At AbleWayTech.com, we’re exploring robust trading methodologies to help our community understand market dynamics. One standout method we’ve studied in our Owl Bundle User Group (OBUG) is the Godzilla strategy, based on Dr. Ken Long’s techniques. The EdgeRater tool allows us to scan and backtest the Godzilla strategy.
The motivation behind Godzilla is simple: find the movers—symbols most likely to make sharp, outsized moves. While most stocks churn quietly, Godzilla is designed to isolate those rare moments of imbalance when institutions are forced to act, creating powerful short-term opportunities.
What Is the Godzilla Strategy?
Godzilla is a Critical State filter, not a trend-following system. Its role is to detect temporary imbalances in market flows—precisely when a symbol is poised for a sudden, outsized move.
On EdgeRater’s Critical States Template, Godzilla highlights potential “movers”—symbols ready to explode in either direction. The filter evaluates a symbol’s price location relative to its 150-day, 30-day, and 10-day lookbacks (L150, L30, L10) and overlays volatility Z-scores (Z5 and Z1) to spot abnormal extremes.
The most compelling setup occurs when all three lookbacks are deeply depressed while volatility Z-scores show stress. This combination signals potential capitulation, often caused by institutional selling at lows. Historically, these conditions precede snapback moves as shorts cover and opportunistic buyers step in.
Finding Godzilla Candidates: Why Symbol Selection Matters
Godzilla isn’t a broad-market tool. Its edge is symbol-specific and depends heavily on liquidity and institutional participation.
Godzilla aligns best with symbols that have the following characteristics:
High institutional flow: Symbols like ASML, MSFT, BKNG that react strongly to institutional buying and selling.
Volatility elasticity: Stocks such as BABA and TMO that display sharp rebounds when stretched.
Avoidance of illiquids/microcaps: These often lack the dynamics for Godzilla to work effectively.
At OBUG, we run EdgeRater’s Multifactor analysis on large, liquid universes (like CBOE Weekly Equities) and narrow to symbols that show consistent performance under Godzilla’s conditions before subjecting them to deeper backtesting.
Swing Trading with Godzilla: 5-Day holds
To confirm the “Find the Movers” narrative on a curated list of symbols, we ran a 15 year back test on the Godzilla rules - Long entry and hold for 5 days showing a 67% win rate, Avg P&L per trade of 1.77%, with a max drawdown of 13.5%. This approach produced smooth, stair-stepped equity curves, low drawdowns, and strong risk-adjusted returns. It aligns with the structural truth of Godzilla: snapbacks are short-lived.
Intraday Godzilla: Precision Is Key
Godzilla can also be applied intraday (long at next day’s open, exit at close). Our backtests revealed two key findings:
Full List Intraday = Noisy: Running Godzilla intraday across all symbols produced weak expectancy and profit factors.
Curated Sublist Intraday = Effective: Applying it only to high-persistence movers (e.g., AAPL, BABA, MSFT, TMO) yielded strong results with just 10.1% Max Drawdown.
This curated intraday sleeve complements the 5-day swing strategy, smoothing overall equity performance.
The Bottom Line for AbleWayTech Traders
The Godzilla strategy is built to find the movers—symbols primed for sharp, outsized moves.
✅ Symbol- and timeframe-specific — not universal.
✅ 5-day hold = best balance of return vs. risk, ideal core sleeve.
✅ Intraday Godzilla = effective only with carefully curated lists of persistent movers.
✅ Curated symbol lists must be refreshed monthly or quarterly to keep pace with evolving market conditions.
As always, all strategies discussed in OBUG and AbleWayTech are for educational purposes only. Trading involves risk, and past results do not guarantee future performance.
Want to Find More Movers?
Join the AbleWayTech Owl Bundle User Group (OBUG) and see how we combine Dr. Ken Long’s methodology with EdgeRater backtesting to identify high-probability trading setups like Godzilla—and refine them into actionable strategies.