Per Technical Analysis, Bitcoin Can Always Go Either Way
If I’m clear and word this post correctly, then it’s going to be a very unpopular one. Certainly most people on TV won’t like, TV itself won’t like it, the crypto YouTubers and their followers won’t like it, and the whales and market manipulators DEFINITELY won’t like it. So if I don’t get at least 20 thumbs down I’m going to be disappointed :)
There'r a reality of trading that I think most retail traders either don’t understand or purposely ignore…
...because after all—trading is fun.
And so is technical analysis.
It’s fun to investigate, find patterns, base trades on those patterns, and then point out how your winning trade happened because you saw such patterns. And I should acknowledge some hypocrisy here because I’m saying this as someone who’s published TV posts pointing out patterns I see as bullish or bearish, although I think (hope) that I almost always preface my analyses with, “Anything could happen.”
And I really do mean that.
AT ANY POINT, BITCOIN CAN GO UP, DOWN, OR SIDEWAYS, AND IN RETROSPECT THERE WILL ALWAYS—ALWAYS—BE SEEMINGLY LOGICAL TECHNICAL ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT THAT PRICE ACTION.
The harsh reality is that we, the retail traders, are merely pawns in a much bigger game controlled by the whales, market manipulators, and exchanges. They have access to information that we don’t have and they have a control over the price that we don’t have. Price moves according to what is most profitable for them—period; not according to moving averages, patterns, wedges, triangles, or even long-term trend lines. Technical analysis is just our way to make sense of what is, essentially, for US, total randomness. It’s not random for the whales and market manipulators, of course, because for them, price is moving according to what is making them the most money. But it’s random for us, although we use technical analysis as a way to explain or provide logic to what happened.
Descending triangles can turn into falling wedges, which can turn back into larger descending triangles. Ascending triangles can break up and then break right back down long before hitting their target. Bull trends can quickly turn into bear trends and then quickly reverse back to bullish.
Take the current situation. If we go up from here, the bulls will be able to point to support on any number of major, higher-time-frame moving averages as the “obvious” reason that we started back up. If we go down from here, the bears can point to losing the 21 EMA on the weekly or the large descending triangle that formed in the last two months as the “obvious” reason.
Take, even, the two long trend lines – top and bottom – that stretch all the way back to the beginning of BTC’s price action (in 2010) and that everyone is looking at as guidance for the future of Bitcoin. If we go down to anywhere under 5K from here, we’d be breaking the lower trend line most people have drawn. If we go to 2K then we’d be breaking pretty much EVERY lower trend line. But – inevitably – we will all find a new way to make sense of what happened by painting a new trend line or overall structure or pattern that suddenly looks “obvious” and makes everyone go – “Duh. This is what happening all along! Why didn’t we see this coming!?”
We could also go to 5K, come back up to 14K, then go back down to 8K, and there will still be SOME pattern we can paint on that price action as a logical, “technical analysis”-backed explanation for it.
You might say, “Well, don’t the whales and market makers program their bots according to moving averages?” Nope. We APPLY moving averages to the price action created by their bots, which simply do what will make the whales the most money. And there’s ALWAYS some kind of moving average there to explain the price action and make it look like it was influencing the price action in some way.
Like I said, I know this isn’t going to be a popular sentiment. NOBODY wants to believe that this game we’re playing is completely rigged; that all the crypto YouTubers do with their (quite irresponsible, IMO) click-hunting thumbnails is play right into the whales’ playbooks by fueling the retail trading fear and greed that greases the wheels of BTC’s price movements, that all technical analysis is just a psychological game we play with ourselves to perpetuate the illusion that Bitcoin's price movements aren't random.
But… well…
This isn’t to say that we should stop trading. Or that trading still can’t be fun or profitable. Or even that we should stop doing technical analysis.
I believe the real purpose of technical analysis is to make us confident in our trading decisions, and that’s an important aspect of successful trading because it makes you fully commit to your trade. That’s why I do technical analysis and why I sometimes publish those analyses.
But, as uncomfortable as it is, we need to recognize what this REALLY is—what’s REALLY happening here.
Or - perhaps we don't need to recognize it. Perhaps it's better if we don't?
Hopefully this will spark some discussion (and dislikes).
There'r a reality of trading that I think most retail traders either don’t understand or purposely ignore…
...because after all—trading is fun.
And so is technical analysis.
It’s fun to investigate, find patterns, base trades on those patterns, and then point out how your winning trade happened because you saw such patterns. And I should acknowledge some hypocrisy here because I’m saying this as someone who’s published TV posts pointing out patterns I see as bullish or bearish, although I think (hope) that I almost always preface my analyses with, “Anything could happen.”
And I really do mean that.
AT ANY POINT, BITCOIN CAN GO UP, DOWN, OR SIDEWAYS, AND IN RETROSPECT THERE WILL ALWAYS—ALWAYS—BE SEEMINGLY LOGICAL TECHNICAL ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT THAT PRICE ACTION.
The harsh reality is that we, the retail traders, are merely pawns in a much bigger game controlled by the whales, market manipulators, and exchanges. They have access to information that we don’t have and they have a control over the price that we don’t have. Price moves according to what is most profitable for them—period; not according to moving averages, patterns, wedges, triangles, or even long-term trend lines. Technical analysis is just our way to make sense of what is, essentially, for US, total randomness. It’s not random for the whales and market manipulators, of course, because for them, price is moving according to what is making them the most money. But it’s random for us, although we use technical analysis as a way to explain or provide logic to what happened.
Descending triangles can turn into falling wedges, which can turn back into larger descending triangles. Ascending triangles can break up and then break right back down long before hitting their target. Bull trends can quickly turn into bear trends and then quickly reverse back to bullish.
Take the current situation. If we go up from here, the bulls will be able to point to support on any number of major, higher-time-frame moving averages as the “obvious” reason that we started back up. If we go down from here, the bears can point to losing the 21 EMA on the weekly or the large descending triangle that formed in the last two months as the “obvious” reason.
Take, even, the two long trend lines – top and bottom – that stretch all the way back to the beginning of BTC’s price action (in 2010) and that everyone is looking at as guidance for the future of Bitcoin. If we go down to anywhere under 5K from here, we’d be breaking the lower trend line most people have drawn. If we go to 2K then we’d be breaking pretty much EVERY lower trend line. But – inevitably – we will all find a new way to make sense of what happened by painting a new trend line or overall structure or pattern that suddenly looks “obvious” and makes everyone go – “Duh. This is what happening all along! Why didn’t we see this coming!?”
We could also go to 5K, come back up to 14K, then go back down to 8K, and there will still be SOME pattern we can paint on that price action as a logical, “technical analysis”-backed explanation for it.
You might say, “Well, don’t the whales and market makers program their bots according to moving averages?” Nope. We APPLY moving averages to the price action created by their bots, which simply do what will make the whales the most money. And there’s ALWAYS some kind of moving average there to explain the price action and make it look like it was influencing the price action in some way.
Like I said, I know this isn’t going to be a popular sentiment. NOBODY wants to believe that this game we’re playing is completely rigged; that all the crypto YouTubers do with their (quite irresponsible, IMO) click-hunting thumbnails is play right into the whales’ playbooks by fueling the retail trading fear and greed that greases the wheels of BTC’s price movements, that all technical analysis is just a psychological game we play with ourselves to perpetuate the illusion that Bitcoin's price movements aren't random.
But… well…
This isn’t to say that we should stop trading. Or that trading still can’t be fun or profitable. Or even that we should stop doing technical analysis.
I believe the real purpose of technical analysis is to make us confident in our trading decisions, and that’s an important aspect of successful trading because it makes you fully commit to your trade. That’s why I do technical analysis and why I sometimes publish those analyses.
But, as uncomfortable as it is, we need to recognize what this REALLY is—what’s REALLY happening here.
Or - perhaps we don't need to recognize it. Perhaps it's better if we don't?
Hopefully this will spark some discussion (and dislikes).
