Plain-English definitions of every term, signal, and framework that appears in Jumpstart Signal reports — from basic concepts to the methodology behind our scores. New to investing? Start at the top. Already familiar? Use search or jump to a section.
What you see in every daily report — signal tiers, output buckets, and how to read the score.
Our highest-confidence signal, assigned to stocks that score strongly across quality fundamentals, trend alignment, and active entry timing — all three must clear their respective thresholds simultaneously.
SPOTLIGHT stocks had a 93.5% positive return rate and a median 315% gain over 7 years in our 14-year backtest — making them long-term conviction holds worth watching even when the near-term setup is early.
An actionable signal assigned when a stock clears both a quality threshold and an active entry timing threshold — meaning fundamentals and timing are aligned.
The entry requirement filters out stocks with strong quality but poor timing, so OPPORTUNITY signals represent a genuine buy setup rather than just a high-quality company.
A watchlist flag for stocks that meet quality criteria but haven't yet hit the threshold for an actionable entry.
MONITOR stocks are candidates in progress — worth tracking so you can plan ahead when one graduates to OPPORTUNITY. Our screener keeps them visible precisely for this purpose.
One of two output groups in every daily report, containing stocks priced between $5 and $19.99. These are typically smaller-cap companies with higher return potential and higher volatility.
The $5–$20 range delivered positive returns 76% of the time over 7-year holding periods in our backtest, with a median return of +479%. Higher risk, higher potential reward — sized accordingly.
The second output group in every daily report, containing stocks priced between $20 and $100. These tend to be more established companies with confirmed long-term uptrends.
More recognisable names with stronger institutional ownership — better suited for investors who want growth potential alongside the stability of a larger, more widely followed company.
Every stock in our reports shows its overall score split into four labelled components: Q (Quality), E (Entry), S (Sentiment), and B (Sector Bonus).
The breakdown tells you exactly why a stock made the list — a high Q score means the business itself is performing well; a high E score means the timing setup is clean. You can judge the mix yourself rather than trusting a single number.
The four parts that add up to a stock's combined score out of 100.
The largest component (up to 60), awarded for fundamental and structural health: profitability (ROE), balance sheet strength (low debt), earnings growth, revenue momentum, trend consistency, and drawdown quality.
Quality accounts for 60% of the maximum score because our 14-year backtest confirms fundamental signals are the strongest long-term predictors. A high Q score means the underlying business is genuinely performing well.
Points (0–20) for timing signals that indicate a good moment to buy: a rising VWAP slope, a golden cross, with score deductions applied for bearish signals like a death cross or bearish moving average crossover.
A great company bought at the wrong time can underperform for years. Entry score ensures we're flagging stocks where momentum is just starting to build — not already fully extended or turning down.
Points (0–10) derived from AI-analysed news coverage, using Perplexity AI to scan up to five recent articles per ticker and classify them as bullish, neutral, or bearish. Strong positive coverage earns more; negative coverage earns less.
Fundamental strength doesn't protect against near-term catalysts like SEC investigations, earnings misses, or management issues. Sentiment scoring means our screener catches these automatically before flagging a stock as actionable.
A flat +10 point bonus for companies in technology, biotech, or quantum computing — identified by SEC industry code and keyword matching against company descriptions.
These sectors produced the strongest long-term alpha in our 14-year backtest. The bonus reflects structural tailwinds beyond individual company quality and can tip a borderline stock over the OPPORTUNITY threshold.
Chart-based signals derived from price and volume data — the backbone of trend analysis.
The average percentage distance between a stock's daily high and low price, measured over recent sessions. A stock whose daily high is $22 and low is $20 has a 10% ADR on that day.
Stocks that barely move each day cannot generate meaningful returns. Our Stage 1 filter requires ADR above 2%, removing flat, illiquid, or dormant stocks before any further analysis is applied.
When a stock's price moves decisively above a defined trading range where it has consolidated sideways for an extended period — the "base". The prior consolidation absorbs selling pressure before the next potential advance.
Breakouts from well-formed bases can mark the start of the next price leg, particularly when accompanied by expanding volume. Our screener detects this and displays it in detailed ticker analysis.
A volume spike greater than 1.5× the recent daily average that occurs on the same day as a price breakout above a key resistance level, indicating unusual buying activity at the breakout point.
High volume on a breakout suggests genuine institutional participation rather than a thin, easily reversible move. Our screener tracks this and displays it in ticker output.
A momentum oscillator measuring cumulative buying or selling pressure by combining where each day's close falls within its high-low range with that day's volume. Positive CMF means consistently closing near highs on heavy volume; negative means closing near lows.
Sustained positive CMF is a sign of institutional accumulation; persistent negative CMF signals distribution. Our screener tracks CMF over multiple weeks and shows it in ticker output.
When a faster-moving average (such as SMA20) crosses below a slower one (such as SMA50), signalling that short-term momentum has shifted downward relative to the longer-term trend.
A death cross warns that a stock's trend may be deteriorating. Our screener applies a scoring penalty when this pattern appears, reducing the chance of flagging a stock that is turning down.
A moving average that weights recent prices more heavily than older ones, making it respond faster to new price data than a simple moving average of the same length. "EMA21" is the exponential average of the past 21 trading days.
EMA21 and EMA50 are core Stage 2 filters — a stock must trade above both to confirm it is in an active short-to-medium-term uptrend. Failing either EMA check removes the stock from further scoring.
The specific day-of event when EMA21 crosses above EMA50, marking a transition from a bearish to a bullish EMA relationship. Distinct from the persistent EMA uptrend signal, which simply reflects the ongoing state of EMA21 being above EMA50.
The crossover event identifies the precise moment short-term momentum shifts direction — the transition itself, not just the ongoing state. Our screener detects this and shows it in ticker output.
A composite quality measure based on the "Frog-in-the-Pan" academic research concept, where a stock that advances gradually (like a frog in slowly heating water) tends to be more sustainable than one that spikes sharply. It scores smooth momentum — how consistently and quietly a stock has trended upward — rewarding steady advances over sharp, erratic moves.
Smooth price action is a hallmark of institutional accumulation. Stocks with strong FIP scores tend to continue trending; erratic spikes often reverse sharply. FIP is one of the signals most predictive of 7-year returns in our backtest.
When a faster-moving average (such as SMA20) crosses above a slower one (such as SMA50), indicating that short-term momentum has shifted upward and is outpacing the longer-term trend.
A golden cross confirms that buyers are stepping in with conviction at a meaningful timeframe. Our screener awards entry score points for this pattern as it suggests momentum is just beginning to build.
A price structure where each successive pullback settles at a higher price than the one before — the floor of support gradually rises over time, forming an ascending series of troughs.
Higher lows are the structural definition of an uptrend: buyers are defending the stock at progressively higher levels. Our screener detects the number of such swings and displays the result in ticker output.
A bullish alignment where the current price is above the SMA50, which is above the SMA150, which is above the SMA200 — all moving averages are nested in ascending order from longest to shortest timeframe.
A full stack means the stock is trending upward across every major timeframe simultaneously. It is one of the Minervini trend template criteria and earns quality score points in our pipeline because it rarely occurs in declining stocks.
A momentum indicator built from the difference between a stock's 12-day and 26-day exponential moving averages, plotted against a 9-day "signal line". A bullish MACD is above zero and above its signal line.
MACD measures whether short-term buying momentum is accelerating or fading. Our screener uses MACD as part of a VWAP confluence check — when both MACD is bullish and price is above VWAP, the entry case is materially stronger.
A short 1–3 week pullback in an uptrending stock that reverses off a key support level with above-average volume confirmation — coined by Gil Morales and Chris Kacher as an early-entry technique before a full base breakout forms.
Pocket pivots can offer lower-risk entries earlier in a new advance than waiting for a textbook base breakout. Our screener detects them (recording the volume ratio and days ago) and shows them in ticker output.
Two related signals tracking when a stock's price crosses back above its 50-day moving average: "fresh" fires within 1–2 trading days of the cross; "recent" fires 2–3 days after. Both mark the specific point where price has just reclaimed the key 50-day level from below.
Reclaiming SMA50 can mark the beginning of a new upleg after a correction. Both variants are shown in ticker output.
A 0–100 momentum oscillator measuring the speed and size of recent price changes over a 14-day window. Readings above 70 are traditionally considered "overbought"; below 30 are "oversold".
We use RSI as a hard filter: any stock with RSI above 70 is excluded at Stage 2 as it carries higher reversal risk. Conversely, a stock recovering from RSI below 30 earns entry score points as a potential momentum reversal signal.
An RSI reading that pulls back into the 40–50 zone during an established uptrend and then bounces back upward — the stock cools briefly without falling into oversold territory, then resumes its trend.
In strong uptrends RSI often stays above 50, only dipping briefly before recovering — this pattern can offer a lower-risk entry within an intact trend rather than chasing the stock at an extended reading. Our screener tracks this and shows it in ticker output.
When RSI recovers from below 30 (oversold territory) back above 40, signalling that the extreme selling pressure driving the stock to oversold levels may be exhausting itself and momentum is turning back upward.
A classic mean-reversion entry setup in theory — but our backtests showed inconsistent results across test periods. The signal fires equally at genuine capitulation bottoms and at stocks in structural decline, making it unreliable on its own. It is tracked and shown in ticker output.
The plain average of a stock's closing prices over the last N trading days, recalculated fresh each day. "SMA50" is the average of the last 50 closes; "SMA200" is the average of the last 200.
SMA50, SMA150, and SMA200 are the trend backbone of our Stage 2 filters — a stock must be trading above all three to advance through our pipeline, confirming an uptrend at short, medium, and long timeframes simultaneously.
The 50-day simple moving average's slope is positive — the average itself is rising day over day, not just that price is trading above it. A flat or declining SMA50 that price sits above is not the same as an actively rising one.
A rising SMA50 confirms that medium-term trend momentum is upward, not just that the stock is bouncing from a low base. Our screener uses this as a Stage 3 exclusion filter: stocks with a declining SMA50 are removed from scoring entirely, regardless of their other signals.
The 200-day simple moving average has been trending upward for 21 or more consecutive trading days, confirming a sustained long-term uptrend rather than just a short-term recovery bouncing against a flat or declining average.
A rising SMA200 is one of the Minervini trend template requirements. Our screener uses it as a hard Stage 3 filter alongside the SMA50 slope check — stocks failing this check do not advance to scoring, as the long-term trend structure is a prerequisite for meaningful signal analysis.
Two signals tracked: one fires when price is significantly extended above EMA21, the other when significantly above EMA50. "Significantly" means beyond a defined percentage threshold — price is not just above the average but meaningfully stretched away from it.
Being far above a moving average can indicate either powerful momentum or dangerous overextension ahead of mean reversion. Both are shown in ticker output.
The coefficient of determination from fitting a linear regression line to a stock's recent closing prices. An R² of 1.0 means price moved in a perfectly straight line over the period; 0.0 means the movement was indistinguishable from random noise.
High R² indicates smooth, institutional-looking appreciation rather than erratic volatility. Our screener calculates this and shows the value in ticker output.
A chart pattern where a stock's price oscillations narrow progressively over several weeks — each pullback is smaller than the last and volume fades — forming a tight, coiling consolidation that can precede a breakout.
VCP is a technique popularised by Mark Minervini. Contracting volatility can indicate that weak holders have exited and a patient buyer is quietly accumulating at progressively higher lows. Our screener detects VCP (measuring the number of contractions) and shows the result in ticker output.
A pattern where volume on up-days consistently and substantially exceeds volume on down-days over a recent period, indicating buyers are more aggressive than sellers even when price moves modestly.
Persistent up-volume dominance is a classic sign of institutional accumulation before a price advance. Our screener tracks this and shows it in ticker output.
A sustained decline in trading volume during a price consolidation or pullback — sellers become progressively less active, suggesting available supply is being absorbed at current price levels.
Low-volume pullbacks suggest the correction is technical (a normal pause) rather than a change in fundamentals or sentiment. In context of a VCP or base pattern, a volume dry-up before a breakout is a classic setup signal. Our screener detects this and shows the dry-up ratio in ticker output.
The average price a stock has traded at over a period, weighted by how many shares changed hands at each price level — so high-volume price levels pull the average more than thin-volume ones. JumpStartSignal uses a 20-day rolling VWAP for swing and position trading, not the intraday VWAP that resets to zero each morning (used in day trading).
Institutions use VWAP as a benchmark for their orders; price consistently above it signals buyers are in control. The VWAP Bullish quality signal fires when a stock's price is above its 20-day rolling VWAP, confirming sustained accumulation. In combination with a MACD bullish crossover it forms our VWAP+MACD Confluence entry signal, one of the highest-weighted timing triggers in the pipeline.
Company financial health measures drawn from SEC EDGAR filings — the foundation of quality scoring.
Total liabilities divided by shareholders' equity — measuring how much a company relies on borrowed money versus its own capital. A ratio of 0.5 means $0.50 of debt for every $1 of equity.
High debt amplifies losses during downturns and limits strategic flexibility. A D/E below 1.0 earns quality points because balance sheet strength is one of the most durable predictors of long-term performance across market cycles.
The total monetary value of shares traded on a given day: share price multiplied by total shares traded. A $15 stock that trades 1 million shares has $15M in dollar volume.
Dollar volume is a more reliable liquidity measure than raw share count alone. Our Stage 1 filter requires $5M+ daily dollar volume to ensure you can realistically enter and exit positions without your own order moving the market against you.
The percentage fall from a stock's recent peak to its subsequent trough. A stock that rises to $100 and then drops to $75 has a 25% drawdown from that peak.
Stocks with smaller drawdowns tend to show smoother, more sustainable uptrends driven by real institutional buying rather than speculative momentum. Low drawdown earns quality points in our scoring as a signal of trend health.
Year-over-year percentage increase in a company's net profit divided by its shares outstanding. If a company earned $1 per share last year and $1.30 this year, EPS growth is 30%.
Growing earnings are ultimately what drive stock prices over years. Our screener targets 20%+ EPS growth as a signal of an accelerating business — companies that consistently grow earnings tend to continue doing so and tend to reward shareholders.
The total market value of a company's outstanding shares: current share price multiplied by total shares outstanding. A company with a $50 stock price and 10 million shares has a $500M market cap.
We require a minimum $300M market cap to ensure every screened stock has sufficient analyst coverage, institutional ownership, and the data quality our pipeline relies on. Very small companies often lack the stable fundamentals needed for reliable scoring.
A comparison of a stock's return to the S&P 500 (SPY index) over the same period. An RS above 1.0 means the stock has outperformed the broader market. An RS of 1.2 means 20% outperformance.
Stocks outperforming the market tend to keep outperforming it. RS above 1.0 is a hard Stage 2 requirement — we only include stocks that are genuinely leading the market, not just being lifted by a broad bull trend.
Year-over-year percentage increase in a company's total sales. If a company reported $100M in revenue last year and $118M this year, that is 18% revenue growth.
Revenue growth shows that demand for a company's products or services is actually expanding — not just that management is cutting costs to improve margins. Our screener targets 15%+ as a signal of genuine business momentum.
Net income divided by shareholders' equity — measuring how much profit a company generates from each dollar of equity invested. An ROE of 20% means 20 cents of profit per dollar of equity.
High ROE identifies capital-efficient businesses that compound shareholder value over time. ROE above 15% earns quality points; stocks with persistently strong ROE significantly outperformed low-ROE peers across all 7-year periods in our 14-year backtest.
The highest and lowest closing prices a stock has traded at over the past 52 weeks (approximately one year), used as reference points for gauging where the current price sits in its trend.
Our Minervini filters require a stock to be within 25% of its 52-week high (not in a prolonged decline) and 30%+ above its 52-week low (in a genuine uptrend). Being near the 52-week high also earns quality points directly — stocks making new highs tend to keep making new highs.
How we narrow ~11,000 US-listed stocks down to a handful of candidates each day.
The automatic exclusion of companies in sectors that conflict with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) or Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) principles, applied using SEC-assigned industry codes and keyword matching.
Our screener systematically removes fossil fuels, tobacco, weapons, gambling, alcohol, mining, banking, and predatory lending from the entire universe before a single technical or fundamental filter runs — so no company in an excluded sector ever appears in our reports.
The five standard data points in a daily price bar: Open (first trade of the day), High (highest price reached), Low (lowest price reached), Close (last trade), and Volume (total shares traded).
Every technical indicator our pipeline calculates — RSI, VWAP, all moving averages, drawdown, and trend filters — is derived from OHLCV data. It is the fundamental data layer that makes all price-based analysis possible.
A corporate action where a company reduces its share count by merging shares — for example, 10 existing shares become 1 new share at 10× the price. Total market value stays the same; it just repackages the shares.
Reverse splits are almost exclusively done by companies in financial distress trying to avoid being delisted from an exchange for having too low a share price. Our Stage 1B filter automatically excludes any stock with a reverse split in the past 90 days.
A four-digit code assigned by the SEC that classifies every US public company into an industry category. For example, 3674 = Semiconductors; 1311 = Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas Exploration.
SIC codes are how we apply systematic ESG filtering at scale. Rather than manually reviewing thousands of tickers, we use SIC code ranges to instantly identify and remove entire excluded industries from our ~11,000-stock universe every single day.
The analytical methodologies and investing frameworks that underpin our signal scoring and validation.
Running a screening strategy against historical price and fundamental data to measure what returns it would have produced. Our backtest covers US stocks from 2012 to 2025 using Stooq EOD price data and SEC EDGAR filings.
Without backtesting, signal weights are guesswork. Every signal weight and threshold in our pipeline was derived from empirical evidence across 14 years of data — not from theory, convention, or popularity.
A regularised regression technique that finds optimal signal weights while penalising correlated or redundant inputs, using date-grouped cross-validation to prevent time-period data leakage between training and test windows.
Elastic Net ensures we don't award points to two signals that are really measuring the same underlying factor. It is one of three required validation tests — providing multivariate context that single-signal methods like walk-forward analysis cannot give.
A set of eight criteria developed by US Investing Champion Mark Minervini to identify stocks in confirmed Stage 2 uptrends: trading above multiple moving averages, proper SMA alignment, proximity to the 52-week high, and positive relative strength against the market.
We apply a version of this template as our Stage 2 long-term filter set. It is one of the most empirically validated frameworks in growth stock investing and defines the minimum trend quality required before a stock can earn a signal in our reports.
An algorithm that selects a set of signals collectively maximising predictive information about future returns while minimising redundancy between the selected signals. It ranks signals by their unique contribution, not just raw predictive power.
Even after walk-forward and Elastic Net analysis, signals can overlap in subtle ways. mRMR is our final redundancy check — it prevents the scoring system from over-rewarding a single underlying factor expressed through multiple different indicator names.
A statistical measure from information theory that quantifies how much knowing one variable reduces uncertainty about another. Unlike correlation, it captures non-linear and complex relationships — not just straight-line dependencies.
Some signals predict returns through patterns that linear models cannot detect at all. We use MI to rank every screening signal by standalone predictive power against future stock returns — it is one of three independent tests a signal must pass before earning permanent scoring weight in our pipeline.
A model validation technique where a strategy is repeatedly tested on out-of-sample data it was never trained on — stepping forward through time period by period — to check whether it holds up consistently rather than just fitting historical noise. This is the standard rigorous alternative to simple backtesting.
A signal that worked brilliantly in one bull market but failed everywhere else is worthless. We apply walk-forward analysis across 11 non-overlapping periods from our 14-year dataset — any signal failing a 40% consistency floor is removed, regardless of how impressive its overall average looks.
Stan Weinstein's framework for classifying any stock into one of four stages based on its moving average position: Stage 1 (basing), Stage 2 (advancing), Stage 3 (topping), Stage 4 (declining).
We screen exclusively for Stage 2 stocks — those in confirmed uptrends above rising moving averages — which provides the best risk/reward profile. Our Stage 2 pipeline filters align directly with Weinstein's advancing stage criteria and overlap strongly with the Minervini template.
Last updated: February 2026 · Full methodology →
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