Author Topic: Shorting Tips and Best Practices  (Read 6950 times)

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Offline cylonmaker2053

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The expired shorts waiting to cover are doing it at the price feed right ?

The price feed was at 206 bts plus some byers above up to 226 bts.

I tried to short/buy at 227 bts

yes, expired shorts are in the buy queue at the price feed, so your execution didn't happen because of those. there's some other buying action that's either automatically triggered as soon as you place your short and gets to execute prior to your long; or there are buy orders in the system that are somehow hidden from the order book. this last point, if true, would be somewhat of a rigged system, so i hope it is not the case.

Offline EstefanTT

The expired shorts waiting to cover are doing it at the price feed right ?

The price feed was at 206 bts plus some byers above up to 226 bts.

I tried to short/buy at 227 bts
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Offline lil_jay890

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It's because there are expired shorts that take precedent over your new bitUSD buy order.  You can only "roll over" your shorts if there are no expired short orders.

Offline EstefanTT

I just tried to roll over my shorts and something very weird happenned

I made a buy order of X BitUSD at 227 bts and a X bitUSD short order to 227 BitShares too.

I confirm both at the same time but only the short is done and the buy order remain there ... the highest buy order was at 226 and the lowest sell order was at 230.

I ask about to another member of this commmunity if he knews how it was possible and it happenned the same to him. Someone "invisible" bought his BitUSD freshly shorted directely before he could buy them to himself.

I made a last test to be sure, I tried one more time with 1$. I entered first the buy order, it appears at the top of the buyer list. Then I create the short order, I confiremd and ... POUF ! the same happenned. My buy order strayed intact and the short get bought by another invisible someone.

Another weird thing is that both shorts showing in the "COVER" tab are showing (exactely) only 90.7% of the value I enter when shorting. For ex. on the 1$ I shorted I have 9.07$ in the cover tab.


I would really apreciate some light over that situation.


Edit :
There are probably others having the same problem, I created a thread about it here : https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,17588.0.html
« Last Edit: July 16, 2015, 06:46:09 pm by EstefanTT »
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Offline cylonmaker2053

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That's a good point.

That's also why I'm trying to do it well. The best I can al least.

Is it better to add more collateral or to roll over 20 bts above the price feed ?

My point of view is that, the price beeing today quite low, if I can roll over (even at 20 bts over the price feed) I will be probably ok for the the next up and down swings.

The only worry I have is that it  seem to me a little weird to do this 20 bts over the price feed. As I'm not an expert, I wanted the opinions of you guys.

the only diff i can see (other than transaction costs) is that rolling the position over initiates another 30 day position, whereas adding collateral is keeping your original position and expiration. 

Offline cylonmaker2053

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awesome @Xeldal, i've never traded via console before, but it seems to be more efficient. i like the idea of simply adding collateral to shorts. i've pumped a ton of BTS into maintaining my positions today. what a disaster with this price crash! really looking forward to recovery, whenever that happens...

This is the problem, too many of the bitshares community keep losing their bitshares by taking a margin long position, via shorting bitassets.  We need lots of people to buy and hodl BTS and not risk losing it.  When people get margin called, they lose it to traders.

I know that you guys think you are 'supporting the product' by creating bitassets, but creating assets in excess of the demand that exists for them doesn't really do anything to help.   What Bitshares needs more is for people to buy and hold it and accumulate over time, instead of handing over free shares to traders who take them and dump them again.

@Ander, i def appreciate the sentiment, but i think the market needs all three types of agents: long buyers, short sellers, and simply traders who, at least in theory, can smooth frictions btw buyers and sellers. our business still needs products, else we are just trading tokens in nothing.

now i do think that the risks of short selling ought to be screamed from the rooftops!


Offline EstefanTT

That's a good point.

That's also why I'm trying to do it well. The best I can al least.

Is it better to add more collateral or to roll over 20 bts above the price feed ?

My point of view is that, the price beeing today quite low, if I can roll over (even at 20 bts over the price feed) I will be probably ok for the the next up and down swings.

The only worry I have is that it  seem to me a little weird to do this 20 bts over the price feed. As I'm not an expert, I wanted the opinions of you guys.
Bit20, the cryptocurrency index fund http://www.bittwenty.com
(BitShares French ConneXion - www.bitsharesfcx.com)

Offline Ander

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awesome @Xeldal, i've never traded via console before, but it seems to be more efficient. i like the idea of simply adding collateral to shorts. i've pumped a ton of BTS into maintaining my positions today. what a disaster with this price crash! really looking forward to recovery, whenever that happens...

This is the problem, too many of the bitshares community keep losing their bitshares by taking a margin long position, via shorting bitassets.  We need lots of people to buy and hodl BTS and not risk losing it.  When people get margin called, they lose it to traders.

I know that you guys think you are 'supporting the product' by creating bitassets, but creating assets in excess of the demand that exists for them doesn't really do anything to help.   What Bitshares needs more is for people to buy and hold it and accumulate over time, instead of handing over free shares to traders who take them and dump them again.
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Offline EstefanTT

I'm trying to understand precisly what would happenned if I roll over at 228 bts/BitUSD (20 bts over the price feed).

I mean, is it an awful trade ?

If I was a day trader obviously it is. But if I consider BitShares is just having its newborn volatility and the price is going to go up with time (and bts 2.0) the price feed doesn't mean too much right ? I could roll over the short without loosing anything if my goal is hold for years (and it goes up obviously) ... I need confirmation about that  :o
« Last Edit: July 16, 2015, 05:24:43 pm by EstefanTT »
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Offline cylonmaker2053

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awesome @Xeldal, i've never traded via console before, but it seems to be more efficient. i like the idea of simply adding collateral to shorts. i've pumped a ton of BTS into maintaining my positions today. what a disaster with this price crash! really looking forward to recovery, whenever that happens...

Offline EstefanTT

I didn't know that, I will try    :)
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Xeldal

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With the recent change in the bitshares price, the "call price" of my shorts is dangerously close to the actual price.
It's at 225 but I see the 24h high was 240 and my "call price is around 240-245.

I was thinking about roll over but I see a lot of buyers (10k) making another smaller wall in front of the big wall of shorts waiting for cover.

If i understand well, I have to short and buy my own BitUSD (to roll over) at a higher price than that small wall right ?
That, or I wait and hope that the BitUSD price doesn't go up to 241 ?

It is also possible to add collateral to your order via the console command:
 add_collateral <from_account_name> <cover_id> <real_quantity_collateral_to_add>

Parameters:
  from_account_name (account_name, required): the account that will provide funds for the ask
  cover_id (order_id, required): the ID of the order to recollateralize
  real_quantity_collateral_to_add (string, required): the quantity of collateral of the base asset to add to the specified position

You can find the cover_id with:
wallet_account_order_list <account name>

which returns something like this:
Quote
[[
    "1e2612f144d46db25e9c5f2d5972e27be1ffc248",{  <--- This is the cover_id
      "type": "cover_order",
      "market_index": {
        "order_price": {
          "ratio": "0.000444444323056611",    <---- This is the call price (move decimal 1 place to the right for USD:BTS market)
          "quote_asset_id": 22,      <---USD
          "base_asset_id": 0       <---BTS
        },
        "owner": "BTS7DpWydpJE9PFXK4UPCuxtMd4DdRC5PECz"
      },
      "state": {
        "balance": 48529,      <--- This is the $ balance (move decimal 4 places to the left for USD:BTS market)
        "last_update": "1970-01-01T00:00:00"
      },
      "collateral": 218656473,     <--- move decimal 5 places left
      "interest_rate": {
        "ratio": "0.",
        "quote_asset_id": 22,   <---USD
        "base_asset_id": 0      <---BTS
      },
      "expiration": "2015-07-13T15:04:10"
    }


so you'd enter;
Code: [Select]
add_collateral xeldal 1e2612f144d46db25e9c5f2d5972e27be1ffc248 1000to add 1000 BTS to the available collateral this will push your call price further away
After doing this the order will aquire a new cover_id so if you need to do it again you will have to look up the id again.

Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong.  The above works for me, I may be off a bit on the decimal movements and this depends on the pair, but you get the idea.

Offline cylonmaker2053

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With the recent change in the bitshares price, the "call price" of my shorts is dangerously close to the actual price.
It's at 225 but I see the 24h high was 240 and my "call price is around 240-245.

I was thinking about roll over but I see a lot of buyers (10k) making another smaller wall in front of the big wall of shorts waiting for cover.

If i understand well, I have to short and buy my own BitUSD (to roll over) at a higher price than that small wall right ?
That, or I wait and hope that the BitUSD price doesn't go up to 241 ?

if you want to play it safe and not have to dork around with the margin call, you could certainly simultaneously execute a buy/short order of your own for some price point within the highest bid and lowest ask (that way there are no others orders in the queue that'd snap up your orders). i may actually do the same with some of my positions today...

Offline EstefanTT

With the recent change in the bitshares price, the "call price" of my shorts is dangerously close to the actual price.
It's at 225 but I see the 24h high was 240 and my "call price is around 240-245.

I was thinking about roll over but I see a lot of buyers (10k) making another smaller wall in front of the big wall of shorts waiting for cover.

If i understand well, I have to short and buy my own BitUSD (to roll over) at a higher price than that small wall right ?
That, or I wait and hope that the BitUSD price doesn't go up to 241 ?

 
Bit20, the cryptocurrency index fund http://www.bittwenty.com
(BitShares French ConneXion - www.bitsharesfcx.com)

Offline cylonmaker2053

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          -DO NOT ALLOW YOUR SHORT POSITIONS TO EXPIRE UNCOVERED! This will automatically trigger a margin call with a penalty (5%) and
           roll your collateral into the big cover wall, placing your order at the bottom of the queue.
That is actually NO LONGER true .. no penalty applies for expiring shorts .. expired shorts are "converted" to buy orders at the feed-price

things are different for margin calls .. those try to buy at the price feed plus up to 10%

great, i didn't realize that changed. i'm Bitshares self-taught based on the original white paper :)