Give me your shirt and I will teach you a lesson: Day Trading vs. Investing.
“Intelligence is the ability to learn from your mistakes. Wisdom is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others.” – Anonymous
After many hours spent staring at a screen yesterday I came to the realization that I could have just held my IOTA investment and made more money. Yet, there I was watching the candle-sticks + buy-sell walls and trying to day trade.
This morning I woke up and realized by day trading I really wasn't even investing. Sure my fiat was "in the market" periodically but it seemed more like I was in a day trading competition with people who actually knew what they were doing.
The simple lesson is that there are only two conditions in which you can lose money investing:
(1) You are simply wrong about your prediction that the asset will be worth more in the future
(2) You sell and thereby lose the margin, pay a fee, buy back higher or all three
Enjoy that shirt day traders. I am simply going to buy the dips from here on out.
<...You are simply wrong about your prediction...>
From my limited experience from trading in stock markets I would say this, focusing on prediction is a mistake.
Analyse the chart and define expectations. (for example, at that level, there is strong resistance, price has a good chance to change trend at that level)
Now that you have expectation (not prediction, admit, you can't predict, noone can!) now the key is to watch what will really happen at that level. If you are doing good job at analying charts (training, training and more training!) then you are spotting and defining important inflection points, levels that many other watches.
Now you have a setup. There is a strong resistance, everyone watches it, everyone expects price reversal, but now you watch what will happen and act acordingly. For example, if everyone expects, price should turn "there" but it is not turning, take a notice, this is strong signal.
Bottom line, let markets and price lead you, forget predictions