Basically how I go about things.
Have a watchlist and await pullbacks then the breakout.
Also, I'll take oportunistic trades, stocks which are off the radar and have spectacular moves, but that requires doing a little research that it is not a pump and dump and the stock has a high chance of success, eg checking out the quality of the directors, market cap size etc.
Nice...I got Mark Minervini's book "Think and trade like a champion" and am using a elements of his VCP pattern. I have the following scan I run in stockcharts.com. Stocks from that scan that look good will be added to a watch list and will be acted upon if there is a breakout.
// Trend Template
[Close > SMA(50, Close)]
AND [Close > SMA(150, Close)]
AND [Close > SMA(200, Close)]
AND [SMA(50, Close) > SMA(150, Close)]
AND [SMA(150, Close) > SMA(200, Close)]
AND [Close >= [Min(253,Close) + [Min(253,Close) * 0.25]]]
AND [Close >= [ Max(253,Close) - [Max(253,Close) * Max(253,Close) * 0.25]]]
// VCP
AND [adX Line(14) < 30]
AND [ATR(50) > ATR(7)]
AND [SMA(50, Volume) > SMA(7, Volume)]
// Stock Universe
AND [type = stock]
AND [SMA(20, Volume) > 200000]
AND [Close > 5]
and [country is US]
My current holdings include:
VTSI - Entered 2021-9-10 at 9.32
CLR - Entered 2021-9-15 at 42.61
PAG - Entered 2021-9-16 at 95.25
ICL - Entered 2021-9-23 at 7.31
JLL - Entered 2021-10-01 at 257.83
I have had five small losses so far with ATH, CALX, CYRX, SNAP and CVS.