Bitcoin Price Watch; Aggressive Upside Trade

The end of the week is here, and we’ve had a wild ride in our intraday bitcoin price action trading. From failed technical charting patterns to chop outs, swing volatility and more – our operations, and the strategies that underpin them, have had mixed results. What has become pretty standard over the last few months, however, is the volume over the weekend (likely out of Asia) translating to some sharp movements in either direction. Sharp and sustained. It is this kind of action that we like to trade best, as it fits in nicely with our breakout strategy. Sustained moves help us to avoid being chopped out, as choppy action will often return to cross back through the level on which we enter, and take out our stop in the process. As we’ve said, the move can be in either direction, but (again, as we’ve said in the past) up or down doesn’t matter to us. Our intraday strategy functions equally well under both conditions – it’s our placement that’s the key. If we ensure our key levels (support, resistance, targets) are correct, and we sure things up with an effective risk management strategy, very little can go wrong.

As we head into a fresh European afternoon, then, what did overnight action tell us about today’s movements, what are we looking at in today’s bitcoin price, and where can we set up our key levels in order to derive maximum benefit from action today and heading into the weekend? Take a quick look at the chart to get an idea of what we’re looking at. 

As the chart shows, the levels in question that define today’s range are in term support at 372.5 and in term resistance at 380 flat. These are the levels to keep an eye on from both an intrarange and a breakout perspective. First let’s look at the breakout approach.

If the bitcoin price crosses the 380 flat resistance level, we will be looking to enter long on a close above that level. On the trade, a target somewhere in the region of 395 looks good. We could be a little more aggressive and target 400 outright, but we’re bound to get some friction as we head towards the round numbers and a fifteen-dollar reward is good enough short term. Stop loss comes in somewhere around 376 flat to keep things attractive from a risk management perspective.

Looking to the downside, if price breaks and closes below in term support at 372.5, we will enter short towards a slightly less aggressive target of 363.64. With this one being a little tighter than the upside trade, our stop loss has to reflect this, so somewhere around 375 looks good.

There’s about seven or eight dollars’ worth of range to play with, so a short term scalp intrarange approach is valid today. Specifically, if we correct from resistance a short entry towards support, with a stop just above 380 flat defining our risk. Reverse the trade from support for the opposite entry.