It is important to minimize risk understand the market before betting anything big, buy low, sell high, diversify between trading and investing, always observe on the major political events related to cryptocurrency world. You may want to follow some well trusted experts and popular channels for getting latest updates, news and trends in the cryptomarket.
I would say understanding the market is actually the main thing here when it comes to trading altcoins and at the moment, it is going to be a huge risk when it comes to trying to pick the market at this moment unless you are sure you have some pretty tight stop loss in place. Trading altcoins is a lot risky as it is one pretty huge volatile environment and if you are not careful, you will get pretty screwed fast. Watch out for bitcoin most of the time and then look at the chances for a bullish movement for the general market, and I believe it would be easy to know when to trade altcoins.
When it comes to trading altcoins, the general condition of the market is actually something to always look at and the fact that bitcoin has a huge part to play in that.
No one could refuse that. To trade altcoins better, we must study the futures of bitcoin markets. Instead of getting into double hard work needed altcoin trading, I always opt for long term bitcoin trading. I agree that some times, altcoin trading is good but it could never overtake the profits of long term bitcoin trading, as per my experiences.