Quote from: koehlebd on February 02, 2018, 01:25:01 AM

I think its crashing because the new people that bought in a few months ago are leaving exiting the markets after not realizing quick gains.

This. It is just a speculative bubble popping, like they always pop. You can look for specific reasons, like you can look for the specific movement that started an avalanche. But the reason for the avalanche was that there was a whole lot of unstable snow on a slope, just waiting to come down.

If people get into an asset because they see the price rise, and their only reason to join, is to buy low and sell high to a greater fool, it booms, and then busts, because at a certain point, there are not enough greater fools any more. When people that bought in quite high, hoping for MUCH higher, suddenly start making losses, they can do two things:
1) sell quickly and accept their losses, which puts extra downwards pressure on the very high price
2) hold, just to see their paper losses increase and increase

Depending on the bag holder's attitude, the crash is quick and brutal, or comes in slices and can take a long time. Last time, it took 1.5 years to go down from $1200 end of 2013, all the way down to $200 in February 2015.

There is of course, at the same time, a slight upward pressure from "buy-the-dip". However, if you bought the dip, and it goes lower, you're burned too. So after a few burns, you refrain from "buying the dip", and you wait for the bottom. But you can be wrong. Sometimes, what looks like a bottom, is only a temporary resistance. A bull trap gives hope of "MOOON" again. But alas, from the moment it rises, bag holders, that have been sitting out their paper losses, see their paper losses diminish somewhat, and jump on the occasion to get out, eat their losses and run far away from this circus, crashing this bull trap again.

Essentially, all burned greater fools of the previous ATH need to sell, or to be ready to sit this out until $0. Only then, the bubble is over and we can start the next one.