I would keep most of your money in BTSX while learning how to trade, only use a small percentage of your coins at first.
Basically, if you think BTSX value will go up compared to the US dollar, then you want to short bitUSD or be in BTSX, If you think the price may go down you want to be in bitUSD.
If you think BTSX will not perform as well as Bitcoin in the markets, you can purchase bitBTC, if you think BTSX will outperform Bitcoin you can short bitBTC.
So on so forth with other assets.. same general idea for all of them just replace Bitcoins with any FIAT or commodities.