Guide
Minervini's Trend Template, Criterion by Criterion
Mark Minervini's Trend Template is a checklist of eight technical conditions published in Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard. Its purpose is narrow and worth stating plainly: it is not a buy signal, and it does not tell you a stock will go up. It is a filter designed to eliminate the large majority of stocks that are not in a confirmed uptrend, so that a trader's limited attention goes only to names that are already behaving well.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Most technical indicators try to predict a turn. The Trend Template does the opposite: it waits for evidence that a trend already exists and is intact, then asks whether the stock is positioned in a way that historically preceded further advances. It is a screening discipline, not a crystal ball.
The eight criteria
- Price above the 150-day and 200-day moving averages
- 150-day average above the 200-day average
- 200-day average trending up
- 50-day average above both the 150-day and 200-day
- Price above the 50-day average
- Price at least 30% above its 52-week low
- Price within 25% of its 52-week high
- Relative Strength Rating of 70 or better
Why moving averages carry so much weight
Five of the eight criteria involve moving averages. A moving average is simply the average closing price over some number of past sessions — the 200-day average is the mean close of the last 200 trading days, recalculated daily. On its own that is unremarkable. The arrangement of several averages is what carries information, because each one summarizes the cost basis of a different group of buyers.
Think of it this way: a trader who bought roughly 50 sessions ago is, on average, sitting near the 50-day line. A long-term holder who accumulated over the last year is nearer the 200-day. When price sits above all of these lines and the shorter averages sit above the longer ones, it means, in aggregate, that nearly everyone who has bought the stock over multiple time horizons is holding a gain. Stocks in that condition tend to face less overhead supply — fewer trapped holders waiting to sell into strength just to break even.
The reverse is also true, and it is the more useful insight. When price is below its long-term averages, every rally runs into people who bought higher and want out. That is the structural reason trend-followers avoid these names, and it is what the Trend Template is really screening against.
01 Price is above both the 150-day and 200-day moving averages
The most basic long-term trend filter. If a stock trades below its own long-term average price, it is by definition in a downtrend on that horizon, whatever the recent daily action looks like.
What it screens out: stocks in structural decline, and stocks attempting a bottom that has not yet been confirmed. Minervini's philosophy explicitly avoids trying to catch bottoms.
02 The 150-day average is above the 200-day average
This confirms the intermediate trend agrees with the long-term one. The medium-horizon cost basis sitting above the long-horizon cost basis means the more recent buyers paid more — demand has been increasing over time rather than fading.
What it screens out: stocks where a long-term uptrend has begun to roll over but price has not yet fallen through the 200-day line.
03 The 200-day average is itself trending upward
A stock can be above a declining 200-day average during a sharp bounce in an otherwise broken chart. This criterion requires the long-term average to be rising — typically measured over at least the past month. This screen compares the 200-day average now against its level roughly one month ago.
What it screens out: bear-market rallies and dead-cat bounces, which frequently satisfy criterion 1 briefly but fail here.
04 The 50-day average is above both the 150-day and 200-day averages
This is the "proper order" condition. When the short-term average leads the intermediate, which leads the long-term, the moving averages are stacked in the sequence that characterizes a healthy, established advance.
What it screens out: choppy, directionless stocks where the averages are tangled together with no clear hierarchy — often a sign of accumulation that has not resolved, or distribution in progress.
05 Price is above the 50-day average
The near-term confirmation. A stock can satisfy the four longer-horizon criteria while currently pulling back hard. Requiring price above the 50-day means the stock is not in the middle of a meaningful short-term correction.
What it screens out: names in an otherwise fine uptrend that are currently correcting. Note that this is the criterion most likely to flip on and off week to week — it is also the one a trader watching for pullback entries might deliberately want to see unmet.
06 Price is at least 30% above its 52-week low
A stock that has only just lifted off its lows has not yet proven sustained demand. The 30% threshold is a rough proxy for "this recovery has real participation behind it, not just a bounce."
What it screens out: early-stage recoveries that have not proven themselves. This deliberately means you will miss some of the very best entries in a turnaround. Minervini's approach accepts giving up the first leg in exchange for a much higher hit rate.
07 Price is within 25% of its 52-week high
Perhaps the most counterintuitive rule for newer traders: this framework wants stocks near their highs, not stocks that look "cheap" after a fall. A stock making new highs has no overhead supply at all — nobody who owns it is underwater.
What it screens out: broken leaders. A stock 40% off its high may eventually recover, but it has to work through every level where trapped buyers want to exit.
08 Relative Strength Rating of 70 or higher
Relative strength here means performance versus other stocks, not the RSI oscillator that shares a similar name. The rating places a stock's trailing price performance in a percentile from 1 to 99 against a comparison universe. A rating of 70 means it has outperformed roughly 70% of the field.
What it screens out: stocks that technically satisfy every moving-average condition but are simply drifting sideways while the rest of the market advances. Trend without relative strength is often dead money.
What a partial score actually tells you
Because the eight criteria are not equally strict, a stock scoring 6 or 7 out of 8 is often more informative than a binary pass or fail. Which criteria are unmet matters enormously:
| Unmet criterion | Common interpretation |
|---|---|
| Price below 50-day average (5) | Often a stock in an intact uptrend that is simply pulling back. Some traders specifically hunt for this. |
| Within 25% of 52-week high (7) | The stock has corrected meaningfully. Trend may still be intact but the leadership case is weakening. |
| RS Rating below 70 (8) | Technically trending but lagging the market. Often a late-stage or defensive name. |
| 200-day not rising (3) | More serious. Suggests the long-term trend may be flattening or turning. |
| Price below 150/200-day (1) | Most serious. The core premise of the framework is not satisfied. |
This is exactly why our screen shows the full checklist rather than a single pass/fail badge. Open any stock's detail view and you will see all eight criteria with the specific ones it met and missed.
How this screen implements it
Our implementation follows the eight criteria as published, with two documented accommodations. The Relative Strength Rating is an approximation, percentile-ranked within the scanned universe rather than the entire market. The "200-day trending up" test compares the current 200-day average against its value roughly one month earlier.
Both are noted wherever the data appears, and neither is presented as equivalent to the proprietary calculations used by commercial data providers. The methodology page covers them in full, along with every other known limitation.