Fade

To fade a move is to trade against it: shorting a vertical spike or buying a panic flush on the bet that the move is overextended and will snap back toward a mean, often VWAP. The fade trader is selling to the chasers and buying from the panickers.

Faders lean on measurable extension, not opinion. A stock stretched 8-10% above VWAP on decelerating volume is a candidate; a stock up 8% on accelerating volume with a fresh catalyst is not. The strategy's failure mode is stubbornness: fading a real trend turns one planned loss into an averaged-down disaster.