By Aiden “ChartGod” Mercer, Founder & Chief Market Technician, Mercer Momentum Research
Author of the premium newsletter Breakout Alpha™
Join 38,000+ traders learning to stop blaming the market.
A number of subscribers have contacted me regarding the 63% decline in ApexNova Technologies following my March 14 “generational breakout” alert.
First, I want to be absolutely clear:
The strategy worked.
What failed was execution.
Many readers appear to have interpreted my instruction to “BUY AGGRESSIVELY ABOVE $84” as a recommendation to buy aggressively above $84.
That is not what experienced traders understood.
The alert was contingent on price remaining above the 20-day EMA, the 50-day SMA maintaining positive curvature, RSI holding between 54 and 71, MACD histogram expansion continuing on the four-hour chart, volume confirming on non-expiration Fridays, and the stock not subsequently falling 63%.
Several subscribers missed one or more of these conditions because they were not included in the original alert.
This is why trading requires discipline.
When ApexNova fell to $76, many subscribers panicked and sold.
Incorrect.
That decline was a textbook liquidity sweep and an opportunity to add exposure near support.
When the stock subsequently broke support at $68, subscribers should have immediately recognized that the liquidity-sweep thesis had been invalidated and sold the shares they had just added.
At $61, bullish RSI divergence produced another high-probability entry.
At $57, the divergence failed.
Again, this was not a losing trade.
It was a sequence of winning setups separated by temporary periods in which they lost money.
The most important signal came at $49, when ApexNova broke below its 200-day moving average on heavy volume. Anyone still holding should obviously have exited and waited for confirmation.
Unfortunately, several subscribers then missed the bounce to $53 because they waited for confirmation.
This was also incorrect.
Advanced traders understand that confirmation frequently occurs after the ideal entry, which is why I entered before confirmation once it became clear afterward that confirmation was coming.
This distinction is covered extensively in my Breakout Alpha PRO+ Mastermind, currently available for $249 per month or $2,388 annually if you prefer losing money at a discount.
I have also received criticism regarding my April 2 livestream, during which I called ApexNova “the cleanest long setup I’ve seen in my four years trading professionally.”
For context, I began trading professionally during sophomore year.
The April 2 call was technically accurate based on information available at the time, provided we exclude the information that became available afterward.
This is known as Retrospective Confirmation Analysis, or RCA.
RCA allows sophisticated traders to determine what the correct trade was after observing which trade would have been correct.
Using RCA, the ideal ApexNova strategy was actually very simple:
Buy at $84. Add at $76. Sell at $68. Re-enter at $61. Exit at $57. Wait for confirmation at $49. Buy before confirmation at $51. Sell the failed breakout at $47. Short the retest at $45. Cover at $39.
Then return to March 14 and disregard my original alert.
Executed properly, this strategy would have produced approximately 41%.
On a Hindsight-Adjusted Alpha basis, ApexNova was therefore one of my strongest calls of the year.
Subscribers wishing to learn the full HAA framework can upgrade to Breakout Alpha ELITE, which includes weekly charts, private Discord access, proprietary indicators, direct Q&A, and priority explanations for why trades that lost money were technically winners.
Going forward, I strongly recommend subscribers follow my signals exactly as intended.
I will explain what that means once we know what happens.
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Past performance displayed selectively. Future results may differ substantially from screenshots.
Nothing in this publication constitutes financial advice. References to “buy,” “sell,” “long,” “short,” “high probability,” “generational opportunity,” “free money,” “can’t miss,” or “literally impossible to lose” are provided solely for educational purposes.
