If what you are looking for are short term profits then you need to look at the volatility of your favorite coins and pick the one that shows the highest level of volatility you can find.
And this can be done by using some of the indicators which have been created for this express purpose, however it is important to mention that doing such a thing will increase the risk you are incurring in a dramatic way and you should find a way to counter this tendency, since if you were to fail at achieving this goal the volatility could end up playing against you.
You are right, be for choosing any coin and expert short term reaction in market then it must be a highly volatile and risky of the coin you want to go for, and most times, this method is mostly favorable for those who just want to gamble with altcoin and will only choose those coin that can easily be pumped and dumped, so one need to be actively smart enough to be able to take out the profits, regardless of how much uptrend direction the team promised investors.
But still on still we have to limit our level of involvement and how much we risk on such coins since we are just speculating the short term ability and don't take it long term risk and potentials into account.