If you’d invested $10,000 in a single position, which is roughly what many Australians might allocate within a typical $100,000 super balance and put it into Zip Co and Technology One just last month, with a simple 10% stop loss to manage your risk, you could have turned that into more than $130,000 in under a month.
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That’s not a typo. It’s more than the average Australian annual salary earned in a matter of weeks, and if you’re thinking that’s just hindsight, here’s the key point. Zip Co and Technology One didn’t just randomly spike. They set up in the same way, same pattern, same opportunity and right now, there are plenty of stocks lining up with that exact same setup.
Sharp selloffs, panic, headlines and then a snap back. We saw it again with Mineral Resources back in April 2025. Around the $20 mark, the same pattern showed up. A $10,000 position with disciplined risk could have turned into over $200,000 within six months. Not bad, but this isn’t about cherry-picking winners; it’s about understanding the environment we’re in.
Since COVID, market volatility hasn’t just increased; it’s structurally changed. Measures like the S&P/ASX 200 VIX have shown repeated spikes well above long-term averages, reflecting faster reactions to macro news, interest rate shifts, and geopolitical events. What used to take months now happens in days, and that compression in time is everything because it means fear-driven selloffs are sharper and the rebounds even sharper.
For traders who understand it, this is a dream environment. One clean setup can genuinely equal a year’s income, but only if you know what you’re looking for.
There’s also been a structural shift in participation. Since 2020, retail trading activity has surged globally, with millions of new investors entering the market through low-cost platforms. Broker data and exchange reports across markets have consistently shown elevated account openings and trading volumes compared to pre-COVID levels. More participants mean more emotion, which equates to more volatility and more opportunity.
However, when we turn on the news, everything feels uncertain, and it sounds like the world is falling apart. Yet the market keeps pushing toward all-time highs. That disconnect confuses people, but it shouldn’t because markets don’t move on headlines. They move on positioning, liquidity, and expectation, which is why in the current environment, the edge isn’t in predicting the world, it’s in focusing on companies.
If volatility is creating these exaggerated selloffs and quality companies are being dragged down by macro noise, are you looking at the next opportunity? The same setup that created moves in Zip, Technology One and Mineral Resources is forming again.
The difference this time is that most people won’t act on it because, in the moment, it feels uncertain and risky, but that’s exactly what opportunity looks like if you have the knowledge and skill to take advantage of it.
This market isn’t going back to how it was anytime soon. Volatility is higher, moves are faster, and opportunities are bigger. But with the right approach, even a relatively small amount of capital can yield massive results.
Good luck and good trading.
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Dale Gillham is Chief Analyst at Wealth Within and an international bestselling author of How to Beat the Managed Funds by 20%. He is also the author of Accelerate Your Wealth—It’s Your Money, Your Choice, which is available in bookstores and online at www.wealthwithin.com.au.