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The Trend Template Strategy considers only stocks that meet all eight trend conditions, such as moving averages in order and distance from the 52-week low. It turns the Trend Template published by Mark Minervini into rules.
He left school and taught himself to trade. He won the 1997 US Investing Championship with a 155% return and became known after appearing in Jack Schwager's Stock Market Wizards (2001).
Building on O'Neil's research, he developed his own method, SEPA (Specific Entry Point Analysis), whose entry conditions are the eight Trend Template criteria. A stock that meets most of the conditions is not a candidate for him. It has to meet all of them.
He wrote Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard (2013), Think & Trade Like a Champion (2017) and Mindset Secrets for Winning (2019), and runs courses and workshops for individual traders.
He sees stocks moving through four stages: Stage 1 basing, Stage 2 advancing, Stage 3 topping and Stage 4 declining. Minervini buys only in Stage 2.
Buy in Stage 1 and you may wait for years; Stage 3 can look like new highs just before it breaks down; buying in Stage 4 is catching a falling stock. The Trend Template is a set of conditions for checking whether a stock is in Stage 2.
Price above the 50-day, the 50-day above the 150-day, and the 150-day above the 200-day. If any is out of order, it is not Stage 2.
The 200-day average should have been rising for at least a month. If the line is flat or falling, the trend is not established yet, even if the price is above it.
At least 30% above the 52-week low and within 25% of the 52-week high.
Only stocks with high relative strength, rising more than the index on the way up and falling less on the way down.
Passing the template is not enough to buy at any time. He waits for pullbacks that get smaller each time, the volatility contraction pattern (VCP), for example pullbacks of 25%, then 15%, 8% and 3%. Near the end of the contraction volume dries up, and he buys when price breaks resistance on a jump in volume.
Minervini sets the stop before buying, usually 5 to 8% below the purchase price, and buys only when the expected gain is at least twice the expected loss. That is how an account can grow even when more than half of the trades are wrong.
This strategy model was independently built by Confluence Zone to quantify the investment philosophy in the works above. It is not an official model created, endorsed or reviewed by Mark Minervini or any related institution. Last reviewed: 2026-09-29
Related terms: Moving Average · Trading Volume
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