market four times each day to decide whether to buy or sell various assets – she is a swing trader. She sees that the larger cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attracting a lot of interest, and moving in strong, volatile trends, and thinks that these are markets she wishes to be involved in. She opens an account with a broker offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and deposits $1,000, a small fraction of her liquid wealth. Using her own analysis as a discretionary filter on top of a complete trading strategy, she buys and sells Bitcoin and Ethereum when she thinks they are more likely to go up or down over the next day or so. She risks only 1% of her account value per trade and uses hard stop losses which are wide enough to accommodate the high volatility of these instruments. She tries to take profit on winning trades when they are in profit by at least 3 times the amount or the risk of the trade, and sometimes leaves part of winning trades open in the hope of riding very strong trends for even greater profits. She can profit from correctly anticipating decreases in value, as well as price increases, as brokerages allow short selling, as well as long trades. She pays a commission to the broker in the form of spread differentials when she enters and exits each trade. She also pays a fee on each open trade every night, which encourages her to close most trades within only a few days from their open. She hopes to double her initial deposit within 6 months to 1 year, but she accepts that using non-guaranteed stop losses means that in the event of a price crash, she could lose most of her account in a matter of seconds. For this reason, she is very interested in the possibility of buying options on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should become available later in 2017 or 2018.
Ms. Trader does not want to be an investor, as she feels that as a skilled trader who is already spending time monitoring markets every few hours during each day, she may as well add the major cryptocurrencies to her list of assets to watch. She also believes she can make more profit in a shorter amount of time than she could by making a long-term investment.
These cases should hopefully give you an idea of whether investing or trading is likely to suit you better. Which type of strategy and lifestyle do you relate to better? It is almost certainly true that if you have not traded already, it is better to become a long-term investor. If you are not already a competent trader in other assets, you are extremely unlikely to make more money trading the major cryptocurrencies than you would by investing in them. As investing is likely to be the way to go for most, the next section will explain the “how” of investing in cryptocurrencies, and the section after that will do the same concerning trading cryptocurrencies.
Source
How to Profit from Cryptocurrencies – Part 1 | Trading Forex
If you are ready to take more concrete steps to profit from cryptocurrencies, it’s time to consider in more detail how you are going to do it. Many people invest in the right assets at the right time, yet still end up losing money because they either don’t plan or, if they do, they don’t stick to it. There are three things you must decide to get started:
- How much should I risk on cryptocurrencies?
- What is my time horizon (i.e. should I invest for the long term or trade in the short term)?
- Which cryptocurrencies should I deal in?
How Much Should I Risk?
Cryptocurrencies are an extremely risky investment. So risky that in fact, you should be prepared for the possibility that the value of ANY cryptocurrency could fall to zero or effectively zero before you would have a chance to liquidate your investment and get out.This does not mean that you should not try to profit from cryptocurrencies. In fact, investments that carry the most risk often carry enormous potential upside in excessive positive returns. All that means is that you should be aware of what you are getting into. You should also be aware that there is little point in anticipating a maximum potential loss of X% - your entire stake could go up in flames. In truth, you must be prepared to lose every penny you invest in cryptocurrencies in a worst-case scenario. So, the question “How Much Should I Risk?” becomes “How Much Can I Afford to Lose?”.
Savvy investors typically dedicate a certain portion of their liquid, investible wealth to risky investments and the remaining portion to safer investments. For example, you could park 85% to 90% of your liquid wealth in an extremely safe investment such as an interest-bearing account at a major insured bank, or ideally U.S. Treasuries, and dedicate the remaining 15% to 10% to more risky investments, and use fractional money management in position sizing. Due to the exceptionally volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, you may want to ensure you don’t put all your “risky” investment fund into cryptocurrencies, just to be on the safe side.
There are two methods you can use to make your operation less risky:
- If you choose to invest, you can invest in more than one cryptocurrency. This diversification should reduce your overall risk.
- If you choose to trade, you might use a broker offering guaranteed stop losses, and trade such small quantities that you are effectively not leveraged or even de-leveraged.
What is My Time Horizon? Should I Invest or Trade?
You need to decide how long you are prepared to wait for potential profits, and how much of your time you are able and willing to devote to your operations. The answers to these questions will decide whether you should be a “trader” or an “investor”. If your timeframe for an in-and-out deal is minutes, hours, or a few days, you are probably better off trading cryptocurrencies through a brokerage, and considering yourself a trader rather than an investor, if you can cope with trading. If you are prepared to stay in the deal for weeks, months, or even years, then you are an investor. There are advantages and disadvantages to being either a trader or investor which you should consider before deciding which path is right for you:In some situations, these differences are a little unclear, so it is useful to look at a couple of real-life examples.
In Case A, Mr. Investor decides that he wants to benefit from a potential long-term rise in price of several cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Monero. He invests equally in all of them, with a total investment of $5,000, while understanding that it is a very risky investment, and that he might lose all or almost all that amount. He opens an account with a cryptocurrency exchange where all these currencies can be bought and sold, deposits $5,000, and then purchases $1,000 worth of each of the currencies at their current market value. He pays a commission of 5% on these purchases to the exchange, which he accepts as the cost of doing business. He plans to cash out his entire investment in 2 years no matter its value, and will cash out the investment in any single currency which rises in value by 1,000% before the 2-year time limit is reached. He checks his portfolio on a weekly basis and tries not to think or it or worry about it, accepting its value will fluctuate strongly.
Mr. Investor does not want to be a trader, for several reasons: he wants to deal in Monero, which is not offered by any major brokerages now. He also has a long-term time frame, and does not want to spend much time managing his investment. A few minutes each week is all he will need to be a long-term investor.
In Case B, Ms. Trader likes to check the market four times each day to decide whether to buy or sell various assets – she is a swing trader. She sees that the larger cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attracting a lot of interest, and moving in strong, volatile trends, and thinks that these are markets she wishes to be involved in. She opens an account with a broker offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and deposits $1,000, a small fraction of her liquid wealth. Using her own analysis as a discretionary filter on top of a complete trading strategy, she buys and sells Bitcoin and Ethereum when she thinks they are more likely to go up or down over the next day or so. She risks only 1% of her account value per trade and uses hard stop losses which are wide enough to accommodate the high volatility of these instruments. She tries to take profit on winning trades when they are in profit by at least 3 times the amount or the risk of the trade, and sometimes leaves part of winning trades open in the hope of riding very strong trends for even greater profits. She can profit from correctly anticipating decreases in value, as well as price increases, as brokerages allow short selling, as well as long trades. She pays a commission to the broker in the form of spread differentials when she enters and exits each trade. She also pays a fee on each open trade every night, which encourages her to close most trades within only a few days from their open. She hopes to double her initial deposit within 6 months to 1 year, but she accepts that using non-guaranteed stop losses means that in the event of a price crash, she could lose most of her account in a matter of seconds. For this reason, she is very interested in the possibility of buying options on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should become available later in 2017 or 2018.
Ms. Trader does not want to be an investor, as she feels that as a skilled trader who is already spending time monitoring markets every few hours during each day, she may as well add the major cryptocurrencies to her list of assets to watch. She also believes she can make more profit in a shorter amount of time than she could by making a long-term investment.
These cases should hopefully give you an idea of whether investing or trading is likely to suit you better. Which type of strategy and lifestyle do you relate to better? It is almost certainly true that if you have not traded already, it is better to become a long-term investor. If you are not already a competent trader in other assets, you are extremely unlikely to make more money trading the major cryptocurrencies than you would by investing in them. As investing is likely to be the way to go for most, the next section will explain the “how” of investing in cryptocurrencies, and the section after that will do the same concerning trading cryptocurrencies.
Source
How to Profit from Cryptocurrencies – Part 1 | Trading Forex
If you are ready to take more concrete steps to profit from cryptocurrencies, it’s time to consider in more detail how you are going to do it. Many people invest in the right assets at the right time, yet still end up losing money because they either don’t plan or, if they do, they don’t stick to it. There are three things you must decide to get started:
- How much should I risk on cryptocurrencies?
- What is my time horizon (i.e. should I invest for the long term or trade in the short term)?
- Which cryptocurrencies should I deal in?
How Much Should I Risk?
Cryptocurrencies are an extremely risky investment. So risky that in fact, you should be prepared for the possibility that the value of ANY cryptocurrency could fall to zero or effectively zero before you would have a chance to liquidate your investment and get out.This does not mean that you should not try to profit from cryptocurrencies. In fact, investments that carry the most risk often carry enormous potential upside in excessive positive returns. All that means is that you should be aware of what you are getting into. You should also be aware that there is little point in anticipating a maximum potential loss of X% - your entire stake could go up in flames. In truth, you must be prepared to lose every penny you invest in cryptocurrencies in a worst-case scenario. So, the question “How Much Should I Risk?” becomes “How Much Can I Afford to Lose?”.
Savvy investors typically dedicate a certain portion of their liquid, investible wealth to risky investments and the remaining portion to safer investments. For example, you could park 85% to 90% of your liquid wealth in an extremely safe investment such as an interest-bearing account at a major insured bank, or ideally U.S. Treasuries, and dedicate the remaining 15% to 10% to more risky investments, and use fractional money management in position sizing. Due to the exceptionally volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, you may want to ensure you don’t put all your “risky” investment fund into cryptocurrencies, just to be on the safe side.
There are two methods you can use to make your operation less risky:
- If you choose to invest, you can invest in more than one cryptocurrency. This diversification should reduce your overall risk.
- If you choose to trade, you might use a broker offering guaranteed stop losses, and trade such small quantities that you are effectively not leveraged or even de-leveraged.
What is My Time Horizon? Should I Invest or Trade?
You need to decide how long you are prepared to wait for potential profits, and how much of your time you are able and willing to devote to your operations. The answers to these questions will decide whether you should be a “trader” or an “investor”. If your timeframe for an in-and-out deal is minutes, hours, or a few days, you are probably better off trading cryptocurrencies through a brokerage, and considering yourself a trader rather than an investor, if you can cope with trading. If you are prepared to stay in the deal for weeks, months, or even years, then you are an investor. There are advantages and disadvantages to being either a trader or investor which you should consider before deciding which path is right for you:In some situations, these differences are a little unclear, so it is useful to look at a couple of real-life examples.
In Case A, Mr. Investor decides that he wants to benefit from a potential long-term rise in price of several cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Monero. He invests equally in all of them, with a total investment of $5,000, while understanding that it is a very risky investment, and that he might lose all or almost all that amount. He opens an account with a cryptocurrency exchange where all these currencies can be bought and sold, deposits $5,000, and then purchases $1,000 worth of each of the currencies at their current market value. He pays a commission of 5% on these purchases to the exchange, which he accepts as the cost of doing business. He plans to cash out his entire investment in 2 years no matter its value, and will cash out the investment in any single currency which rises in value by 1,000% before the 2-year time limit is reached. He checks his portfolio on a weekly basis and tries not to think or it or worry about it, accepting its value will fluctuate strongly.
Mr. Investor does not want to be a trader, for several reasons: he wants to deal in Monero, which is not offered by any major brokerages now. He also has a long-term time frame, and does not want to spend much time managing his investment. A few minutes each week is all he will need to be a long-term investor.
In Case B, Ms. Trader likes to check the market four times each day to decide whether to buy or sell various assets – she is a swing trader. She sees that the larger cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attracting a lot of interest, and moving in strong, volatile trends, and thinks that these are markets she wishes to be involved in. She opens an account with a broker offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and deposits $1,000, a small fraction of her liquid wealth. Using her own analysis as a discretionary filter on top of a complete trading strategy, she buys and sells Bitcoin and Ethereum when she thinks they are more likely to go up or down over the next day or so. She risks only 1% of her account value per trade and uses hard stop losses which are wide enough to accommodate the high volatility of these instruments. She tries to take profit on winning trades when they are in profit by at least 3 times the amount or the risk of the trade, and sometimes leaves part of winning trades open in the hope of riding very strong trends for even greater profits. She can profit from correctly anticipating decreases in value, as well as price increases, as brokerages allow short selling, as well as long trades. She pays a commission to the broker in the form of spread differentials when she enters and exits each trade. She also pays a fee on each open trade every night, which encourages her to close most trades within only a few days from their open. She hopes to double her initial deposit within 6 months to 1 year, but she accepts that using non-guaranteed stop losses means that in the event of a price crash, she could lose most of her account in a matter of seconds. For this reason, she is very interested in the possibility of buying options on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should become available later in 2017 or 2018.
Ms. Trader does not want to be an investor, as she feels that as a skilled trader who is already spending time monitoring markets every few hours during each day, she may as well add the major cryptocurrencies to her list of assets to watch. She also believes she can make more profit in a shorter amount of time than she could by making a long-term investment.
These cases should hopefully give you an idea of whether investing or trading is likely to suit you better. Which type of strategy and lifestyle do you relate to better? It is almost certainly true that if you have not traded already, it is better to become a long-term investor. If you are not already a competent trader in other assets, you are extremely unlikely to make more money trading the major cryptocurrencies than you would by investing in them. As investing is likely to be the way to go for most, the next section will explain the “how” of investing in cryptocurrencies, and the section after that will do the same concerning trading cryptocurrencies.
Source
How to Profit from Cryptocurrencies – Part 1 | Trading Forex
If you are ready to take more concrete steps to profit from cryptocurrencies, it’s time to consider in more detail how you are going to do it. Many people invest in the right assets at the right time, yet still end up losing money because they either don’t plan or, if they do, they don’t stick to it. There are three things you must decide to get started:
- How much should I risk on cryptocurrencies?
- What is my time horizon (i.e. should I invest for the long term or trade in the short term)?
- Which cryptocurrencies should I deal in?
How Much Should I Risk?
Cryptocurrencies are an extremely risky investment. So risky that in fact, you should be prepared for the possibility that the value of ANY cryptocurrency could fall to zero or effectively zero before you would have a chance to liquidate your investment and get out.This does not mean that you should not try to profit from cryptocurrencies. In fact, investments that carry the most risk often carry enormous potential upside in excessive positive returns. All that means is that you should be aware of what you are getting into. You should also be aware that there is little point in anticipating a maximum potential loss of X% - your entire stake could go up in flames. In truth, you must be prepared to lose every penny you invest in cryptocurrencies in a worst-case scenario. So, the question “How Much Should I Risk?” becomes “How Much Can I Afford to Lose?”.
Savvy investors typically dedicate a certain portion of their liquid, investible wealth to risky investments and the remaining portion to safer investments. For example, you could park 85% to 90% of your liquid wealth in an extremely safe investment such as an interest-bearing account at a major insured bank, or ideally U.S. Treasuries, and dedicate the remaining 15% to 10% to more risky investments, and use fractional money management in position sizing. Due to the exceptionally volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, you may want to ensure you don’t put all your “risky” investment fund into cryptocurrencies, just to be on the safe side.
There are two methods you can use to make your operation less risky:
- If you choose to invest, you can invest in more than one cryptocurrency. This diversification should reduce your overall risk.
- If you choose to trade, you might use a broker offering guaranteed stop losses, and trade such small quantities that you are effectively not leveraged or even de-leveraged.
What is My Time Horizon? Should I Invest or Trade?
You need to decide how long you are prepared to wait for potential profits, and how much of your time you are able and willing to devote to your operations. The answers to these questions will decide whether you should be a “trader” or an “investor”. If your timeframe for an in-and-out deal is minutes, hours, or a few days, you are probably better off trading cryptocurrencies through a brokerage, and considering yourself a trader rather than an investor, if you can cope with trading. If you are prepared to stay in the deal for weeks, months, or even years, then you are an investor. There are advantages and disadvantages to being either a trader or investor which you should consider before deciding which path is right for you:In some situations, these differences are a little unclear, so it is useful to look at a couple of real-life examples.
In Case A, Mr. Investor decides that he wants to benefit from a potential long-term rise in price of several cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and Monero. He invests equally in all of them, with a total investment of $5,000, while understanding that it is a very risky investment, and that he might lose all or almost all that amount. He opens an account with a cryptocurrency exchange where all these currencies can be bought and sold, deposits $5,000, and then purchases $1,000 worth of each of the currencies at their current market value. He pays a commission of 5% on these purchases to the exchange, which he accepts as the cost of doing business. He plans to cash out his entire investment in 2 years no matter its value, and will cash out the investment in any single currency which rises in value by 1,000% before the 2-year time limit is reached. He checks his portfolio on a weekly basis and tries not to think or it or worry about it, accepting its value will fluctuate strongly.
Mr. Investor does not want to be a trader, for several reasons: he wants to deal in Monero, which is not offered by any major brokerages now. He also has a long-term time frame, and does not want to spend much time managing his investment. A few minutes each week is all he will need to be a long-term investor.
In Case B, Ms. Trader likes to check the market four times each day to decide whether to buy or sell various assets – she is a swing trader. She sees that the larger cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are attracting a lot of interest, and moving in strong, volatile trends, and thinks that these are markets she wishes to be involved in. She opens an account with a broker offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and deposits $1,000, a small fraction of her liquid wealth. Using her own analysis as a discretionary filter on top of a complete trading strategy, she buys and sells Bitcoin and Ethereum when she thinks they are more likely to go up or down over the next day or so. She risks only 1% of her account value per trade and uses hard stop losses which are wide enough to accommodate the high volatility of these instruments. She tries to take profit on winning trades when they are in profit by at least 3 times the amount or the risk of the trade, and sometimes leaves part of winning trades open in the hope of riding very strong trends for even greater profits. She can profit from correctly anticipating decreases in value, as well as price increases, as brokerages allow short selling, as well as long trades. She pays a commission to the broker in the form of spread differentials when she enters and exits each trade. She also pays a fee on each open trade every night, which encourages her to close most trades within only a few days from their open. She hopes to double her initial deposit within 6 months to 1 year, but she accepts that using non-guaranteed stop losses means that in the event of a price crash, she could lose most of her account in a matter of seconds. For this reason, she is very interested in the possibility of buying options on Bitcoin and Ethereum, which should become available later in 2017 or 2018.
Ms. Trader does not want to be an investor, as she feels that as a skilled trader who is already spending time monitoring markets every few hours during each day, she may as well add the major cryptocurrencies to her list of assets to watch. She also believes she can make more profit in a shorter amount of time than she could by making a long-term investment.
These cases should hopefully give you an idea of whether investing or trading is likely to suit you better. Which type of strategy and lifestyle do you relate to better? It is almost certainly true that if you have not traded already, it is better to become a long-term investor. If you are not already a competent trader in other assets, you are extremely unlikely to make more money trading the major cryptocurrencies than you would by investing in them. As investing is likely to be the way to go for most, the next section will explain the “how” of investing in cryptocurrencies, and the section after that will do the same concerning trading cryptocurrencies.
Source
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