Learn
Read the market with one simple method
Stage analysis tells a rising stock from a falling one at a glance, and keeps you on the right side of the trend. These short lessons teach it in plain English, with real US stock charts, and show you where to use each idea on this site.
The course
8 lessons, in order, from the basics to your own evening routine. About an hour, start to finish.
- Stage analysis: the four stages every stock goes throughHow to spot each stage in minutes, and why only one is worth buying.
- The 30-week average: the one line that mattersWhy 30 weeks, and the two-glance habit that turns one line into a decision.
- Read the market first: how many stocks are really risingWhy the S&P 500 isn't the market, and how to check what most stocks are really doing.
- Follow the money: how sector rotation worksStocks rise in groups: find the sectors money is moving into before you pick a stock.
- Pick the leaders: relative strengthWhy stocks beating the market tend to keep beating it, and when that isn't true.
- The entry: breakouts, pullbacks and volumeThe two ways to buy a Stage 2 stock, and how volume tells you whether to trust them.
- The exit: when to sell a stockStage 3 warning signs, where the stop goes, and why you never wait out Stage 4.
- Your 10-minute evening routineThe whole method as a ten-minute check after the close, every evening.
Case studies from real US market history
The method, tested on the markets and stocks that made headlines, with the numbers read straight from our records.
- Two crashes, two recoveries: what breadth saidThe 2020 and 2025 crashes through breadth: how the turn showed up, and why the recoveries differed.
- 2021: the bear market that started under a record highThe S&P 500 set records while the typical stock fell. How breadth showed the bear the index hid.
- Peloton 2021–24: the Stage 4 that kept looking cheapA failed base, a failed breakout, and why 'cheap' kept getting cheaper: a Stage 4 case study.
- Nvidia 2023–25: one leader, the whole methodStage 2 in a weak market, a sevenfold advance, and the top: every lesson on one stock.
Explainers
Short, practical guides to the tools and ideas you will use most.
- How to find Stage 2 stocksFrom hundreds of Stage 2 stocks to the few worth buying, in a step-by-step screen.
- The RRG chart, explainedAxes, quadrants and trails: how to read a relative rotation graph, with today's US sectors.
- Minervini's Trend Template and stage analysis: how they fitHow Minervini's Trend Template and VCP relate to Weinstein's stages, and how to use both.
The whole idea, in one picture
Every stock is always in one of four stages. Tap a stage to see what it means. The numbers are today's US market.
Stage 2 — Advancing
Today: 29% of US stocks (928)Price breaks out of the base on a surge of volume and the average turns up. Higher highs and higher lows: buyers are in control.
- Price
- Above a rising average
- 30-week average
- Rising
- Volume
- Expands on up-legs, fades on pullbacks
Buy. This is where to own stocks: the breakout, or the first pullbacks toward the average. Our screener hunts here.
Built on real data, not opinions
After every close we give every US stock with enough history a stage. Here is the share in Stage 2, week by week since 2018, through the late-2018 selloff, the 2020 Covid crash, the 2022 bear market and the 2025 tariff selloff.
Where it comes from, and where to look things up
See it used every day
The Market Journal applies the method to the US market after every close.
- Oct 30, 2026Breadth retreats as technology takes the hitYesterday's participation surge reversed, while energy held steady and fresh setups stayed scarce.
- Oct 30, 2026Breadth improved. Advancing trends kept shrinking.Friday damaged the recovery, but the deeper problem remains the loss of established Stage 2 trends.
- Oct 29, 2026Breadth breaks higher while Stage 2 keeps shrinkingMore stocks regained their averages despite an index decline. Health care deserves a closer look.
See it in today's market
The methods on this page, run across the US market after every close.