Everyone’s a genius in a bull market, when every stock’s flying, even those of companies that barely have a product. 

The air gets thick with TikTok charts, Reddit hype, and a whole lot of hocus pocus from folks who just showed up to the game last week.

But when the music slows, most of those names don’t make it.

I’ve seen this cycle play out more times than I can count — from dot-coms in the late ’90s to EV names during the COVID-19 run-up. 

Each time, you get a massive wave of speculation, and then when sentiment shifts, most of those companies go back to where they belong: trading under $5 or getting bought out for scraps.

So if you actually want to grow your account over time instead of chasing whatever’s trending, you need to know how to separate the survivors from the fallen flags.

Let’s break when to hold ’em — and when to fold ’em.

What Actually Holds Up

If you want to be able to distinguish winners from losers, you need to understand pattern recognition. 

There’s a clear pattern to what doesn’t get flushed. These companies have:

• Strong free cash flow: They can fund their own growth. They don’t need to sell shares just to stay alive.
  
• Clean balance sheets: Low debt, high liquidity. They’re not hostage to rising interest rates or another capital raise.
  
• Clear market leadership: Top 2 or 3 in their sector. Name recognition, real customers, real traction.
  
• Sector tailwinds: They’re in industries with structural growth — AI, energy transition, infrastructure, defense.

We’re talking about companies like NVIDIA, not whatever startup slapped “AI” on its homepage last quarter.

I like to call this the Survivor Basket. 

It’s the group of names you can hold through the chop, even scale into on weakness, because you know they’re built to last.

Now for the Hype Basket

On the other side, we’ve got the Hype Basket.

These are names that were media darlings six months ago, but now they’re struggling to hold their 50-day moving average.

They usually check all the wrong boxes:

• Negative earnings quarter after quarter
  
• Constant share dilution
  
• No clear path to profitability
  
• Fickle retail fanbase
  
• No competitive edge

They can still bounce here and there — but once the cracks form, these names tend to collapse fast.

Long Strength, Short Weakness

Here’s how I like to play it when things start to roll over:

I build a paired list: On one side, my Survivor Basket — names with real fundamentals, uptrends intact, solid institutional interest. 

On the other, the Hype Basket — weak balance sheets, failing price structure, bad tape action.

I go long the survivors, and short the fallen flags.

This isn’t about catching the exact top or bottom. It’s about playing strength vs. weakness in a smart, asymmetric way.

When the tide goes out, it always pays to know who’s swimming naked. 

And when the market starts punishing froth, this type of paired exposure lets you stay in the game  with way less stress.

You don’t need to be the first person chasing hype to grow your trading account.

You just need to recognize the shift before the herd does — and position yourself with the names that can actually survive once the music fades.

Keep your Survivor Basket tight. Don’t be afraid to short the junk when the time’s right. 

And always, always do the work.

That’s how you stay in this game long-term.

Stay street smart,
Jeff Zananiri