…Additional Comments

I’ve always believed in diversification and playing all sides of the fence in hedging one's bets – even if it means participating in legacy markets, or markets like Gold & Silver, which are often suppressed by the powers that be. I have multiple decades of historical data from which to test my long-term trading strategies for these three legacy markets, and the results have been outstanding over the decades.

Adding BITCOIN to this mix, though a welcome adjunct to the very concept behind this simple service, is a bit of an experiment in that there is not much in the way of historical data available to test and quantify the efficacy of instituting an automated long-term trading strategy over the "Long-Haul".

Be that as it may, I am of the opinion that adding BITCOIN to the mix will provide yet another layer of diversification and insurance against a potentially failing financial system. The strategy currently in place for capturing long-term trends in BITCOIN seems to be performing well on balance; however, the strategy will likely need some adjustments as time goes on. Whether or not I shall include BTC - email - Action-Alerts shall be contingent upon the demand from those STEEMIAN'S who request it via their collective participation and commitment to "The Monitor".

…Last 5 Long-Term BTC Trades

Given that historical BTC data from Bitstamp goes only as far back as August of 2011, 7-years of data are not that reliable, but we have to start somewhere. Mind you, the above illustrates only the last 5 trend changes and does not represent the entire 7-year data series. It will take a lot of work to compile a spreadsheet performance history for the entire run – perhaps one day...

Despite the fact that the latest example of a long position suggested on Monday 3-5-18 will no doubt whipsaw into a reversing short position this Monday, with a loss of 20% or more, the 196% percent gain on the long position suggested on 10-2-17 more than makes up for it. That’s how trend-following systems work over the long-haul. One’s winning trades far outstrip the losing trades by a substantial margin.

The particular strategy that I’m using via the Trading-View platform does not account for taking “short positions,” and simply gets flat or goes to cash when there is a “sell signal.” Be that as it may, of all the 24 “long-only” trades taken, nearly 71% of them were profitable. I’d have to do my own calculations if I wished to see how “short-trades” would have changed the stats.

It is important to note that “trend-following” strategies NEVER pick bottoms and tops; instead, they identify and partake in long-term trends. This means that such a strategy will NOT get you out at the top and it will NOT get you in at the bottom; it will, however, alert you when the long-term trends have turned from bullish to bearish and then in contrast, when they turn from bearish back to bullish again.

…Short-Term and Long-Term Analitical Bias

I include the tables below with each of my market-related updates. I’ve done so because a friend of mine, @famunger, an ardent follower of technical analysts here on Steemit, uses a similar format in his daily recap of what the collective analyst-community within STEEMIT is currently thinking. He has recently mentioned that he was preparing to add me to his list of analysts that he follows. Needless to say, I was delighted at the prospect, and tried to gear my updates to make it easier for him to see exactly where I stand.

The two tables below are very straightforward. The first is a “short-term” table listing my current short-term bias, my next downside price target amid that bias, the pivot low thus far in place from which I am working under, the nearest level of support, along with two levels of resistance.

The second table is "long-term" in nature - once again spelling out my “bias” or “sentiment” posture over the longer-term, and what my current price targets are for the current year within such a perspective.

Please note that the levels in the “short-term” table below do not correspond with those discussed in the video because in the time it has taken to finish and upload the video, the market rallied sharply to a level of 9,750.

To provide some appropriate musical context to my take on “pro-active” long-term investing strategies vs. the more popular and quite sheepishly passive “HODL” or “buy and hold” no matter what happens, I proudly share with you a week #75 entry to the Open-Mic contest by one rather talented musician who goes by the name of @jumpmaster. I don’t know if his handle is referring to the “jump you motherfu%*er’s” meme that was tossed about during the financial collapse of 2008, but if it is, more power to him! Just save the jumpin’ for the legacy Wall Street “Whales,” okay, my brother! :-) Stay on the ledge, bro – stay on the ledge!