You will really never know when the coins will start to pump or dump , as if anyone knows, that's how trading works. Manipulation is part of the game on some altcoins that why you need to play the game to make profit. In most of the scenarios, when bitcoin price is surging, some altcoins experiencing a downtrend, some are not. The situation varies from time to time and the reasons why they are experiencing pump or dump have different reasons on which some of them, we doesn't know why.

You must learn to analyzed the current situation so that you can make a plan on what things should you do. Actually you can improved your trading skills just by building experienced. No need for so much hard study in order to understand trading knowledge. Some of the idea were automatically adopted by your mind.