The earlier lessons set out what to look for and how to act. This one turns them into a routine you can repeat every week in a few hours. A fixed routine matters because most mistakes in growth investing are not errors of knowledge. They come from skipping a step: buying without checking the market, forgetting an earnings date or moving a stop. The routine has five steps, three of them done at the weekend, when markets are closed and decisions can be made calmly.
Step 1: the market and the groups
Start with the state of the market (lesson 4). Is the index above a rising 50-day average? Have heavy-volume down days clustered recently? Is participation broad or narrowing? Has a correction produced a confirmation day? Write down one of the four states and the exposure it allows, for example "confirmed uptrend: up to full exposure" or "correction: no new buys".
Then rank industry groups and sectors by relative strength over one, three and six months. Note the groups at the top and any that are rising fast from lower ranks. These are where you will look first.
Step 2: screen
Screening narrows several thousand stocks to a manageable list. Combine a few sources rather than relying on one:
- A leader screen: an uptrend, an RS rating of 80 or more, a price within about 15–25% of the 52-week high and enough liquidity.
- RS signals: stocks whose RS lines have just made new highs, especially during a market pullback (lesson 2).
- Earnings winners: the past week's reports with strong growth and a held gap up on heavy volume (lesson 3).
- Unusual volume: stocks that closed higher on several times their average volume, which can reveal fresh institutional demand.
Step 3: watchlist and plans
For each name that survives the screens, run the checks a screen cannot: read the latest quarter and its acceleration, check margins and guidance, look at the base and its pivot, confirm the group, and note the next earnings date. Keep the watchlist to roughly 20–50 stocks; a longer list cannot be followed properly.
From the watchlist, pick a focus list of three to eight stocks that are close to a buy point, and write a plan for each before the week begins. A plan is short and specific:
| Item | Example (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| Setup | Seven-week flat base, 12% deep, in a top-ranked group |
| Entry | Close above the $64.20 pivot on volume at least 1.4× average; buy zone up to $67.40 |
| Stop | $59.50, about 7% below the planned entry |
| Size | Risk 0.75% of the account: shares = risk ÷ (entry − stop) |
| Earnings | In 23 trading days; review the position before the report |
| Invalidation | A close back inside the base, or the market losing its uptrend |
Writing the plan in advance moves the hard decisions to a calm moment. During the week, you only check whether the conditions are met.
Step 4: execute
On trading days, the routine is short. Before the open, check the market's state and any news on the focus list. Set price alerts at each pivot. When a stock triggers, confirm the conditions, volume included, and act only if the plan is met; if it is extended beyond the buy zone, let it go. After the close, update stops and trailing levels, note heavy-volume moves against your positions, and add any new candidate to next weekend's list rather than buying it on impulse.
Execution also means doing nothing when the plan says so. In a correction, the right number of new trades is often zero.
Step 5: review
Close the week by recording every trade: the setup, the entry, the stop, the exit, the result in R (the gain or loss divided by the initial risk), and whether each rule was followed. Classify mistakes: a bad entry, a moved stop, a missed earnings date, a buy in a weak market. Once a month, add up the results: the share of winners, the average winning and losing R, and the expectancy. If the numbers point to a weakness, change one rule at a time and test it on past data before trading it; the Learn article on backtesting explains the method and its biases.
How to apply it
- Weekend, about two hours: market state and exposure; group ranking; screens; checks on new candidates; watchlist update; written plans for the focus list.
- Each trading day, 15–30 minutes: market check before the open; act on triggered plans only; update stops after the close.
- Entry: only from the focus list, only at the planned buy point, only in a market that allows it.
- Stop: entered with the order, as written in the plan.
- Target and exit: the selling rules of lesson 6, checked every evening.
- Invalidation: a plan whose conditions change, such as a failed base, a weaker market or a near earnings date, is rewritten or dropped at the weekend.
Common mistakes
- Screening without a market check. Good lists in a bad market produce failed breakouts.
- A watchlist too long to follow. Fifty names watched loosely help less than eight watched closely.
- Buying stocks that were never on the plan. Impulse trades skip every check.
- Skipping the review. Without records, the same mistake repeats.
- Changing several rules at once. You will not know which change helped.
In Clear Tape
Each step maps to a part of the dashboard:
- Market and groups: the sector heatmap and the fear and greed score on the Today page are free; Tools and Pro add market breadth and the morning brief, and Pro adds the sector map.
- Screen: the screener (Tools and Pro) applies Clear Tape's rules after every close, with an option to show near misses. In Clear Cut, the Discover lists offer Unusual volume (US operating companies at $1 or more with at least $500K average daily dollar volume, trading at least 2.5 times their 50-day average volume; only stocks that closed up can be picked), Profit turnarounds and Improving & undervalued: 3 picks a day on each list on the Free plan, 15 on Tools and Pro.
- Watchlist: in Clear Cut, swipe a card right to add it to your watchlist, left to pass, or up to follow it closely with price alerts (Tools and Pro); the Free plan reviews 10 cards a day. Under "How your picks did", Clear Cut shows how each stock moved 1 and 5 sessions after you added it. The watchlist on trading systems holds 50 stocks and can be imported from or exported to TradingView as a .txt file.
- Plans and execution: on the Free plan you can set up to five systems from the presets, such as RS New High, Leader Trend Filter, Volume Base Breakout and Volume Pivot. Tools and Pro screen your watchlist with them after every close and draw each signal's entry and stop on the chart.
- Earnings: the free calendar filters earnings dates to your watchlist.
- Review: Tools and Pro backtest your systems on years of daily prices and report R and expectancy; on Pro, the AI coach can help you refine a system.
See pricing for what each plan includes.
Summary
A weekly routine turns this course into practice: read the market and the groups, screen for leaders, check and plan a short focus list at the weekend, execute only what the plans allow during the week, and review every trade in R. The rules from the earlier lessons supply the content; the routine makes sure they are applied every time, which is where most of the edge in growth investing comes from.
For educational purposes only. Not investment advice.