Should I trade manually?
When trading manually, you have full control over your trades.
This means that you can:
- Manage your risk according to your personal preferences, personal circumstances, market factors and other inputs
- Trade how you want to trade – day trade, swing trade or long-term investments
- Adapt your trades quickly when required (e.g. when new information is delivered), to take advantage of a situation, or to limit your existing trades from risk
- Develop a good understanding of the market (as opposed to trading with bots or using an investment fund, where you can place your money and then not have an active or ‘involved’ look at the markets)
The disadvantages are:
- You can’t trade 24/7 as you need sleep, holidays, family commitments – and you probably have a day-job. For this, automated methods of trading are required, but may be deemed more risky
- There is a steep learning curve
- You are prone to human mistakes
- You are vulnerable to technical challenges (e.g. power cuts, WiFi dropouts, laptop issues, etc.
In short, if you have the time and are the type of person who would enjoy managing their own portfolio, then manual trading is a great way to get to understand the world of cryptocurrencies, develop and run your own strategies. If you do not have the time to trade and learn about the trading process (it is a long and steep learning curve), then manual trading might not be for you and a more hands-off approach via trading with bots or investment funds might be a better choice.
It is of course possible to trade manually whilst also having bots trade on your behalf. If managed well, multiple sources of income help diversify risk – and a passive income is always good. Some people start with bots and then go on to trade manually as well. Others start by trading manually and then add bots (which is good, because some bots allow for high-levels of customisation, so you need a good understanding of how to trade in order to set them up).
How to trade manually
Tools
When trading, you need three key tools:
| Tool | We Recommend |
|---|---|
| An exchange to convert fiat into cryptocurrency | Coinbase (get $10 USD Bitcoin for free when you buy or sell at least $100 of cryptocurrency). |
| An Exchange to trade in | Binance |
| Charting tools to plan and review trades | TradingView |
Learn and get familiar with each tool. They are there to make your life easier, allowing you to focus on your strategies, whilst reducing your required effort. Automate as much as you can - this will save you time, ensure consistency and minimise risk caused by human error.
Support
If you are new to trading, It is highly advised that you do not jump straight into it. You should learn about risk analysis, technical trading, patterns, what can affect the value of cryptocurrencies, which cryptocurrency movements might affect other cryptocurrencies, how to trade long and short, what liquidity is, what liquidation is, etc.
We recommend Bulls On CryptoStreet (BOCS). The BOCS parent company (Bulls on Wall Street) have been trading on the stock market for years. Before branching out into cryptocurrency, many of their staff (and customers) now trade both stocks and cryptocurrency as the skills required for both are very similar.
BOCS provide online self-learning literature and recorded video courses. They also provide regular market analysis, live market commentary, a 24/7 live trading chatroom, real-time trade alerts and swing trade alerts. Plus, you can trade on mobile, laptop or desktop devices.
Education
Reading this website is a great first step, so give yourself a bit pat on the back for getting this far :-)
visit our learning page for a concise set of information on cryptocurrency, as well as links to podcasts, videos and other online material.