Reference

Glossary

Definitions for every term used in this screen's rankings and detail views, written for someone encountering them for the first time. Terms are grouped by category rather than alphabetically, since related concepts are easier to learn together.

Trend and moving averages

Moving average (50-day, 150-day, 200-day)

The average closing price over a set number of past trading sessions, recalculated each day. The 50-day average reflects roughly the last two and a half months of trading; the 200-day roughly the last ten months. Their main use is as a smoothed reference for trend direction, and their relative arrangement is what trend frameworks focus on.

Trend Template

Mark Minervini's eight-condition technical checklist for identifying stocks in a confirmed uptrend. Explained in full in our Trend Template guide. On this site each stock displays how many of the eight it currently satisfies.

52-week high / 52-week low

The highest and lowest prices over the trailing year. A stock's position between these two levels is a quick read on where it sits in its own recent history — the detail view shows this as a visual range bar.

Overhead supply

Shares held by investors who bought at higher prices and are underwater. As price rallies back toward their entry, some sell to break even, creating resistance. This is the underlying reason trend frameworks prefer stocks near highs: a stock at a new high has almost no overhead supply.

Momentum and relative strength

Relative Strength (RS) Rating

A 1–99 percentile ranking of a stock's trailing price performance against a comparison group. A rating of 90 means it outperformed about 90% of the group. Not the same as RSI, a separate oscillator with a confusingly similar name. On this site, RS is calculated within the scanned universe only — see the methodology page.

ADR (Average Daily Range)

The average distance between a session's high and low over the past 20 sessions, expressed as a percentage of price. A practical volatility measure: a 2% ADR stock and an 8% ADR stock require completely different position sizes and stop distances for the same dollar risk.

Relative volume

Current trading volume compared to the stock's own recent average. A relative volume of 3.0 means roughly three times normal activity. Used as a proxy for whether a price move reflects genuine participation or thin drift.

Breakout

A move above a well-defined prior resistance level — often a recent high or the top of a consolidation range. Breakout traders treat the move above that level, particularly on heavy volume, as evidence that supply at that price has been absorbed.

Consolidation / base

A period where a stock trades sideways in a relatively narrow range after an advance. Interpreted as a pause during which ownership transfers from short-term traders to longer-term holders. A "tight" base — narrow range, declining volume — is generally considered healthier than a wide, erratic one.

Episodic pivot

A large gap up on very heavy volume, typically triggered by a specific catalyst such as an earnings surprise. The term is associated with the trader known as Qullamaggie. Note that our screen detects the price-and-volume signature but has no earnings calendar, so it cannot confirm the catalyst — a limitation documented on the methodology page.

Fundamentals and valuation

EPS (Earnings Per Share)

Net profit divided by shares outstanding — profit attributable to each share. Growth in EPS, particularly year over year, is the central fundamental measure in the CANSLIM framework.

P/E ratio (Price-to-Earnings)

Share price divided by earnings per share; how many dollars the market pays per dollar of annual profit. Meaningful only in comparison — against the company's own history, its industry, or its growth rate. Trailing P/E uses the last twelve months of actual earnings.

PEG ratio

P/E divided by expected earnings growth rate. An attempt to make P/E comparable across companies growing at different speeds; a high P/E may be reasonable if growth is fast. Values near or below 1 are conventionally read as reasonable relative to growth, though this rule of thumb is cruder than it is often treated.

Profit margin

Net income as a percentage of revenue — how much of each dollar of sales becomes profit. Useful mainly within an industry: software margins and grocery margins are not comparable.

Debt-to-equity

Total debt relative to shareholder equity; a leverage measure. Higher leverage amplifies both returns and losses, and increases vulnerability during downturns or rising-rate environments. Acceptable levels vary enormously by industry.

Institutional ownership

The percentage of shares held by funds, pensions, and similar large investors. CANSLIM treats meaningful and increasing sponsorship as a demand signal, on the reasoning that large advances require large buyers.

Screen-specific terms

Composite score

This site's own ranking number, combining Trend Template compliance with framework-specific signals. Trend Template compliance is the primary sort key; the composite score breaks ties within the same trend count. It is internal to this screen and not comparable to any external rating.

Qualifies

Whether a stock fully clears the Trend Template threshold. Because the screen always shows a fixed number of names, stocks that do not fully qualify still appear — flagged accordingly — as the closest available candidates. On a weak market day, an entire list may consist of non-qualifying names, which is itself information.

Market status

A simplified read of general market direction based on the S&P 500 ETF's position relative to its own 50-day and 200-day averages. Corresponds to the M in CANSLIM.