November 17th Trading Update
A breakdown of my trades, allocation shifts, and the key levels that guide my next move.
This post is a quick snapshot of my trades so far in November, how I’m currently positioned, and the key levels I’m watching before flipping fully bullish again.
I left New Zealand in April 2024 to trade markets full-time — with a focus on crypto — while traveling the world.
Nothing here is financial advice; I’m simply sharing my journey, thoughts, and trades.
Strategy
The way I manage my portfolio is by shifting between three targeted allocations based on my shorter term views of the market: Offensive, Neutral, and Defensive.
Since 2024, when I started trading full time, there hasn’t been a single moment where I’ve flipped defensive. My underlying bias has been shaped by the macro and liquidity framework I follow, and that view has consistently been bullish. Because of that, I’ve been overexposed when I should have been scaling back. That’s been a mistake.
While my macro framework is integral, I’ve come to realise that a six month outlook isn’t ideal for an active trading strategy in an asset class as volatile as crypto. There have been clear opportunities to move defensive, and I haven’t taken them because my broader macro view remained bullish. So instead of adjusting, I chose to ride the volatility and keep exposure. I think I can make some changes here. I can be more aggressive with my weightings, de-risk earlier, and tighten my response to market shifts so these drawdowns don’t hit my PNL as heavily.
At the same time, it’s easy to make these statements in hindsight, especially in a crypto and liquidity cycle that has been far more difficult to trade than previous ones. Regardless, the goal now is to add more precision to the strategy to improve timing, no matter the environment, and place less weight on “past cycles.” This is especially important given crypto is still in the early stages of adoption. I hold the view that correlations and historical patterns and cycle dynamics will break as the asset class matures. It makes sense to adapt my strategy ahead of that. More on this in future.
Total Market Cap Excluding Stable Coins
I find the TOTALES chart to be the best gauge of the crypto market’s overall health, and it’s the primary tool I use to guide my positioning. Prices always lead narratives, so this is where I put the most weight when deciding whether to be offensive, neutral, or defensive.
We started the month sitting right on a crucial level at the bottom of the range. I was positioned risk on as it looked like it would hold and reverse, but I was very aware of how ugly it would get if that level broke and a clear downtrend formed.
At 12pm (Portugal time) on Monday the 3rd, I missed an opportunity to de-risk, although it wasn’t the cleanest spot to act. The market sold off over the following days, and then price began to show signs of a bottom with some bullish divergence at a key level. If I wasn’t already positioned risk on, that would have been the place where I shifted into risk on.
After a decent move back toward the monthly range low, price rejected, and this time I took the opportunity to take some risk off and build a cash position with the expectation that the market would roll over.
Roll over it did, and we’re now sitting at the 0.618 level with sentiment at extreme fear. I think this could be the local bottom, so I’ve started scaling a small amount back in, but I’m still leaning toward one more flush. Because of that, I’m holding off on going fully on the offence for now.
November Trades Thus Far
SOLD
100% — DEEP ($5.5k)
50% — SYRUP ($7k)
20% — Solana ($10k)
20% — GEOD ($2k)
20% — TAO ($2.5k)
15% — TSLA ($3k)
5% — CIFR ($1k)
These sales moved back into USD when I shifted to a risk off stance (neutral), totalling $31,000.
These trades reflect my objective to build a cash position while keeping my portfolio within its targeted weightings, rather than commentary on the individual tokens or trade ideas themselves.
BUYS (percentage added to existing positions)
I’ve deployed around $6,500 so far, with most of these entries executed over the last couple of days as I’ve begun scaling back in very slowly.
GLXY — 35%
ZEUS — 35%
CLOUD — 15%
ENA — 15%
IKA — 13%
SUI — 6%
GLXY is a long term hold that I’ve covered in previous posts. This buy brings it up to my targeted weighting of 5% of the portfolio. I’m considering adding more today to increase that to 7%.
ZEUS, ENA, IKA, and SUI have all been wrecked over the last month. Based on current valuations, I think further downside is limited. I don’t expect any of these to reverse in the short term, which is why I plan to scale in slowly to bring my average buy price down.
CLOUD is a liquid staking protocol on Solana and could have a near term catalyst. There is discussion around a proposal for Solana to reduce the native inflation rate on SOL. If this passes, it could attract more users to liquid staking protocols like Sanctum (CLOUD) to earn higher yields on their SOL, given that the native staking rate would drop. MARINADE is a competitor where the same thesis applies. I don’t have a position yet, but it’s on my watchlist.
BUYS (New Trades)
I’ve opened a position in AVICI, which is a decentralized neobank project built on Solana. I actually came across this while looking for crypto native banking services on Solana to use, not invest in. It launched in October through Meta DAO and is now trading at a market cap below $50 million, which is very low compared to competitors, yet it appears to have everything in place to become a leader. I’m bullish on neobanks, although it’s a highly competitive space, and I’ve previously held positions in the likes of ETHFi, which I’ve covered here in past posts. Everything looks good on the surface, so I took the approach of buying first and researching deeper afterwards. I’ve taken a 1% position for now and will be delving into it this week to determine whether to chop, hold, or increase.
I also opened a small position in Panther Protocol (ZKP), a privacy focused infrastructure layer. Privacy is the strongest narrative in crypto right now, and this micro cap project has been on my watchlist for a long time. My targeted weighting was 1.5%, but my first buy was only half of that, and it rallied 100% shortly after. I’ll be looking into this further this week to determine whether it has any real legs.
Allocation Targets When Risk On
When I get the signal to move back on the offense, I’ll be allocating any sidelined cash, plus some leverage depending on how strong the setup is, to bring the portfolio back to my targeted weightings.
I currently have some limit CALLS open for the Solana digital asset treasury company Defi Development Corp (DFDV). Since its performance should act as a leveraged play on SOL, if these get filled, I’ll consider trimming my Solana position and redeploying that capital elsewhere.
The Signal To Flip Bullish
As mentioned above, I’ve already started to scale back in slowly. These are the areas on the TOTALES chart that I’m watching for a full shift back to the offense, depending on which of the two scenarios plays out.
When zoomed out on the weekly, the bullish structure is still well intact, which is why I’m open to re-risking quickly once the levels I’m tracking confirm.
