The Best Pattern if You’re Always Late to the Market

Every trader’s been in this position…

Maybe you slept in too late, you were busy at work, just getting out of school, taking care of the kids, etc.

For whatever reason, you’re late to the move.

Once you finally get to check the market, there’s a perfect stock spike staring you in the face:

☑️ It has a news catalyst.

☑️ The float is below 10 million shares.

☑️ The price consolidated beautifully before the next surge higher.

It’s a textbook runner with incredible upside.

But you can’t wind back time to take the trade. And now you missed it.

A lot of my newest students find themselves in this situation because they haven’t learned how to recognize a stock before it spikes yet.

I have a solution…

We can still find trade setups when we’re late to a stock spike.

Yes, we missed the biggest part of the move, but when the stock runs +100% intraday, there’s a lot of room to get in and out with gains.

Even if you’re late.

Dip-Buy Pattern

In this market, there are tons of low-float tickers with fresh news that spike to incredible highs intraday, multiple runners every week.

It’s pretty easy to identify a massive stock spike after it’s already happened. And most traders think, “I missed it again! If only I knew how to buy on the front end.”

Unless … You learn to trade the back-end bounce.

These stock spikes burn hot — anyone can see that. But they have to pull back to breathe and take a break at some point.

That breath, an overextended pullback, is where the dip-buy pattern lives.

• Euphoria peaks as the price turns vertical.

• The stock hits a point of exhaustion.

• The price slides back toward a logical level.

• And it bounces off that support momentarily.

I’m not looking for it to make new highs. I’m just capitalizing on the volatility within this new range.

The risk is tiny and almost obvious for disciplined traders (a few cents below the level that just proved itself).

Our target is modest. But when a stock spikes 100%, a dip-buy bounce could offer 10% or more of upside.

A Year’s Worth of S&P 500 Gains in a Single Afternoon

On February 2, right as the market closed for regular hours, FatPipe Inc. (FATN) announced bullish third-quarter fiscal year results.

• Total revenue grew 30% year-over-year.

• Monthly recurring billings grew 48% compared to the same quarter last year.

• Cash and cash equivalents measured $6.2 million.

The stock immediately spiked into after-hours. And 45 minutes later, it was pushing toward a breakout.

The move was fast, and I missed the surge to new highs.

But I was there for the back-end dip buy.

Here’s my position overlaid on the chart. Every candle represents one trading minute:

Source: StocksToTrade

FATN chart intraday, 1-minute candles.

That was a 10% gain in just a few minutes, with a textbook pattern and a defined risk level.

The S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) gained 17% in 2025 … I made more than half of that gain in a single afternoon.

The dip-buy pattern might not be as exciting as trading an explosive breakout. But in some ways, that’s what makes it such a good pattern.

We know the move is smaller, so our imagination won’t get in the way, and we’re not trying to anxiously position during a consolidation that could take hours before a breakout.

The dip buy is a quick move after a blow-off top. In and out.

If you have any questions, email me at [email protected].

Cheers,

Tim SykesEditor, Tim Sykes Daily