Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard: How to Achieve Super Performance in Stocks in Any Market: How to Achieve Superperformance in Stocks in Any Market

by Mark Minervini

Like all stocks, superperformance stocks go through stages. Over the course of my trading career, I’ve taken a keen interest in studying the cyclical and secular life cycles of stock prices. In particular, in examining the historical price performance of the most powerful market leaders over many market cycles, I could clearly see how they go through various stages. A stock would trade sideways for a while and then move up rapidly. Eventually, the rate of upward momentum would slow and become more erratic as the stock was under distribution and topping out. After a top came the decline. Sometimes, after the decline, the stock returned to a basing stage before eventually making another run upward. The succession of one stage to the next, through all four, could take several years. What I found through my study of the biggest price performers was that virtually every superperformance stock made its big gain while in stage 2 of its price cycle.