4) 15% would be the investment max, 30% would be a profit growth mark, but its not set in stone; its a guideline something to seriously consider. The idea is to be able to let profits run. If you dont do that, then youre going to have serious problems seeing any real growth, and with the severe risk management restrictions I already have in place, wed really be limiting things to compound interest equivalents if we were to keep balancing anything close to original investment size.
For my edification, 15% => max initial investment (i.e. $1500 for a $10k portfolio), and 30% (i.e. +100% relative) signals enough drift to protect profits? Totally get that there's an art to it. Litecoin presumably being your exception case, as well (I know it wandered into the 50% range).
I think I have a decent grasp for skimming off spec-grade stuff (where I'm entering it intending to skim and don't mind exiting quickly). It's the long-term, undervalued ("investment") assets where I'm like...well, I'd love to take some profit off LTC/XMR/etc. (any reliable, typically high-cap coin), but that seems at-odds with my ultimate assessment that, for instance, LTC is worth more than $70 (or XMR more than $140, etc., etc.).
Every time I've tried profit-taking with BTC/USD I end up with a taxable event and missing the first 10% of the next leg up. Not typically a loss, but not convinced that I'm beating holding because I get too clever. I'd hate to introduce inefficiency across my portfolio just trying to protect recent gains.
5) With USD youve got tax implications to contemplate that can set you back almost as much as simply holding to the bottom of the bear.
Aaaaaaaand now you get to the big question. Are you betting that the IRS will allow like-kind exchanges for these? I've been operating under the notion that any BTC -> ALT trade is taxable at their respective dollar-values. If the whole premise of diversifying between coins is that each has relative strengths, focuses, industries, etc., my gut says that an auditor is going to want to see taxes for every single swap.
Those wash sales are gonna bite too. :/
Just for fun: Is USDT more like a USD or more like BTC? Maybe you can like-kind it with USD but not other cryptos.
