Spot on on the timing being important. I don't think you need to fine-tune it that much; short and hold until the pop happens. If you hold off for a the pop could happen at an indefinite time; maybe very far from now, then I think that invalidates the individual prediction.

One frustrating aspect of investing is that confident information is tough to come by. It's my take that if you have any (I personally rarely do), you should act on it. So, when someone claims confidently (e.g. with adjectives that imply confidence) that something's going to happen, then that's better than the default.

I don't have the insight the claimer does; my thought is: "I am jealous. I with I could be that confident about a stock's trajectory. I would act on it."