Educational Video Series

The Market Trend & Grotection Gauge Explained

In this short educational video, Don Vandenbord explains how the Market Trend and the Grotection Gauge help us assess the market’s current state and where risk may be building next.

Why are bear markets so dangerous?

• Historical data (14 bear markets since 1968) shows that the average loss during a bear market is -44.5%.
• With that kind of loss you would need a +80.1% gain in your portfolio just to get back to even.

Big losses are mathematically devastating, and especially dangerous for retirement portfolios. So, the real goal is to avoid major drawdowns, not just chase upside.

Every major bear market occurs below the 200-day moving average.

With our Grotection Gauge we track 6 indexes across 3 timeframes:

1. Short-Term (21-day MA)
2. Medium-Term (50-day MA)
3. Long-Term (200-day MA)

We also track leaders – stocks that perform better during any given moment.

Our core philosophy is to participate in uptrends and step aside in downtrends.

We’re not about predicting — we’re about adapting quickly.

Get more details about the Market Trend and Grotection Gauge in the FAQ section of our website, along with additional insights into our investment philosophy, portfolio structure, and onboarding process.

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This Is How Bear Markets Begin & How We Stay Ahead of Them

Danny Stewart and Don Vandenbord discuss the core 200-day moving average principle and how Revere structures its portfolio to manage risk, adjust exposure, and navigate potential bear markets.

The foundation of the approach is simple but powerful: bear markets only occur below the 200-day moving average. There are several nuances to this and a single break below the 200-day is not a panic signal.

Revere Asset portfolios are split into two distinct systems:

1. 50% – Individual Stocks / Sector ETFs: Each position has strict sell rules and stop losses. During pullbacks, most stocks break down first, only the strongest names hold up. This portion is granular and selective, driven by individual setups.
2. 50% – Index-Based “Layered” System: This is our core innovation: a 3-layer exposure model tied to moving averages.

This system is designed to avoid trying to day trade macro moves, aggressive shorting and all-or-nothing decisions.

This is why early, layered defense matters. You want to survive a dip, but not sit through a full bear market. Resilience alone isn’t enough. You need exit discipline.

At Revere we prepare for bear markets before they accelerate.

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Our Portfolio Exposure Framework In A Tough Market

In this video, Don Vandenbord discusses a challenging market environment with high volatility and explains Revere’s portfolio exposure framework for managing risk during periods like this.

Rather than committing to a single directional view, our approach emphasizes maintaining both bullish and bearish scenarios simultaneously.

The key objective is to observe how conditions evolve, specifically identifying negative factors that are improving toward positive and positive factors that are deteriorating toward negative.

Regardless of the factors our core discipline is to remove emotions and rely strictly on price and volume behavior.

To accomplish this, we use a rules-based exposure model designed to systematically adjust portfolio risk depending on the market’s technical structure.

1. Index Exposure (Beta Allocation): The goal in bullish conditions is to maintain approximately 80% market exposure (0.8 beta). This can be achieved using leveraged ETFs.
2. Individual Stock Positions: The other half of the portfolio consists of individual stocks, which are managed independently. Each stock must “earn its spot in the lineup.”

This ensures that stock-specific risks remain controlled even if broader market conditions deteriorate.

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Revere’s Approach: Target Stocks That Can Deliver 2–3x the S&P 500

Don Vandenbord walks through the GROTECTION portfolio structure in detail, explaining how the strategy has evolved over time into splitting the portfolio roughly in half: index exposure (core participation) and individual growth stocks (alpha generation).

Any individual stock added must have the potential to deliver at least 2–3x the S&P’s return during its holding period. Otherwise, it’s not worth taking on single-stock volatility.

So, one of our key philosophies: don’t take individual stock risk unless the upside meaningfully exceeds what leveraged index exposure can already deliver.

Volatility does provide opportunity — but only if downside is controlled and winners are allowed to run.

This reinforces the other philosophy: ruthlessly cut losers and let winners run. This is where the edge really comes in.

Core Takeaways:

1. Win rate doesn’t matter — payoff ratio does.
2. Stock selection must justify single-stock risk.
3. Index exposure handles participation.
4. Leaders in bull markets generate disproportionate gains.
5. Discipline — not prediction — drives results.
6. Constant refinement and accountability matter.

At Revere, we put our own money where our mouth is. That’s why we focus on continuous improvement and ruthless execution, because performance directly affects us as well.

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Our Systematic Approach To Shorting Weak Stocks

In this educational video, Ted Zhang breaks down how Revere Asset systematically shorts weak stocks using inverse ETFs, manages risk in volatile markets, and reads real-time feedback from both longs and shorts to stay on the right side of the trend.

We actively trade inverse single-stock ETFs to profit from downside moves in weak stocks.

Profit management is the key. The goal is not to get greedy. We aim to lock in gains and reduce risk, while still staying in the trade.

Not all short trades work. Some of our shorts are flat or barely green. When running a long/short strategy, you must constantly read various signals, such as:

• Are shorts getting stopped out?
• Are longs starting to work better?
• Is relative strength shifting?

These signals will tell you if the market is getting stronger → reduce shorts, or if the market is getting weaker → press shorts.

So, if you want to short stocks, here is our short-selling playbook:

1. Short strength, but only with confirmation (downtrend + below moving averages + weak vs market)
2. Use structure, not opinions (entries at resistance or stops at key reclaim levels)
3. Take profits aggressively (especially with leveraged products)
4. Expect chop and frustration (even good setups can go nowhere)
5. Size smaller in volatile markets (we explicitly avoid large sizing)
6. Stay adaptive (let price action guide bias, not predictions)

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Revere’s Aggressive Index Re-Entry Rules

Don Vandenbord explains Revere Asset’s re-entry rules and how to systematically scale back into the market when #SPX is trading below the 200-day moving average.

These rules are designed for one situation: when the market is below the 200-day moving average (bearish regime). In this environment, you don’t rush in, you scale exposure gradually, and you let price action prove itself. Early on, the goal is simple: stay near 0 exposure until the market earns your capital back. This system is NOT bullish or bearish—it’s adaptive.

If the market fails:

• Break below 8 EMA → go net short
• Repeated failure at 21 MA → stay defensive or short

If the market improves:

• Stack exposure gradually
• Never go “all-in” early

In our approach, we manage risk in a smart way: Core (index exposure) = slow, stable allocation, while Long/short overlay = flexibility + hedging.

Key advantage:

• You can stay invested without triggering taxes
• Hedge by shorting instead of selling

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How Top Advisors Protect Gains In Growth Stocks

In this short video, Connor Bates explains the “Seven Week Rule” and how it helps top advisors like Revere Asset protect profits and avoid major drawdowns in leading growth stocks.

The Seven Week Rule is a disciplined exit strategy designed to help you:

• Ride strong growth stocks during powerful uptrends
• Avoid giving back profits in major drawdowns (20–40%)

It focuses on identifying when a stock’s behavior (character) changes—not just price.

A strong stock in a power trend will:

• Stay above a key moving average (typically the 10-day MA);
• Do this consistently for at least 7 weeks;
• Use that moving average as support (bounces off it repeatedly).

This tells you institutions are supporting the stock.

Once that pattern is established…

• Method A: Sell when the stock closes below the 10-day moving average
• Method B: Wait for a close below the 10-day MA, and if the next day breaks the prior day’s low, that confirms weakness → sell

This rule is NOT about the moving average itself. If a stock behaved one way for 7+ weeks and suddenly stops — something changed. That’s your signal to get out.

According to William J. O’Neil:

• Great leaders often pull back to the 50-day MA
• If they hold → it’s often a buy opportunity, not a sell

Why is this rule so powerful? It solves a major problem: most investors either sell too early… or hold too long.

This rule:

• Keeps you in the trend during the best part of the move
• Gets you out when the trend actually breaks
• Prevents round-tripping profits

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We Don’t Chase the Bottom — We Wait for Proof, Then Size Up

Dan Stewart and Don Vandenbord break down how Revere’s disciplined, risk-managed strategy navigates market cycles. They explain why our strategy intentionally lags during early recoveries, how it scales exposure using moving averages and short-term signals, and why protecting against deeper drawdowns matters more than chasing short-term upside.

We are not trying to win every week — we are trying to win the full cycle. So, our system tells us: “We’re early in the trend — don’t chase, let it develop.”

When it’s time to add exposure, we scale it using lower-timeframe signals (60-min stochastics) and confirmation from moving-average alignment. Our key idea is that we earn the right to get more aggressive, not assume it.

In this video, we share a playbook for expectations across cycles. If we are in a correction (going from a Bear market to what appears to be an early recovery cycle), then you should expect MODERATE UNDERPERFORMANCE with our portfolio strategy.

Why? Because our system:

• Waits for confirmation (4–5 days follow-through)
• Avoids chasing the first bounce

So, during early rebounds, when the market jumps fast, our system lags temporarily. But that’s intentional. If the market breaks ~10%, it often accelerates down hard. And that’s exactly what we are protecting against.

After a selloff, the first rally = untrusted as it could be a Dead Cat Bounce. So we wait 4–5 days for confirmation and only then add risk. We may miss early upside, but we avoid getting trapped in fake rallies.

Bottom line: This is not a “Beat the market every day” strategy. It’s a “Lose less in bad periods → win big when trends are clean” system.

Most traders/investors chase early rebounds and get trapped if it rolls over. Our system accepts short-term lag and avoids catastrophic mistakes. That’s why it survives long-term.

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Our Systematic Re-Entry Model After a 200-Day Breakdown

In this short educational video, Don Vandenbord explains a step-by-step system for going defensive and then re-entering the market as conditions improve.

The system starts with a clear hierarchy of warning signals as the market weakens:

• 21-day moving average breaks → first caution signal
• 50-day moving average breaks → increased defensive posture
• 100-day & 150-day (20/30-week) → deeper trend deterioration
• 200-day moving average → critical line in the sand

The 200-day MA is treated as the “pull the ripcord” level, but with nuance:

• Markets often chop around this level, not immediately collapse.
• That’s why we don’t go 100% risk-off instantly. Instead, we scale out and hedge progressively.

In a recent case (March–April 2026), the market broke below the 200-day, tried twice to reclaim it, and failed. As a result, we went fully hedged/defensive.

Understanding Maximum Risk Zones

Below the 200-day is the danger zone. However, there’s a tolerance: ~3–4% below the 200-day or ~2% ATR buffer. If price holds within that band → possible stabilization; if it breaks further → expect real downside continuation. In a recent case, the market dipped into that risk zone but did NOT break down further, which is a key signal.

Re-Entry Strategy

After a relief bounce (triggered by the news of a ceasefire with Iran), the key question was: “Do we go all-in?”

The answer is absolutely not.

Instead, re-entry is layered and systematic:

1. Reclaim 8-day EMA → first sign of momentum
2. Move above 21-day MA → stronger confirmation
3. 8/21 EMA cross → trend shift signal
4. Test/reclaim 50-day MA → broader strength
5. Look for Follow-Through Day (FTD) (O’Neil method). Ideal timing: Day 4–7 off the lows → FTD occurred on April 8 (Day 6) → confirmed institutional buying.

After the April 8 gap-up, the market accelerated sharply. By April 13 → strong upside continuation, with leading stocks participating aggressively.

BUT many leaders became extended very quickly, creating poor risk/reward for new entries.

Current Phase: “Ride the Wave”

Now the strategy shifts from entry to trend management: stop overtrading, don’t chase extended names, let winners run, and keep stops in place.

As Don says, “Get out of the way and let the market work.”

This is where performance is made. We don’t try to catch bottoms, we don’t try to call tops. We focus on participating in confirmed trends and avoiding unnecessary mistakes. It’s not about prediction—it’s about process discipline: underperform near bottoms (by design) and outperform during trends (by patience).

This is where most traders fail: they panic near lows and chase near highs. Our system does the opposite: it reduces risk when it’s objectively high and adds exposure only when probability improves.

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Why Protecting Capital Matters More Than Making Money

In this video, Dan Stewart discusses one of the core principles behind Revere Asset’s investment approach: protecting capital first.

Most investors focus on returns. The problem is that returns alone can be misleading if you ignore drawdowns.

Example: Let’s say, if you lose 50% during a bear market, your capital is cut in half. Even if your account gains 20% the following year, you’re earning that return on a much smaller base.

• Your statement may show a positive year, but the damage from the earlier loss is still affecting your long-term results.
• This is why professional investors pay so much attention to risk management.
• Every percentage point of capital preserved during a downturn allows more money to participate in the next recovery.
• A portfolio that falls 10% or 15% has a much easier path forward than one that falls 35%, 50%, or more.

Dan also challenges one of the core assumptions behind traditional investing models: Modern Portfolio Theory assumes returns follow a normal bell-curve distribution and that extreme market events are relatively rare.

• In reality, markets experience far more large moves—both positive and negative—than these models predict.
• These “fat-tail” events include major bear markets, financial crises, and sharp corrections that can erase years of gains in a short period of time.

Investors who underestimate these risks often discover that recovering from large losses is much harder than generating them. The market may go up over the long run, but wealth is built through compounding. Compounding works best when capital stays intact.

So, the lesson is simple: You don’t need to capture every upside opportunity, but you do need to avoid catastrophic losses. Protecting capital isn’t the opposite of growing wealth—it is the foundation of growing wealth.

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Understanding The Tale Of The Tape

In this educational Short, Don Vandenbord breaks down the key indicators behind our “Tale of the Tape”, explaining how breadth, sentiment, volatility, and trend metrics can help investors better understand the market’s underlying health.

Most investors focus on price, but experienced market participants know that understanding what is happening beneath the surface can provide valuable context.

Market Breadth and Stochastic Indicators
The readings in this video show 2 positive, 4 neutral, and 0 negative, which is viewed as a constructive setup.

• This suggests the market still has room to move higher rather than being overextended.
• Another breadth measure, the RG8, shows: 0 bullish, 5 neutral, and 3 bearish.
• While not outright bullish yet, the RG8 configuration is positioned to turn positive if markets continue to show follow-through strength.

McClellan Summation Index (NASI)
This is used as a bull/bear market indicator.

• When the indicator is declining, it is generally negative for stocks.
• The goal is to see the index stop falling, flatten out, and begin turning higher.

Interest Rates and the Dollar
Both higher rates and the dollar are headwinds for equities and therefore deserve close attention.

Percentage of Stocks Above the 5-Day Moving Average
A key breadth indicator measures the percentage of stocks trading above their 5-day moving average.

• Readings in the 68%-70% range are constructive. When this indicator reaches the 90%+ range, markets often become overextended.
• Extremely high readings typically signal a forthcoming pullback due to simple mean reversion.

Volatility $VIX
Our preferred range is below 16.

• Low-to-moderate volatility suggests investors remain relatively calm and markets are functioning normally.

Sentiment Indicators
1. Fear & Greed Index

• At 61, for example, interpreted as relatively neutral. Not excessively bullish or bearish.

2. AAII Sentiment Survey (Retail Investors)

• The AAII survey measures retail investor sentiment.
• Retail investors remain surprisingly bearish. This bearishness has persisted for some time. Retail sentiment tends to be heavily influenced by news headlines and market narratives.
• From a contrarian standpoint, persistent retail pessimism can sometimes be supportive for stocks.

3. NAAIM Exposure Index (Professional Money Managers)

• The NAAIM Index tracks active investment managers like Revere Asset
• Levels in the high 90s typically indicate excessive optimism and put markets on pullback watch. At 77, for example, professional investors still have room to increase exposure.

NOTE: All of these measurements are secondary indicators. Price and Volume remain the primary indicators. So, no matter what the secondary metrics show, actual market price action always carries the greatest weight.

Day Count Analysis
This shows short-term market stretches.

• For example, three down days followed by one up day is considered a very normal bounce.
• You must avoid buying because markets often become stretched to the upside.
• The opposite is also true: avoid selling after three consecutive down days because markets often become stretched to the downside.

Portfolio Risk Metrics
We track our portfolios daily and provide scores for each.

• The first score is our proprietary risk framework.
• The second score is the volatility-adjusted beta. For example, 5.35% balance at risk.
• The calculation combines 75% traditional beta and 25% Average True Range (ATR).

Each position receives a risk score based on volatility, market sensitivity, and position size. Those scores are then aggregated to calculate overall portfolio exposure.

• If the score is 1.00 = Equivalent to being fully invested in $SPX.
• If the score is below 1.00 = Less market exposure than a fully invested S&P 500 portfolio.
• If the score is above 1.00 = More aggressive exposure than a fully invested benchmark portfolio.

This provides investors with a quick way to understand how much market risk they are carrying relative to a standard index portfolio.

Key Moving Averages and Resistance Levels
We also track the 21-, 50-, and 200-day moving averages. For each:

• The previous three trading days are monitored
• Important resistance levels are highlighted
• The system checks whether prices remain above or below those levels

These trend indicators help investors evaluate the strength and sustainability of current market moves.

Learn more about the investment strategies we use on our FAQ page, along with additional insights into our investment process, portfolio structure, and onboarding.

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Risk Adjusted Returns Are The Only Returns That Matter

Most investors focus on returns. But the key question is how much risk was taken to achieve them. In this educational short video, Dan Stewart explains why risk-adjusted returns matter far more than headline gains and how large drawdowns can permanently damage long-term wealth creation.

Using the example of a growth-stock investor who suffered a 50–60% drawdown in 2020, Dan shows how even a strong recovery can leave investors worse off than they realize. A portfolio that falls 50% needs a 100% gain just to break even. The same problem appeared again in 2022, when many growth investors lost significantly more than the broader market.

The lesson is simple: if you’re managing your own money, you need to know your long-term average return after drawdowns, not just your best years.

Dan argues that growth stocks are not meant to be blindly bought and held through every market cycle. They require risk management, position sizing, and a disciplined process for protecting capital when trends change.

He also challenges two pieces of conventional Wall Street wisdom.
1. Averaging down: If a stock is down 10%, 20%, or more, the question shouldn’t be whether to buy more.

• The question should be why the position was allowed to decline that much in the first place.
• Instead of adding to losers, Dan advocates adding to winners and cutting losses early.

2. Traditional rebalancing: Many advisors routinely sell winning sectors and move capital into losing sectors to maintain target allocations.

Dan argues that investors should focus on understanding why the lagging sector is underperforming and whether the market’s leadership is signaling a more important trend. This can be summed up in one phrase: water the flowers and cut the weeds.

So, the objective isn’t to maximize gains during bull markets. It’s to avoid devastating losses during bear markets while allowing winning positions to compound over time. Successful investing isn’t about finding the next big winner. It’s about protecting capital, controlling risk, avoiding catastrophic drawdowns, and staying in the game long enough for compounding to work in your favor.

Because, in the end, risk-adjusted returns are the only returns that matter.

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How We Measure If The AI Bubble Is Finally Breaking

In this video, Dan Stewart and Don Vandenbord explain why great growth stocks don’t just lead on the way up—they also tend to lead on the way down.

According to the CAN SLIM approach, leading stocks have historically fallen an average of 72% from their peaks after topping. That’s why successful growth investors don’t rely solely on fundamentals when it’s time to sell.

One of the most important investing principles is buying with both fundamentals and technicals, but selling based on technicals. Company fundamentals often look their strongest near major market tops because earnings and revenue continue growing while the market begins pricing in slower growth months before it shows up in financial results. Investors who refuse to sell simply because “the thesis is intact” often ride massive drawdowns that could have been avoided.

Rather than relying on opinions, we introduced an objective framework for measuring the health of the AI trade: The Revere AI 100 Index tracks 100 AI-related companies in an equally weighted portfolio, allowing investors to monitor the broader trend instead of focusing on a few mega-cap names.

Despite increased volatility and an 8.37% “Changing Character Day” on June 5, the AI 100 has still outperformed $SPX since its launch around Memorial Day, suggesting the broader AI trade remains healthier than many headlines imply.

There are also three key indicators we are monitoring:
– The #DRAM ETF for memory manufacturers like
#MU, #SKHynix, and #Samsung;
– The #SOXX semiconductor ETF;
– and #WGMI, which tracks #Bitcoin miners increasingly shifting toward AI data center infrastructure.

The takeaway is that investors shouldn’t let emotions or headlines determine whether the AI boom is over.

By monitoring broad AI participation, semiconductor strength, memory stocks, AI infrastructure plays, and technical price action, investors can identify whether the current weakness is simply a healthy rotation—or the beginning of a much larger unwind.

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Why We Don’t Buy IPOs — Especially #SPCX

In this short educational video, Ted Zhang explains why Revere Asset avoids buying IPOs on day one and why SPCX may be no exception despite being one of the most anticipated public offerings in market history.

History shows that the biggest winners often come after the hype phase, not during it.

• While traders can profit from the initial volatility, long-term investors frequently face sharp drawdowns as excitement fades and more shares enter the market.

Past IPOs like #HOOD and #PLTR offered two possible paths.

• Some stocks explode higher for a few days before collapsing.
• Others spend weeks building a base before beginning a sustainable advance. The challenge is that investors often confuse a great company with a great entry point.

What makes #SPCX different is its size.

• At roughly $2.7 trillion, it is already one of the most valuable companies in the world. Many investors focus on the share price and assume it can keep multiplying higher, but market cap matters.
• A 10x move from here would imply a valuation above $20 trillion, which is difficult to justify based on current business fundamentals.

There is also a major supply issue that investors need to understand:

• Only about 5% of the float is currently trading, while roughly 95% remains locked up.
• As lockup periods expire, insiders and early investors gain the ability to sell shares, potentially creating significant downward pressure.

At the same time, SPCX is benefiting from unique demand drivers:

• Some indexes like #QQQ are making exceptions to include the stock, creating automatic buying from index funds, pension funds, ETFs, and other passive investors.

That means the stock is caught between two powerful forces:

• Passive inflows on one side
• Eventual insider selling on the other

For investors looking to capture the true long-term trend, patience may be the best strategy.

• Let the lockups expire.
• Let institutions establish positions.
• Let the stock build a real trading history.

The company may be exceptional. The stock may eventually be exceptional too. But those are not always the same thing on day one of an IPO.

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The 3 Layer System We Use To Survive Corrections

In this video, Dan Stewart explains the three-layer risk management system Revere Asset uses to navigate market corrections while staying positioned for long-term upside.

The framework starts with $SPX exposure managed around the 21-day EMA.

• This allows the team to quickly increase or reduce risk as market conditions change.

A second layer is tied to the 50-day moving average, while the final line of defense is the 200-day moving average.

• If that long-term trend breaks, the focus shifts from participating in rallies to protecting capital.

The portfolio is also split between broad market exposure and a concentrated growth strategy based on CAN SLIM principles and proprietary position-sizing rules created by Don Vandenbord.

• Individual growth stocks are managed using volatility, beta, and Average True Range metrics, allowing positions to be reduced or stopped out before losses become significant.

Dan explains that the first 4%-5% pullback in the market is often just normal noise.

• However, once declines deepen into the 5%-6% range, leadership stocks frequently begin breaking down first.
• During the recent pullback, many extended growth names were stopped out, giving back some profits but limiting larger losses.
• Meanwhile, the S&P allocation remained more resilient because longer-term trends stayed intact.

The goal is not to maximize returns at all times. The goal is to maximize risk-adjusted returns while avoiding the devastating drawdowns that occur during major corrections and bear markets.

• When markets are trending higher, the strategy seeks to own the strongest sectors and leaders while avoiding weaker areas of the market.
• When conditions deteriorate, risk is reduced systematically rather than emotionally.

One tradeoff of this approach is that it can lag during sharp snapback rallies.

• After charts break, trend-following systems require confirmation before becoming fully invested again.
• That process can take several days as leadership rebuilds and follow-through signals emerge.

The result is a portfolio designed to capture major uptrends while prioritizing capital preservation during periods when downside risk begins to accelerate.

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How ATR Reveals The Best Stock Entry Points

In this educational Short, Don Vandenbord explains why Average True Range (ATR) is one of the most valuable tools for improving stock entries and avoiding costly FOMO trades.

After analyzing roughly 1,000 completed trades at Revere Asset, we found a clear pattern: the farther a stock has already moved off its intraday low before you buy it, the lower your probability of success.

Instead of chasing momentum after a stock has already made a large move, our data shows traders should aim to enter within roughly half an ATR of the day’s low whenever possible. Once a stock has already traveled around three-quarters of its ATR for the day, the odds of an immediate pullback increase sharply.

In our study, those late entries produced only about a 29% win rate and were far more likely to finish the day in the red. The lesson isn’t that strong stocks should be avoided—it’s that entry timing matters just as much as stock selection. Even fundamentally strong leaders can become poor trades if they’re purchased after an extended intraday rally. Better entries improve win rates, first-day performance, and overall trade expectancy.

Today’s leading growth stocks have much wider ATRs than in previous years. Traditional 7–8% stop losses can now represent just one normal day’s movement, making traders more vulnerable to being stopped out during routine pullbacks if they chase entries. That makes both patience and proper position sizing even more important. To adapt, our team is incorporating these findings directly into our trading process:

• Half of the portfolio remains invested in index exposure $SPX $QQQ to capture market rotations, while the other half focuses on leading stocks and sectors.
• Position sizes are adjusted based on volatility so that one highly volatile stock cannot disproportionately impact overall portfolio performance.

The bottom line is this:

• Don’t let FOMO dictate your entries.
• Use ATR to determine whether a stock is extended, wait for higher-probability entry points, size positions according to volatility, and let data drive your trading decisions.
• Better entries won’t guarantee every trade is a winner, but they can significantly improve the odds over hundreds of trades.

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Why Position Sizing Is More Important Than Stock Picking

In this educational Short video, Dan Stewart and Don Vandenbord break down the importance of position sizing and explain how it can have a bigger impact on portfolio performance than picking the right stock.

Most investors spend countless hours searching for the perfect stock, but position sizing often has a far greater impact on long-term returns.

A great stock can still damage a portfolio if the position is too large, while proper risk management can help smooth returns even through volatile markets.

Revere Asset’s proprietary RPRP (Revere Positional Risk Parity) framework sizes every position based on two key metrics: beta and Average True Range (ATR).

Instead of giving every stock the same allocation, more volatile names receive smaller position sizes, while lower-volatility stocks can be held more aggressively. The goal is to equalize portfolio risk, not portfolio weight. This approach also determines how much downside a position can tolerate.

A stock that typically moves 3–4% per day cannot be managed with the same stop distance as a slow-moving stock. Rather than using tight stops that are easily triggered by normal price swings, we prefer wider risk levels combined with smaller position sizes so the total dollar risk remains controlled.

The strategy differs from traditional concentrated investing.

While some investors build 20–25% positions in their highest-conviction ideas (Can Slim followers), we generally limit individual allocations based on volatility and spread capital across 8–12 names while keeping roughly 50% of the portfolio in $SPX. This helps reduce the impact of sector rotation and creates a smoother equity curve.

Risk management doesn’t stop after entering a trade. Highly volatile stocks can produce large gains quickly, but those profits can disappear just as fast. That’s why the strategy also emphasizes selling into strength when positions become extended instead of allowing gains to evaporate during the next bout of volatility.

So, successful investing isn’t just about finding winning stocks. It’s about matching position size to volatility, controlling downside on every trade, and building a portfolio that can survive the market’s inevitable swings while remaining positioned to compound over time.

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The Biggest Mistake Investors Make During Market Selloffs

In this Educational Short, Revere Asset Management’s Senior Portfolio Manager Don Vandenbord explains why protecting your capital during market selloffs is the key to long-term investing success.

One of the biggest mistakes investors make during market selloffs is reacting emotionally instead of following a disciplined process. Successful investing isn’t about predicting every move—it’s about protecting capital when conditions deteriorate so you’re prepared for the next uptrend.

Bull markets often make everyone look like a great investor. When the market is trending higher, broad exposure alone can generate strong returns, creating the illusion of skill. Bear markets are different. They expose whether you actually have a repeatable process for managing risk and preserving capital when prices move against you. While bull markets hide bad investors, bear markets expose them.

A professional investment strategy should account for every market environment: uptrends, sideways markets, and downtrends. Rather than making predictions, experienced investors follow predefined rules that remove emotion from decision-making. For example, earlier this year, we exited positions after the market broke below the 200-day moving average, preparing for a larger decline. That selloff never fully developed, so instead of clinging to a bearish outlook, we simply followed our rules again, re-entering as the market reclaimed the 8-day, 21-day, and 200-day moving averages, along with a classic O’Neil follow-through day. The result was participation in the rally without relying on forecasts. That rally eventually lost momentum as volatility increased in early June. Many AI and growth stocks experienced sharp declines and have become technically oversold. While these stocks may be due for a bounce, the more important question is whether that bounce represents the beginning of a sustainable uptrend or simply a dead cat bounce that offers existing investors a chance to reduce exposure.

In many cases, severely damaged charts require time to repair before becoming attractive long-term opportunities. Instead of aggressively chasing oversold names, investors should focus on preserving capital while waiting for higher-probability setups to emerge.

Don also highlights a common trading mistake: adding aggressive short positions after several consecutive down days. By the third day of a sharp decline, markets are often becoming oversold, increasing the odds of a short-term relief rally. While there are no guarantees, this is typically a poor point to become aggressively bearish. Instead, traders can use the lows established on that third down day as an objective reference point. If those lows hold over the following sessions, the market may begin forming a base, allowing stronger stocks to build the right side of new patterns. The stocks that hold up best during corrections frequently become the next leaders once a new uptrend begins.

The key lesson to learn: don’t let emotions dictate your decisions during selloffs. Protect your capital, stick to your process, and wait for the market to provide confirmation before becoming aggressive again.

The investors who survive difficult markets are the ones best positioned to capitalize on the next major opportunity.

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Why Your Stop Loss Gets Hit Before The Stock Reverses

In this educational Short, Dan Stewart and Don Vandenbord break down the mechanics behind stop-loss hunting, explaining how smart risk management can help traders avoid unnecessary exits.

Many traders assume their stop loss protects them from bigger losses, but placing it at an obvious technical level can actually work against them. Large hedge funds, quant firms, and high-frequency algorithms know where clusters of stop orders typically sit, making those levels prime targets for liquidity before price often reverses.

But remember, risk management always starts with proper position sizing, not stop placement. If you must use hard stops because you can’t monitor the market, place them a few percent beyond key technical levels and avoid predictable round numbers.

At Revere Asset, we prefer using price and volume alerts instead of automatic stop-loss orders, allowing us to evaluate the market before making an exit decision. Here is an example: in late July 2026, $QQQ briefly broke below a widely watched support level at $686 (an obvious area where many traders had likely placed stop losses), triggering stop losses before quickly reclaiming the trading range.

This “stop run” illustrates why obvious support often fails as a stop location.

Dan and Don also explain why we avoid shorting breakdowns, especially after three consecutive down days. Instead, we prefer waiting for a relief rally into declining moving averages, where the odds of a successful short improve. The same logic applies after several strong up days—extended moves are more likely to pause or pull back than continue indefinitely.

No strategy is foolproof, but successful traders improve their odds by avoiding predictable stop placements, staying patient, and focusing on probability rather than reacting emotionally to every breakout or breakdown.

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Protecting Capital Over Chasing Returns: Why Rule-Based Investing Wins In The Long Run

In this Educational Short, Don Vandenbord and Dan Stewart discuss why protecting capital and following strict investing rules consistently outperform chasing maximum returns over the long run.

One of the most valuable lessons in investing is that following rules may feel painful in the moment, but ignoring them can be catastrophic. We love the quote from Christian Flanders: “I’d rather take the pain from following my rules than the pain from not following them.” That mindset was forged through experience. After suffering major losses earlier in his career by abandoning his process, Flanders committed to strict risk management and built his success around discipline rather than emotion.

That philosophy drives our own investment approach at Revere Asset. We acknowledge that our strategy won’t outperform in every market environment, and we’re willing to sacrifice some upside participation if it means protecting capital. Our priority isn’t catching every rally—it’s avoiding devastating drawdowns that permanently impair returns.

Don argues that over a full market cycle, a smoother equity curve consistently beats portfolios that experience massive gains followed by equally massive losses. Limiting downside allows investors to recover more quickly and compound wealth more effectively over time. To illustrate the consequences of abandoning discipline, take a look at the collapse of Leopold Aschenbrenner’s AI-focused hedge fund.

After reportedly receiving significant backing despite having no professional trading experience, he allegedly used roughly 4x leverage to ride the AI boom. The strategy generated enormous gains while markets moved higher, but without disciplined sell rules or downside protection, the reversal proved devastating. When the market turned, leverage magnified losses, forcing an overnight liquidation and fire sale of assets. For us, the lesson isn’t about AI—it is about risk management. A great investment theme cannot compensate for the absence of an exit strategy.

Don also highlights the recent market’s extreme volatility. Following the Fed press conference, $SPX sold off sharply into the close before staging a dramatic overnight gap higher after news of the AI fund collapse broke out. This is “casino-like” price action, and we have no interest in trading unpredictable swings. Instead, we focus on preserving capital until higher-probability opportunities emerge.

That discipline is reflected in our positioning. That week, we reduced exposure to a single-stock position while maintaining a broad S&P 500 ETF allocation and holding substantial cash. The ETF provides diversified market exposure and captures sector rotation without concentrating risk in individual names.

Dan also references research from Bill O’Neil from IBD, showing that leading growth stocks decline an average of 72% from their peaks. That statistic reinforces our belief that growth investing requires active risk management rather than a passive buy-and-hold approach.

Long-term investing isn’t about maximizing gains in every rally. It’s about consistently managing risk, protecting capital during difficult periods, and allowing disciplined decisions to compound over time.

The pain of following your rules is temporary. The pain of ignoring them can be permanent.

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How To Spot A Breakout That’s Working (PLTR vs. NBIS)

Jackson Neidich and Don Vandenbord break down two stocks Nebius (NBIS) and Palantir (PLTR) to show how to spot a high-volume earnings breakout that’s actually working — and recognize when a seemingly strong setup is beginning to fail. Both stocks initially produced powerful HV earnings gaps, but what happened afterward tells two very different stories.

Palantir (PLTR) has been a textbook example of constructive post-earnings action. After its highest-volume gap-up of the past year, the stock pulled back for two days on light volume, allowing its shorter-term moving averages to catch up. It then bounced perfectly off the 8-day EMA on higher volume, followed by a lower-volume inside day and another push higher through the $180 area. Just as importantly, PLTR’s relative strength line continues to make new highs alongside price — exactly the confirmation growth investors want from a genuine market leader.

Nebius (NBIS) initially looked very similar, and arguably had even stronger follow-through during the first few days after its gap. But the character of the trade changed quickly. Instead of digesting the move through a quiet, low-volume consolidation, NBIS sold off for two days on above-average volume and eventually broke its 50-day moving average, triggering a stop.

That contrast highlights an important lesson: the initial earnings gap alone isn’t enough. The best HV setups tend to digest their gains, tighten into a range or flag, pull back on lighter volume, respect key moving averages and then attract renewed volume as they move higher. Heavy selling during the consolidation can be a warning that the original setup is failing.

Palantir also demonstrates how fundamentals can eventually catch up with an expensive valuation. The company has continued delivering stellar earnings growth, helping improve not only the P/E story but also the PEG ratio — valuation relative to earnings growth.

The bigger lesson from PLTR vs. NBIS is about managing positions based on what the market actually does after the catalyst. Two stocks can begin with almost identical high-volume earnings setups and produce completely different outcomes.

Don’t become attached to the original thesis. Watch how the stock digests the move, how volume behaves on down days versus up days, whether key moving averages hold, and whether relative strength confirms the price action. Hold the winners that continue acting correctly, add when they offer low-risk opportunities, and cut the losers when the technical evidence changes.

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