Recently, I’ve noticed that when many people get stuck in long-term positions, they start thinking about making short-term investments to “get back their money.” I can actually understand this mindset. But honestly, short-term investing may look simple; in reality, it places extremely high demands on discipline and reaction speed.

After years of navigating the market, I’ve found that the most core thing in short-term investing is choosing the right target. Many people think that as long as there is a storyline and trading volume, they can operate it however they want. The result is often that they end up trapped badly. In fact, a stock suitable for short-term investing must meet three requirements at the same time: a theme that attracts market attention, sufficiently high trading volume, and clear price volatility.

Why is trading volume so important? Simply put, it’s because you’re afraid you won’t be able to sell after you manage to buy. I’ve seen too many people pick stocks with poor liquidity, only to find that no one is willing to take the other side after they buy—or that their sell orders get hit with a heavy markdown. So before you decide to enter, you must confirm that the stock’s daily trading volume is large enough.

Recently, I’ve been watching several directions. First is AI and semiconductors. This should be the clearest main line of capital in today’s market. Core names like NVIDIA (NVDA) and Super Micro (SMCI) have particularly fast volatility and capital flow, making them very suitable for short-term investing rhythms. Especially around the time before and after earnings are released, these stocks often gap by more than 5% directly. For day traders and short-term traders, opportunities like this are a real gold mine.

Second is high-volatility thematic stocks. These stocks are prone to blowout volume and gapping moves, and the technical signals tend to be relatively clean, but the risks are indeed higher. If you can withstand the volatility and set stop-losses properly, there are actually many short-term investment opportunities here.

Cryptocurrency concept stocks are also worth paying attention to. Stocks like Coinbase (COIN) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) tend to be highly correlated with Bitcoin, and their volatility is usually even larger than that of Bitcoin itself. Whenever there are major regulatory headlines, these stocks often form smooth, one-way trading action—making them very suitable for trading with the trend.

There’s also a category of high-popularity leaders, such as Tesla (TSLA) and Palantir (PLTR). These stocks don’t rise and fall mainly based on fundamentals; instead, they move because of the concentration of retail capital. The advantage is that they have enough liquidity every day, and the reliability of technical signals is relatively higher—making them suitable to support pressure-oriented short-term strategies.

Finally, there are event-driven stocks. Around every earnings report, Oracle (ORCL) sees implied volatility surge—this is the kind of short-term investing opportunity I especially like. Besides earnings, major contract wins and new product launches can also trigger sharp rallies and sudden sell-offs.

When it comes to trading tools, I think the US stock market is indeed the most friendly for short-term investing. With high trading volume, no commissions, and the ability to buy and sell the same stock multiple times within the day, we get greater operational flexibility. If you want to practice short-term investing strategies, you can first use a simulated account to get familiar with the volatility patterns of different stocks, and then use a small amount of capital for real trading.

The most important things for short-term investing are discipline and cost control. Don’t let emotions drive your decisions—stop out when you should, and exit decisively when it’s time to take profits. Only then can you keep making money amid market fluctuations.