Preparing your portfolio for the holiday season — taking time off without sacrificing gains

by CryptoJelleNL

Ho Ho Ho! It’s December, and that means Christmas (and New Year's Eve) are fast approaching, with - the usual December challenge presents itself: taking the time to enjoy those sweet winter holidays, preferably without sacrificing profits.

After all, while traditional markets close for weekends, holidays, or even for extreme volatility – crypto markets continue to run 24/7, even when 45% of the world celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.

Christmas – at least to me – is a holiday you spend with your loved ones. Parties with friends, dinner with the family, some of you may go to church, while others unwrap the gifts underneath the tree. No matter how you celebrate the season, it tends to involve family and friends. 

And yet, being in crypto – it can get difficult to step away from this ever-moving market, especially with the way the markets are looking right now. In today’s article, we dive into a few tricks you can use to prepare your portfolio for the holidays, allowing you to take that step back, without sacrificing gains completely.

A quick trip down memory lane: Christmas 2020

It’s December 2020, Bitcoin has just broken the peak of 2017’s bull market, and things are looking good. While Bitcoin hasn’t quite pushed through the current all-time highs just yet, I would argue the future is looking similarly bright as it did back then – and there is a similar amount of disbelief going around as well. 

After all, while most people agree that we’re standing at the foot of another bull market, a considerable amount of people consider the recent price action a bear market rally as well. 

Looking back on my positioning back then, I remember vividly how I wanted to take a step back from the market, enjoying that festivity-filled week between Christmas and the new year to the fullest; and so I looked for an opportunity to last me from early December, all the way into the new year.

Back then, I settled on converting my Bitcoin holdings to Ethereum. That turned out to be a good play, but ETH’s volatility still had me glued to the screen for longer than I would have liked.

Planning for Christmas 2023

A few years and a lot of experience later, it’s time to prepare our portfolios for the holidays that lay ahead. So how can we position ourselves this year?

It’s no secret that I frequently advocate against leverage trading. No matter the state of the market, I repeatedly tell my readers and Twitter followers to use long-term strategies to boost their success. I even published an entire article discussing why most traders lose money – and that you’re better off holding Spot.

As such, whatever happens during the holiday season likely won’t influence the way I see the market I don’t expect I will change my portfolio at all – as I already feel well-positioned for the next 3-6 months, allowing me to take a step back whenever I want, without having to worry about my portfolio. 

This article would not be very useful if I left it as a plea to spot and chill, but it goes without saying that this will likely be the most comfortable way to navigate the markets during the holiday season. Nevertheless, if you don’t feel like dropping your trading career and becoming an investor in the blink of an eye, there are still a few tricks you can use.

Firstly, one of my favorite tricks in a bull market is to hold spot Bitcoin to margin your trades – allowing you to take advantage of Bitcoin’s slow growth, while still being able to take the trades you would take had you just held stablecoins. Doing so also means that not being in a trade is less costly – and this works for the holiday season too. Close your leveraged trades, let your portfolio sit in Bitcoin, and return a couple of days later; ready to hit the ground running.

The most obvious alternative is to hold USDT (and perhaps stake it, or farm yield), but in my personal experience, that resulted in FOMO-esque feelings where I worried the market would pump without me – resulting in more screen time than intended.

If neither of these options is up your alley, a good move would be to monitor the daily charts of strongly trending altcoins, to spot opportunities. There are quite a few altcoins that have performed very well in the past months, with dips being bought up quickly, and uptrends resumed shortly after. 

Those dips are perfect opportunities to buy and hold for a week or two – plenty of time to bridge the Christmas & New Year's festivities. If those trending altcoins pullback in the week leading up to the holidays – it might not be such a bad idea to let your trading account hibernate in spot exposure to those tokens instead.

All in all, you probably do not have to become the next Michael Saylor – but taking some inspiration from his long-term holding capabilities will help you enjoy that Christmas dinner without having to worry about your shitcoin portfolio. 

If you’re one of those on-chain degens that happily holds through -80% swings on the weekly, this suggestion can be safely ignored; but for most others; find some good positioning for the coming weeks, take a step back, and enjoy some time with the family.

Or at least, until that one uncle (mockingly) asks you how his favorite little investor is doing. Yes – those questions will return too, especially if we’re right to expect another bull run. Just tell them to wait until the ETFs show up, that’s probably more up their alley anyway.

Closing thoughts

There are different ways to approach the holidays. Some traders just keep doing what they are doing, while others deliberately take a step back to spend time with their loved ones, or to recharge for the next year. No matter what you do, I wish you a fantastic holiday and look forward to seeing you back in the orderbooks next year.

Happy holidays!

Jelle

Author's Disclaimer: This article is based on my limited knowledge and experience. It has been written for informational purposes only. It should not be construed as trading or investment advice in any shape or form.

Editor's note: CryptoJelleNL provides insights into the cryptocurrency industry. He has been actively participating in financial markets for over 5 years, primarily focusing on long-term investments in the stock market and crypto. While he watches the returns of those investments roll in, he writes articles for multiple platforms. From now on, he will be contributing his insights for WOO as well.

Check out his twitter: twitter.com/cryptojellenl

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