SEPA — The Art of Entering at the Right Moment

Identifying the right stock is only half the problem. Buying it at the wrong moment — too early, before the move is confirmed, or too late, when the risk-reward has deteriorated — destroys most of the advantage the selection process created. Mark Minervini's SEPA system is about solving the timing problem with as much rigour as the selection problem.

Why This Matters

Mark Minervini won the US Investing Championship twice, compounding at extraordinary rates over multi-year periods. His edge was not simply finding great stocks — it was entering them at specific moments that offered the highest probability of gain relative to the risk of loss. His framework, SEPA (Specific Entry Point Analysis), is built on a central insight: the best stocks spend most of their time in one of two states. They are either trending strongly upward, or they are consolidating — building a "base" of price tightness before the next move up. The highest-probability entry points — what Minervini calls "pivot points" or "breakout entries" — occur when a stock emerges from a well-formed base on increased volume.