Mark Minervini: The Trend Template, Checked

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · Published 2026-09-25

Mark Minervini is best known for one idea: buy stocks that are already in a strong uptrend, at a precise moment, with a small loss limit. This page covers the first half of that idea, the trend test, in the form he published it, and then runs it on real prices so the rules can be seen at work.

How it works

His own site is the source for the biography. A 2017 profile on his blog says he bought his first stock in 1983 and was shaped by Richard Love’s book Superperformance Stocks. It says he founded Quantech Research Group, an institutional research firm, in 1993, and it names his method SEPA, short for Specific Entry Point Analysis.

The books are Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard, Think and Trade Like a Champion and Mindset Secrets for Winning, all three listed on his Minervini Private Access “About Mark” page, read on 25 Sep 2026.

That page also says he won the U.S. Investing Championship in 1997 and in 2021. The return figures quoted alongside those wins are left out here, because this page could not check them against the championship’s own records.

The trend test comes first in his process. A blog post of 23 Apr 2019, “First Things First”, reprints the criteria from Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard; this page reads the archived copy, as it stood on 25 Sep 2026.

Its argument is that a good-looking base means little inside a long-term downtrend, so the first job is to confirm the longer trend is up, which he calls stage 2. Only then does the timing of a purchase matter.

The same post draws the line bluntly: he goes long in stage 2 uptrends and short in stage 4 downtrends, and a stock whose long-term trend is not up does not qualify at all. The Trend Template is how he defines stage 2 on a chart.

The eight conditions

The post lists eight conditions for a confirmed stage 2 uptrend. In plain terms, the first five are about the moving averages:

1. The price is above both the 150-day and the 200-day moving average.
2. The 150-day average is above the 200-day average.
3. The 200-day average has been rising for at least one month, and preferably four to five months.
4. The 50-day average is above both the 150-day and the 200-day.
5. The price is above the 50-day average.

The last three are about the yearly range and a ranking:

6. The price is at least 30% above its 52-week low.
7. The price is within 25% of its 52-week high, and closer is better.
8. The relative strength ranking reported by Investor’s Business Daily is 70 or higher.

Conditions 1 to 5 describe a stack. Price on top, then the 50-day, the 150-day and the 200-day, with the slowest one pointing up. Conditions 6 and 7 place the price in the upper part of its yearly range. The 200-day moving average does the most work in the list, appearing in four of the eight lines.

Condition 8 needs a ranking this site cannot reproduce. The IBD ranking is a proprietary score published by Investor’s Business Daily, so the checks below cover the seven price conditions only. The relative strength page explains the simpler price ratio behind the idea.

A worked example

Take XLK, the Technology Select Sector SPDR fund, at its close on 24 Sep 2026: $194.71. From Yahoo Finance’s daily closes, its 50-day average was $184.10, its 150-day average $169.87 and its 200-day average $163.44. Twenty-one trading days earlier, used here as one month, the 200-day average was $158.73.

Now run the seven checks in order. Price $194.71 is above $169.87 and $163.44, so check 1 passes. $169.87 is above $163.44, check 2. $163.44 is above $158.73, so the 200-day is rising, check 3. $184.10 is above both slower averages, check 4, and $194.71 is above $184.10, check 5.

The range checks use the last 252 daily closes as the year. The lowest was $127.50, and 30% above it is $127.50 times 1.30, or $165.75; the price clears that, sitting 52.7% above the low.

The highest close was $198.21, and 75% of it is $148.66; the price is 1.8% below that high, well inside the 25% limit. All seven checks pass.

Compare XLU, the Utilities Select Sector SPDR, on the same day. It closed at $39.36, which was also its lowest close of the 252 days, 17.5% below its high of $47.73. It passed only checks 2 and 7, and a fund sitting on its yearly low is exactly what the template is built to screen out.

The original data

The data: daily closes for the 11 Select Sector SPDR funds from 3 Jun 2024 to 24 Sep 2026, 580 trading days each, downloaded from Yahoo Finance on 25 Sep 2026 and published as a CSV of sector fund closes.

The closes are adjusted for splits and leave out distributions. The seven price checks were run on each fund at its last close.

Only 2 of the 11 passed all seven: XLE (energy) and XLK (technology). XLV (health care) passed six and missed only the 30% rule, sitting 26.6% above its low. XLY (consumer discretionary) passed one, the 25% rule, and XLU passed two. XLB, XLF, XLI, XLP and XLRE passed four each, and XLC three. XLB, XLI, XLP and XLRE each missed checks 1, 5 and 6, XLF missed 2, 5 and 6, XLC missed 2, 3, 4 and 6, XLU missed 1 and 3 to 6, and XLY missed 1 to 6.

Counted check by check, the 25% rule was the easiest, passed by all 11. Checks 2, 3 and 4, the order and slope of the averages, each passed 8. Price above the 150-day and 200-day passed 5, and price above the 50-day only 4.

The 30% rule was the hardest, with 2 passes. The template was written for individual stocks, and a fund holding dozens of them averages its biggest movers in with its slowest. On this day, a fund that passed was the exception, not the norm.

Interest in the name runs ahead of interest in the rules. In the 24,971-video corpus this site studies, 12 titles from 8 channels name Minervini, at a median of 27,015.5 views, and 7 of the 12 passed 20,000 views. A video listed twice in the corpus counts once.

The most watched, at 555,056 views, is about the strategy said to have won the championship. One title, at 15,248 views, is about building the Trend Template as a screen.

What the template leaves out

It says nothing about when to buy. The template qualifies a stock; the purchase comes from a separate step, usually a tight base such as the volatility contraction pattern his name is attached to.

It says nothing about earnings. The same blog ran a three-part series on judging earnings quality, so his method does not stop at price, and William O’Neil’s CAN SLIM is a separate checklist built around earnings growth and market leadership. The template is the price part only.

And it says nothing about how much to buy. A stock can pass all eight conditions and still fall, so position sizing and a planned exit are what decide the cost of being wrong.

When it fails

The first failure is treating a pass as a buy signal. A stock that passes is in an uptrend by definition, often after a long run. XLK passed while 1.8% from its yearly high, which says the trend is up, not that the next month will be.

The second is whipsaw around the averages. A stock hovering near its 50-day average can pass on Monday and fail on Wednesday. Checks 1 and 5 sit right on that line, and a filter run once a day will flip names in and out.

A third is a template that lags. Moving averages describe the past. The 200-day average keeps rising for weeks after a top, so checks 2, 3 and 4 can still pass while the price has already started to fall.

A fourth is the missing condition. Without the IBD ranking, a stock can pass seven of eight and still be lagging the market. Anyone running the checks without a relative strength measure is running a looser test than the one published.

And a fifth is dropping the rest of the method. The template rules out downtrends; it does not supply the loss limit, and the stop loss is what keeps a failed uptrend small.

Related

The volatility contraction pattern page shows the base Minervini looks for once a stock passes. CAN SLIM is O’Neil’s checklist, which covers the earnings side the template leaves out. And the 200-day moving average page tests the average that anchors four of the eight conditions.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.