Trading Crytpo-Currency for Beginners: My experience

Hello fellow Steemians !

First of all I am no trading expert nor do I work in the financial sector. I have a Bachelor degree in Business & Management and a desire to learn more, especially in this crazy world of Crypto.

I got into Crypto early 2016 when Ethereum started to make some noise, I had read an article about this new blockchain technology that could revolutionize countless things and on top of that it's value was skyrocketing (Pre DAO Hack). So I started doing more reading and browsing on social media to see what people's take on it was and eventually invested some money after finding an appropriate exchange ( I used terribly expensive ones to begin with not knowing any better). 

As time went by I was learning everyday the ins and outs of the crypto-sphere, I highly recommend the following websites for news and info:

• cointelegraph.com
• themerkle.com
• cryptocompare.com 

Also some very insightful Youtubers:

• Crypt0
• David Seaman 
• Mr YukonC
• Dashpay Magazine

Crypto-compare is particularly good in my opinion, their site has a big online community, lots of information, live price charts, info about lots of coins (saves you the trouble of googling everything!) and you can even create and follow your own online portfolio.

Eventually, I started getting pretty "confident" and knew a lot of coins out there, what they did and how they had been performing in recent past as well as future projects. So I decided to start trading, note that I didn't say day trading !

I started with Bittrex which I find in my opinion is a great exchange and one of the biggest out there but more to the point it is very easy to use and "beginner friendly". It's chart user interface allows you to interact with the charts and it also gives you a bunch of indicators you can use to give you a more informed decision on what to invest.

After getting comfortable with Bittrex I adventured onto Poloniex, where I started Day Trading. Live price updates unlike Bittrex (Bittrex can be a bit behind sometimes). 

The crypto-market has the same laws of supply & demand of any other market but obviously we all know how volatile (Mt Gox, DAO, Bitfinex) it can be and to never invest more than you can afford to lose. But this is what I would recommend to anyone who is looking to get into trading/day trading:

1. Research your coin: Coins come and go but the ones with fundamental value survive, think of the new tech behind Ethereum for instance. The Ardor project backed by NXT ...etc
2. Don't be impulsive be patient: It can be difficult to not board the hype train when you see a coin going up by 20%. But make an informed decision, I see 20% being a huge risk to jump on board, the train has already left the station and the risk simply outweighs the reward. Everyone will makes this mistake ! I can tell you I have
3. You can't win every trade/day: At the beginning it's ok and normal to make a bit of loss, when I make a loss it makes me learn my lesson. Ask yourself why it happened ? Did you jump on the hype train ? Not pay attention to the indicators ?
4. Learn some trading basics: there are loads of things on youtube that can help you with your trading strategy and most importantly learn the indicators, here are some important ones that I would start off by : RSI, MACD, Moving Average, Bollinger Bands
5. Sometimes just call it a day ! The best traders have bad days, when you're on a bad run don't "stop until I've recovered my losses" emotions run high and poor decisions follow.
6. Have Fun ! I know real money is involved but you've got to be calm and to enjoy what you're doing in order to be successful... or at least in my opinion  

As for myself now, as I said I am no expert, but I'm starting to make some decent returns: These are coins I would recommend you take a look at. Don't take my work for it though research them yourself and build your own opinion:

• Ethereum
• NXT
• EvergreenCoin
• Digibyte
• DASH
• Factom
• Ripple 
• Lisk

Peace out Steemians & good luck !