Trend Screener Quantitative Analysis Column — Trend Following, from First Principles
An education column that unpacks the principles behind the numbers Trend Screener shows — Relative Strength (RS), the Trend Template, volume, risk management, and the market environment. The essentials of each topic are summarized below; the full articles live in Insights.
Weighted Relative Strength (RS) — reading market leaders by the numbers
Relative Strength (RS) is a quantitative metric that grades, on a 1–99 percentile scale, how strongly a stock is moving relative to the entire market. The Trend Screener RS engine weights the 3-month window at 40%, 1 month at 30%, 6 months at 20% and 1 week at 10%, so the latest momentum counts most. That is why it quickly catches the market leaders that charge out first, right as the market stops falling and turns up. → Reading Market Leaders with Relative Strength (RS)
The Trend Template's 8 criteria — O'Neil and Minervini's standard for leaders
O'Neil's CAN SLIM model advises concentrating buys only on leaders rated RS 80–90 or higher, and Mark Minervini's Trend Template defines a Stage 2 uptrend with 8 criteria. Trend Screener computes exactly these rules and refreshes the strong names that pass all 8 criteria every trading day, after the close, on confirmed daily bars. → Trend Template Explained — Minervini's 8 Trend Criteria · What Is Trend Following
VCP volatility contraction — timing the optimal entry
The Volatility Contraction Pattern (VCP) Minervini proved shows that a strong breakout tends to appear where a correction's amplitude keeps shrinking and volume dries up. Leaders rated RS 90+ tend to hold firm near the 50-day line during market corrections and form VCPs, so the Trend Screener top list doubles as a VCP watch-list. → The VCP Pattern — Finding a Leader's Buy Point · Reading Accumulation Through Volume
Breakouts and pullbacks — one list, two entries
Whether you trade breakouts (buying new highs) or pullbacks, success is decided by which stock you choose to trade. A new-high breakout follows through most reliably in high-RS market leaders, and buying those same leaders when they dip to the 10-, 20-, or 50-day moving average keeps your stop close for an excellent reward-to-risk. Trend Screener supplies the shared starting point for both strategies — the list of the strongest leaders — automatically. → Breakout Trading — Buying New Highs and Pivots · Pullback Trading · Stops, Scaling, and Position Size
→ Browse all Insights · Reading Market Breadth — When to Attack, When to Rest · New here? Start with the User Guide and the Methodology.