YouTube video by Kardec Trader describing a short-selling strategy that the speaker says turned $3,000 into over $1,000,000. The core tactic is to short low-volume "pop" spikes ("pop and drops") and capture mean reversion (15–20% typical returns historically), but because spikes and volatility increased by 2025 (example: average spikes rising from ~10% to ~50%), the speaker now prefers waiting for "topping action" and declining volume before entering on the backside (a "backside fade"). The speaker states this backside-entry pattern has been their most profitable pattern this year.
Questions this video answers
$3,000
January 7, 2026
Chapters
Was this the strategy that you able to take 3k to over a million dollars? Yeah, it was so effective. So let's say a stock is just kind of on low volume and it just shoots up out of nowhere, up 20%. I would be shorting it right here, looking for an instant mean reversion, because a lot of these times, these patterns will be pop and drops as they call, and it would just fizzle out. So you're looking at a good 15 to 20% return as it reverts to the baseline level. Nowadays, these patterns are not as profitable because the volatility and the range of these patterns has increased so much. So let's say this is 2020, and the same graph in 2025 may look like this, but let's say the average Spike was like 10%. Now the average spike might be 50%. Trying to short on the front side is more of a guess, I would say. So what we do is we look for topping action. I will wait even further. If the volume's declining on this kind of pattern, then there's a little bit more confirmation that this is the backside the top is in. And then if you take an entry here, it's a lot safer than taking the same entry on the front side, with more potential risk of it skipping up on you. Because if you take this entry here, your expected spike percentage is probably than what it is here, because on this candle, the volume is going to be the highest and it's definitely going to be lower on this part of the pattern because it's fading off, you know. So if I enter here, then I can possibly catch a backside fade. And this has been my most profitable pattern this year.
