Down for 5% looks approximately like this:
BuyPrice BTC_tobuy $Amt_ToBuy
$423.00 0.20263425 $85.71
$426.00 0.20120724 $85.71
$429.00 0.19980020 $85.71
$432.00 0.19841270 $85.71
$435.00 0.19704433 $85.71
$438.00 0.19569472 $85.71
$441.00 0.19436346 $85.71
$443.00 0.19348597 $85.71
$444.50 0.19283304 $85.71
$446.00 0.19218450 $85.71
$447.50 0.19154030 $85.71
$449.00 0.19090041 $85.71
Up for 5% looks approximately like this:
SellPrice BTC_toSell $amt_toSell
$453.50 0.15750512 $71.43
$455.50 0.18817626 $85.71
$457.50 0.18735363 $85.71
$459.50 0.24871755 $114.29
$462.00 0.24737168 $114.29
$464.50 0.24604029 $114.29
$467.00 0.24472316 $114.29
$469.50 0.24342005 $114.29
$472.00 0.24213075 $114.29
$474.50 0.24085504 $114.29
$477.00 0.23959269 $114.29
$479.50 0.23834351 $114.29
$2.50 increments at $450 = 0.56%. I can only hope you have set your spread accordingly, or use a zero-fee exchange. And a bot. Otherwise that's a lot of monkey-clicking to give an exchange money.
I keep these kinds of charts to remind myself of my own buy/sell authorization limits, yet I will tweak from time to time.. and then change the next buy or sell amount based on the previous buy or sell that took place.. and some of the projected numbers in my spreadsheet will self-adjust based on my own setting of framework parameters.
Accordingly, my increments of buy and sell and the spread evolve over time.. as the market changes... So for example, last night before I went to sleep, I could not resist or wait until below $449 to buy, so instead I bought at $449.61, and reset my buy number from $449 to $448.50 and reset my sell number from $453.5 to $453. I did not sell at $453 last night because I was sleeping when the price went to $454, and no big deal if I miss a few of the price swings... and many times when I am buying/selling manually, I set my bitcoin price alarm for larger price swings rather than the smaller ones (depending on how much I want to sleep, but last night I set the low at $446 and the high at $456, which maybe shows that I did not value my sleep too much, but it didn't go off).
Currently, on the way down, my buy price increments are every $1.50 and then it goes to every $3 and further down it goes to every $6, and if the market moves fast I will skip a few of the price buy points and then buy several of the increments at once (and likely adjust the quantity that I buy based on if I believe the market might reverse or continue going down).
On the way, up my sell price increments start at every $2 then goes to every $2.50 then to every $10. Ultimately these buy/sell points are ballpark self-authorizations that give me pretty good guidelines for what to do and if the market moves a lot I am prepared.. or if I am out and about (with only my mobile phone on me), then I have a pretty good idea in my head about the ball park of what to do - i.e. when to buy/sell and approximately how much.
I have some BTC trading that involves zero fees (on Uphold) and I also have trading that has variable fees between .1% and .25% (mostly on BTCe, Gemini and Coinbase Exchange). I also use Circle for some matters, Local Bitcoins, and the Blockchain wallet app for direct sales and other trading - and some of the various exchanges and accounts tend to be working on arbitrage opportunities, too. Also, for example if someone pays me in BTC for a product or service or if I pay someone in BTC, then I will decide how to treat that and whether to convert to fiat or to replace with BTC right away. When I use the services that have fees, then I have to adjust my buy/sell strategies a bit to adequately account for the fees - which usually I tend to require the price to move an additional .25% or so before I make my move, which currently is about $1.15
Even though you may be expressing some skepticism, Cassius, about my methodology and whether the profit is so insignificant that it is not worth the risk, yet in the end, my trading method has been profitable with a considerable level of consistency and maybe even foolproofness and has helped a lot to put my whole BTC holdings in a good position with more BTC accumulated overall in my various accounts, and more fiat stacked up in various accounts in the event that BTC prices go down (which seems nearly inevitable in bitcoinlandia that we are going to experience both ups and downs), and one of the riskiest aspects of my application of the theoretical trading practice has been when I tend to deviate from my pre-planned strategy and to attempt to anticipate the price too much and to attempt to sell on the way down or to buy on the way up... these tend to be foolish and stressful events when I deviate from the pre-plan.. so in the end, I have found that it has been a lot safer to buy on the way down and to sell on the way up, within a sort of framework with limits.
Further, at any point, I can choose to NOT be so stressed out about trading small price swings, and I can can purposefully adjust my strategy to trade bigger price swings... It is totally up to me and my perception regarding how much time i want to spend trading smaller price swings or not. Currently, I am finding trading smaller price swings to be very good practice, and I am pretty easily able to fit it into my other daily activities.