There's no set strategy, but it's always a sensible move to ladder out your profits. I tend to sell at least 50% of my holding if it goes up 20%, then gradually sell out until I am holding only 10% in case it has a huge jump. If a particular coin has a 100% or more rise in a very short space of time, I will sell 90%, as generally it will drop sharply afterwards, giving the opportunity to get back in if I want to. If it doesn't drop, then I'm (normally) happy enough with the profit and move on to the next one.

I have invested along the way, at various price points, and will continue to do so as and when I have the funds available. Whilst I think some coins will fail, I am reasonably confident that I have selected a number of coins with good potential, so hopefully overall will come out on top. Will I be able to retire? Doubtful. But hopefully can make a bit of money over the next few years.

Overall the market has remained reasonably steady for a while now (in crypto terms anyway), so it looks like it's gearing up for a big move one way or the other. As to whether that is up or down is, unfortunately, not for me to decide, but here's hoping that it's in a positive direction.

I'd much prefer a steady consistent rise than a rocket movement, would be much more beneficial for the overall market in the long term. If we see another rapid jump it will more than likely be followed by another drastic drop. Currently there are a number of coins available at decent prices, with huge potential down the line, but no specific timeline of December/January. Neo, Stratis, Chainlink and Divi are all worth taking a look at. And Icon is another one that has plenty of room for growth.

i was a member for a year but still a newbie.

That can't be true, the merit system only started in January on Bitcointalk. Unless you contributed absolutely nothing to the forum before it was introduced and then suddenly realised that you had to if you wanted to earn through bounties. Not saying that you're entirely wrong, but sounds a bit like sour grapes to me. I am a member on both forums and see benefits (and flaws) in both systems. Both forums offer opportunities to earn through bounties, but the main benefit is giving and receiving value. Altcoinstalks is a much newer forum, and therefore have presumably have been able to learn from mistakes that bitcointalk made, as well as add in additional features that they felt added to the community. All the best.

Trading is not easy money, reading your post you seem to think that you will make a living instantly. This will not happen. Get your head down and start learning, there are plenty of resources both here on the forum and elsewhere. Forget about day trading to start with, you need to learn the basics first. As someone already mentioned, there are platforms where you can do demo trading without risking any capital. Don't try and run before you can walk, otherwise you will end up crying very quickly. Good luck.

As most people seem to agree, one of the main factors is greed. So many of us want to get rich quick without putting in the time and effort, making ourselves easy targets for scammers. It gets a bit more complicated as the scammers are upping their game, spending more money to create a false sense of legitimacy to lure unsuspecting investors in. It really comes down to how people need to be ultra careful when they invest their money, far too many are willing to invest in a pipe dream; projects with no MVP, a poorly written white paper, lack of team information and more. Even a quick check on google will normally throw up some red flags, especially if you go more in depth on forums. I normally google the project name plus reviews, and that's just for starters. It's a jungle out there.