Rock band Seether named their 2007 album: "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces". I feel a bit like that's what I'm doing now.

When a market has been as bearish / flat / up-and-down as the crypto market this year, and then it just takes a few plunges lower for the sheer joy of it, it becomes rather difficult for traders to maintain a positive mindset.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Beauty_in_Negative_Spaces

Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces

"Positive mindset", why's that important? It doesn't affect my portfolio.

Only it does. Because unless your are a robot, human emotion factors into trading. Even if you only trade using bots; your choice of bot, configuration of the bot, what coins you trade with it and when you use it- they're all still governed by you. And by your emotions.

I tend to make poorer decisions when I feel bad. I know I'm not the only one who does that. If I feel negative I'm more inclined to throw in the towel on a poorly performing coin too early. I'll sell a coin that I should have held. That's probably the very point when I should be buying that coin. Or I may rush a trade and not be willing to wait for a good price. Or I may be too fearful to take risks. Those are just examples, there can be many such cases.

Cartoonist and Mensan Scott Adams (of "Dilbert" fame) wrote in his great book titled: "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life.", that he focuses on ensuring he reads primarily good news every day. He tries to avoid bad news. His rationale is that negative news drains his energy and positive "feel good" news charges it up. No, not psychic, hippie, aura, crystal energy; rather the vitality that he feels, his get-up-and-go, the pep in his step.

There is a lot to be said for his approach. As human beings we have finite reserves of things like energy and willpower. It's true, go research it if you don't believe me. Want to try to take up jogging, cutting out sugar, quitting smoking and not watching TV for a month all at the same time? Forget it, it can't be done. It will exceed your willpower threshold. So it becomes important for us to maximise our potential within the realm of what is physically possible for us to do.

If you continually fall for FUD and follow bad news crypto stories, it is going to get to you. I'm lucky, I have an inherent belief in the upwards buoyancy of the crypto market (as I have explained in many posts before). That keeps my negative feelings in check for the most part. But even I sometimes struggle. And knowing that in a bear market most people are more negative than I am, I can't imagine how bad they may feel and how their ability to trade objectively might be negatively affected because of that!

What to do

Obviously you must do what works for you. Without being delusional and sticking your head in the sand (that part is important), try to avoid bad news, both by clueless amateurs as well as by these alleged crypto "experts", who are anything but experts (I think I'll blog about them soon). Look for the positive. My favourite trick is to zoom the charts out when things look bad. The further out you zoom, the more positive it looks. And it's all true, it's not an illusion. I find it to be highly effective!

If in doubt:

From https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/

Just zoom out!

From https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/

Or find an indicator that looks good and makes you happy: I was feeling a little depressed with the market today, so off I went to find beauty in negative spaces. I played around with a few indicators, some I trust more than others. I like Bollinger Bands a lot, if you know how to use them they can be great tools. For those not too familiar with them: one of the things that Bollinger Bands tell you is that when a candle breaks out of a band, that chart will soon correct and pull back to within the band. I found a great example of that on the 1 Day BTC chart. It means that the BTC price dipped too far and will increase back to within the band. So I'm happy now! 😉

Made by @bitbrain with TradingView

Off you go now. And remember to "Find Beauty in Negative Spaces".

Thanks for the reminder Seether.
P.S. You guys ROCK!

Yours in crypto,
Bit Brain

DISCLAIMER:
I am neither a financial advisor nor a professional trader/investor. This is not financial advice, investment advice or trading advice. Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are my opinion and nothing more. Crypto is highly volatile and you can easily lose everything in crypto. You invest at your own risk! Information I post may be erroneous or construed as being misleading. I will not be held responsible for anything which is incorrect, missing, out-of-date or fabricated. Any information you use is done so at your own risk. Always Do Your Own Research (DYOR) and realise that you and you alone are responsible for your crypto portfolio and whatever happens to it.