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Meet the Perth-based amateur trader who sold the top on Bitcoin
Coinhead
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An amateur Perth cryptocurrency trader who managed to time the Bitcoin pullback perfectly says he fears that people are behaving foolishly amid the market frenzy.
David Pugh, 40, says he took profits on Wednesday when Bitcoin rose above $US64,000 after weeks of trading between $US55,000 and $US60,000, so he escaped the subsequent correction on Sunday.
“It was a long time (trading under $US60,000), so that was a key level of resistance or support. So when it reached an all-time high, you take your profits and then you reassess what’s going on.
“It’s the old, ‘buy low, sell high’ — it’s not rocket science. But I think what people are doing now is, they’re holding on, and they don’t want to sell at any point. So when it goes from $US65,000 to $US50,000 … or they’re leverage trading and think it’s just going to go up to $100,000 without any retraces…
“I think there’s a lot of foolish people in the market at the moment, not taking the profits when the market is giving them profits.”
Stockhead reached out to Pugh after he left a comment on a post on our Facebook page noting the importance of placing stop losses.
“Charts said cash out hours before the crash,” he wrote, along with a chart to illustrate his point.
Pugh, a married father of one who works as a business manager for a security company, said he first got into cryptocurrency trading in 2017 but then got scared off during the big run-up around that Christmas.
Stuck at home during the lockdowns last year, he re-entered the market around August or September, investing $5,000 that he’s been able to grow into a portfolio worth under $100,000.
“We’re not talking massive amounts of money … but as a small investor, if you’re continuing just putting money in, you’re going to run out of money at some point. So you just have to play it smart. If you get profits, you keep your profits.
“If you’re investing with your with own money, you just have to be careful. It’s not like a hedge fund where you’re playing with other people’s money and there’s no repercussions if you lose it,” he said.
“If you’re playing with the family money, you have to be careful about what you’re doing.”
Pugh said he’d taken a couple of online courses about technical analysis and trading. He recommended one called “Crypto to Riches,” by Toronto trader Hillorie Le; a course called TraderCobb by Sydney-based trader Craig Cobb; and digital news channel Nugget’s News (Collective Shift) by Tasmania’s Alex Saunders. Most of the introductory courses are free but he’s paid a bit for some advanced lessons.
“It’s not like, spending $20,000 on a university; I’m spending $600 on a course.”
He also has a $20 monthly subscription to the charting website TradingView, which he uses with a market cipher indicator he learned from YouTube that tells him when to enter and exit trades.
Pugh said he has parked his crypto portfolio in a stablecoin, USDC, for now. He says he might re-enter the market when Bitcoin is between $US51,000 to $US55,000.
“Everyone still expects it to get to $75,000, $100,000 by the end of the year, but it’s not linear, it’s going to go up and down and it’s highly volatile – you just have to be really careful about what you’re doing.”
Pugh says that while enthusiasts are being overexuberant over cryptocurrencies, it would also be foolish not to have any.
“It has turned from being speculative to an actual thing now,” he said.
“I have these conversations with my parents, even if they didn’t believe in it, they should at least have some degree of exposure to digital asset classes because everything is turning digital.
“And if you’re not in the market, you’re going to get left behind.
“So best to educate yourself on what’s happening in the market.”
