Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: SecondMarket Bitcoin Investment Trust Observer
by
JorgeStolfi
on 16/03/2014, 00:11:38 UTC

If an investor believes that BTC may lose 10% of its value in the next year  (or whatever time frame he cares for), then he would probably want to liquidate now.  If I read correctly, the value already dropped from ~85$ to ~62$ over the last month.

The fact is that SM investors are professionals who know the principle of buy low & sell high,

Professionals know more than that simple rule.  (Note that it fails if the "low" where the item was bought is not followed by a suitable "high" in an acceptable time frame.   If the fund's  value will "never" return to the 80$ level, a trader who follows that rule blindly will lose 100%, while a trader who liquidates now will lose only 25%.)

So why not wait until it drops to ~$50 and then it really really confirms that the time is to sell?
[ ... professionals ]also take a long-term view: 2+ years. The current dip is nothing but noise in the long-term view.

That is why I wrote "in whatever time frame he cares for".  If such a trader believes that the value will go up by 10% or more over 60$ within that 2+ year frame,  he will hold; but if he expects that in 2+ years the value will not increase over 60$ by more than the fees, he will want to liquidate as soon as possible and move to a better investment.

And he will not base such belief merely on the past price history, he will look for fundamentals.  (I mentioned the drop from 80$ to 60$ only to show that a 2% fee is not a significant deterrent to early liquidation in the case of bitcoin investments.  I did not mean that such a drop was a reason to sell.)