Limit orders are orders placed to be fulfilled when price conditions are met. Sell when price reaches some level. Buy when price reaches some other level. Do it right, and limit orders execute soon enough (instantly, or in days). Do it wrong by setting the price levels too extreme, and perhaps they never get executed. Don't do limit orders at all, and opportunities ranging in quality from major to outright insane can be missed. This post is about an opportunity where I could have aped into a limit order had I known what I was doing and what was happening.
Cover Image made using HTML and CSS except for DEX graphics. DEX graphics are from their respective DEXs. Light edits made using MS Paint.
Other images are screen captures from DEXs or wallets except as noted
The Time a Limit Order Could Have Come Handy
Around 27 November 2021, I had 3,093 SIM in my wallet. At the time it was worth USD 4.19. This is the wallet snapshot I took from LeoDex at that time:
| Token | Balance | USD Value |
|---|---|---|
| SIM | 3,093 | $4.19 |
Later, around 12:30am EDT (New York), I was using Hive Engine to check my wallet for other reasons. You can imagine my surprise when I saw this in my wallet:
| Symbol | Token Name | Balance | USD Value | % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SIM | dCITY TOKEN | 3,093 | $133.92 | 3118.32% |
Source: Tenor.com
I found myself seeing the SIM token spike in price in real time. Had I known what was happening and what I was doing, I could have said that I aped into a windfall by selling my 3,093 SIM then and there. It would have been my first time using Hive Engine for trades.
But noooooooooo!
-- I spent my time documenting what was happening to have proof that I wasn't going crazy when I saw the price spike taking place right before my eyes. That's how the images from above came to be. By the time I was ready to act, the SIM price dropped back to a more normal level.
Instead of aping into a windfall, I felt like a chimpanzee getting pelted by other chimps hurling poop.
Candlesticks and Bots
While looking at many candlestick charts, occasionally I see a candlestick representing one of those price spikes. They happen. How often they happen, I don't know. How often they happen for each Layer 2 token, I can't say.
(Similar candlesticks exist for price drops, but that's not my concern here.)
I know there are bots out there which do trades for people. They exist for sure in the world of Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies. They may exist in the world of Hive; whether they do or not, I don't know enough about those bots to use them.
Maybe This Will Let Me Catch a Price Spike
A few days ago it occured to me that I may be able to catch one of these price spikes if I placed a limit order: Take some token from my wallet to sell it when it hits some price I set.
Not that I will try that with the (current) 30,099.317 SIM I have-- that quantity is enough for me to qualify for a (tiny) daily airdrop of HIVE just for owning SIM, so I'll buy more SIM when I get a chance later in January.
Instead, I'll place a limit order for the small amount of APE tokens I have to see how it work out. Later I'll also do likewise with VOUCHER and SPS once I determine what prive levels I want for them.
Can I Catch Another Price Spike?
I almost aped into a price spike, so it's possible I can catch another one.
Remember, I'm new to trading, so I still don't know what I'm doing when it comes to making money whether markets go up or downn. This is why I'm using APE for limit order.
When I began this post, I had 3.123 APE in my wallet. Below is how the market for APE looked then:
APE had exceeded 4 HIVE at one point. Including that moment, APE had exceeded 1 HIVE 4 times. Normally I've seen APE in the 0.250-0.400 HIVE range. While I could set my price at 4.000 HIVE, it could take a while to reach that level again. So I'll set my price at a modest 1.000 HIVE, a level it exceeded 4 times in the last 2 months.
When I began this post, I had 3.123 APE in my wallet thanks to my delegations to 
Will my limit order be fulfilled? We shall see.
Limit Orders for Buys
Once I know what I'm doing with limit orders on the sell side, I'll bring in some outside money to place limit orders on the buy side. Placing limit orders is handled the same way whether it's for selling or buying: specify a price level and specify a quantity of the relevant token.
Fine-Tuning My Limit Orders
The tricky part of placing limit orders is choosing the price. Too high for a sell or too low for a buy, and the limit order may never be placed. Too close to the market price (BID or ASK), and it defeats the purpose of placing a limit order.
Finding the sweet spot for placing limit orders is a process of trial and error, and I know there are techniques out there I can use to reduce my errors; 2022 is my opportunity to learn these techniques and apply them.
Buy and HODL will be the plan for some tokens. The trading with other tokens will be to support those tokens I choose to buy to HODL. The time to learn is now.
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| Sometimes I discover posts way after the initial earnings period. It's too late for me to upvote posts then, so to make up for the lost upvote I send a slice of "!"PIZZA instead. My main focus is cryptocurrencies from a number of angles (educational, commentary, observations, even pop culture). A secondary focus is sharing my discoveries about the world of Hive Social. Most of my posts can be found at these two locations: ● LeoFinance : @magnacarta ● Proof of Brain : @magnacarta Follow me at this D.Buzz-only account : ● D.Buzz : https://blog.d.buzz/#/@magnacarta.buzz-- note the ".buzz" at the end! I also expect Festivus to take off in popularity in the coming years. |