Now the routine. Seven questions, same order every time, about eight minutes per stock. The order matters. It is arranged so that the cheapest disqualifying answers come first.
1. Can I get out? (30 seconds)
Look at the volume pane. Is this stock trading meaningfully every day, or in bursts with dead patches?
ZEME applies a floor of 10,000 shares average daily volume on every scan, and a position rule of never more than 10% of daily traded value. Below the floor, stop here, nothing else matters if you cannot exit.
2. Where is the 52-week high? (1 minute)
Set the range to one year and find the highest point. Price is above it, at it, or below it. That single reading places the stock in a measured row:
- Above it → 1.91× / 1.29×, the strongest classic signal
- More than 50% below it → 1.74× / 1.26×, the second strongest
- 10-25% below it → 0.79× / 0.82×, the worst band on the board
Note how the middle is the bad place. This is the U-shape from What Makes a Stock Move 20%.
3. Is it moving? (1 minute)
Check three things at once: is price outside the upper Bollinger band, is RSI high, is it above its 20-day average?
If all three say quiet, the measured odds of a 20% move in the next month are below average, however good the story is. Calm stocks touched +20% in 9.2% of cases against 29.0% for volatile ones.
4. Did volume confirm it? (1 minute)
If there is a breakout, look at the volume bar on the breakout day against its neighbours. 2× or more is the 1.63× row. Below normal is the 1.13× row.
This is the single highest-value 60 seconds in the routine. It is what separated 786's February entry (3.62×, +187%) from its March entry (1.11×, −54%).
5. Where has it already been? (2 minutes)
Look left. How much has this stock already moved, and from what base?
This is the question the 786 case was built to teach. Both entries were valid signals. The second was 2.6× more expensive with the same ceiling overhead.
6. What is the market doing? (1 minute)
Open Market DNA. When we split M10's hits from its misses across 10 years, the entry features were nearly identical. The separating variable was the market, not the stock.
7. Where is my exit, and is the order placed? (1 minute)
Decide the target and the stop before entering. Then place the sell order.
ZEME's own live picks show a median peak of +5.03% against a median close of −0.13%. The move happens and is given back. A resting order is the only thing that converts a touch into a return.
If you skip six of these seven, skip everything except number seven. It is the one that separates a recorded gain from a story about a stock that was up once.
Do this now, practical activity
Run the full routine on three stocks from today's signals. Write one line per question, 21 lines total. Time yourself.
What you should notice by the third stock: the routine gets faster and the answers get sharper. You are building the habit of placing a chart into a measured category before forming an opinion about the company. That order, measurement first, opinion second, is the entire method.
Measured: this routine is built from readings that survived walk-forward on 67,098 observations. Step 4 alone separates a 1.63× setup from a 1.13× one, and step 7 addresses a measured gap of 5.16 percentage points between the median peak and median close of ZEME's own live picks.