I Stopped Guessing When to Buy

Last week I bought NFLX.

That single purchase came after something I’ve been quietly frustrated with for months: I kept building a list of stocks to buy, but when I looked at what was actually on the list, I didn’t recognize half the names. They were cheap for a reason — beaten down, unfamiliar businesses, the kind of companies that show up when a screener filters hard for “undervalued” but doesn’t ask why something is undervalued.

So I hit pause. I rebuilt the Blue list from scratch with a tighter filter on quality — companies I actually understand, businesses with durable competitive positions, names I’d be comfortable holding through a rough quarter. The list is shorter now. But it’s a lot better.

Then I tackled the other thing that’s been nagging at me: I was looking at charts and making gut calls. “It looks like it’s setting up.” “The RSI seems okay.” That’s not a system. That’s hope dressed up as analysis.

So I spent time with Claude this week building four Pine Script v6 backtesting strategies in TradingView. Not to automate my trading — but to answer one question: when has this stock historically rewarded buyers?

Week Ending	This Week	YTD Performance
February 22, 2026	SPY +1.6% / Blue est. +1.2% / Variance -0.4%	Blue ~+4% / SPY +0.8% / Outperforming YTD ✅

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Last Week’s Picks: How Did They Perform?

This section tracks all positions opened in the last 4 weeks for full transparency.

Ticker	Entry Date	Entry Price	Current Price	Gain %	vs SPY (5D)	Grade
TROW	Feb 02	$105.43	$95.38	-9.5%	+0.1%	B
PPG	Feb 02	$116.04	$126.53	+9.0%	-4.7%	D
GNRC	Feb 02	$169.70	$229.19	+35.1%	+0.5%	B
PFE	Feb 02	$26.44	$26.65	-11.1%	-5.0%	D
CDW	Feb 05	$140.93	$124.64	-11.6%	-3.3%	D
SLVM	Feb 09	$50.88	$48.70	-4.3%	-6.8%	F
PPC	Feb 09	$43.06	$41.74	-3.1%	-5.2%	F
MSFT	Feb 09	$411.70	$397.23	-3.5%	-2.4%	C
NVDA	Feb 09	$191.53	$189.82	-0.9%	+2.2%	A
PBH	Feb 09	$65.77	$69.58	+5.8%	+2.6%	A
MFI	Feb 10	$27.19	$27.27	+3.1%	-3.3%	D
META	Feb 11	$666.70	$655.66	-1.7%	+0.9%	B
NFLX	Feb 18	$77.67	$78.67	+1.3%	+0.7%	B

4-Week Performance Summary:

• Hit Rate: 6 of 13 positions beating SPY this week (46%)
• Best Pick: PBH (+5.8% total, beat SPY by +2.6%) and NVDA (+2.2% vs SPY)
• Biggest Laggard: SLVM (-4.3% total, -6.8% vs SPY this week)
• Hidden winner: GNRC — up +35.1% since entry and still holding strong

Grade Key: A = Beat SPY >2% | B = Beat SPY 0-2% or lagged <1% | C = Lagged 1-3% | D = Lagged 3-5% | F = Lagged >5%

Analysis: The week ending Feb 22 was tough for recent entries — SPY climbed +1.6% while several of my picks went in the wrong direction. SLVM, PPC, and PFE were the notable drags. NVDA and PBH were the standouts. CDW continues to be the position I’m watching most closely at -11.6% from my average entry cost.

Positions Closed This Week

None.

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Lessons Learned Last Week

The Blue List Was Selecting for “Cheap” — Not “Quality”

When I ran the screener hard on valuation gates — margin of safety, P/FCF, EV/EBITDA — it naturally surfaced stocks that had fallen the furthest. Stuff trading 30-40% below intrinsic value estimates. Sounds great in theory.

But when I looked at the actual companies, I kept stopping. Names I couldn’t explain. Businesses I didn’t understand well enough to hold through volatility. Small-caps with thin liquidity. Companies I’d never heard of. The screen was doing what I asked it to do — finding cheap stocks — but “cheap” and “worth owning” aren’t the same thing.

The rebuilt list prioritizes names I actually know and trust: businesses with clear competitive moats, long track records, and institutional-quality fundamentals. Some of them have lower margins of safety right now. A few are closer to fair value. But I’d rather own 50 companies I understand at fair value than 50 unknowns at a steep discount.

Takeaway: A quality filter has to come before a valuation filter, not after it. If you can’t explain the business in two sentences, it doesn’t matter how cheap the screener says it is.

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The Big Development This Week: Four Backtested Entry Strategies

Here’s what I actually spent most of my time on this week.

I’ve always had a process for what to buy — the Blue fundamental screens, F-Score gates, margin of safety requirements. What I never had was a rigorous process for when to buy. I was doing what most investors do: looking at a chart, checking if the RSI wasn’t too high, eyeballing whether the price looked “set up.” Useful? Sure. Scientific? Not remotely.

So I built four Pine Script v6 strategies in TradingView — with Claude’s help — each designed to generate entry signals grounded in historical backtests rather than gut feel. I’m not automating my trading. I’m using the strategies as evidence: on this particular stock, this is when entries have historically worked.

Strategy A — ATR Trailing Stoploss
An ATR-based trailing stop that fires an entry signal when price crosses above it. Best for momentum stocks that trend hard and don’t look back: NVDA, META, NFLX, MSFT, GOOGL. The kind of stock where waiting for a dip means waiting forever.

Strategy B — SMA 20/200 + VWAP Crossover
Entry fires when the 20-day SMA crosses above the 200-day SMA and price is above VWAP. Catches regime changes — stocks transitioning from a bearish or flat period back into a genuine uptrend. Better fit for cyclicals, financials, and value names with clear accumulation/distribution cycles.

Strategy C — RSI Pullback + EMA Trend
Confirms an uptrend first (price above EMA 50 above EMA 200), then watches for RSI to dip below 45 and recover. Entry fires on the recovery. Designed for steady growers that pull back 5-15% before resuming their climb — PG, JNJ, ABT, CAT, ZTS.

Strategy D — Bollinger Squeeze Breakout
Detects when Bollinger Band width contracts to a historically tight range (a “squeeze”), then fires an entry when price breaks above the upper band as volatility expands — with price above the 200-day SMA for trend confirmation. Designed for quiet compounders that consolidate sideways for weeks, then step to a new level: ADP, INTU, SPGI, JKHY.

How I’ll Use Them

For each Blue stock, I run all four strategies on the daily chart using maximum historical data — five years minimum where available. Each strategy generates a Strategy Report showing the key metrics: profit factor, win rate, Sharpe ratio, max drawdown, and total trades over the backtest period.

My bar to clear: at least 40 trades over the stock’s history, and a profit factor above 1.0 (made more than it lost). Fewer than 40 trades means the sample is too thin to trust. When multiple strategies qualify, the highest Sharpe ratio wins. When none qualify, I fall back to the old manual 2-of-3 weekly chart check.

The result: instead of squinting at a chart and deciding “looks okay,” I can now look at which strategy has historically produced the best risk-adjusted entries on a given stock, set a TradingView alert, and wait. When the alert fires, I spend five minutes on a quick check — volume profile for accumulation patterns, a news scan for any landmines, a quick fundamentals sanity check — and then execute.

It won’t be perfect. Backtests never are. But it’s a repeatable, improvable process instead of a judgment call.

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This Week’s Buy Plan

Next Steps Before the Next Buy

I’m not rushing to deploy this week. The priority is running the rebuilt Blue list through the strategy backtests — assigning each stock its best-fit strategy (A, B, C, or D) and setting alerts. Once those alerts are live, buying becomes reactive rather than scheduled: something qualifies, the alert fires, I verify, I buy.

The Technology sector remains my biggest gap at -12.4% below target. That’s where new capital will go first when the next signal fires.

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This Week’s Market Context

Week of February 23-28, 2026

SPY finished the week up +1.6% (using VFV as a proxy). The broader market continues to digest competing signals — AI-driven momentum in select mega-cap tech remains strong, while value and defensive names have been choppier. NVDA bounced back +3.8% on the week; CDW and SLVM moved the wrong way.

For the Blue Portfolio, this is a reasonable environment to stay patient and let the strategy alerts do the work. Chasing this week’s momentum names rarely ends well.

What Would Make Me Pause All Buying

• SPY breaks below its 20-week SMA on heavy volume
• VIX spikes above 25 (wait for stabilization)
• A strategy alert fires but the pre-buy news check reveals anything material

Otherwise, the plan is to finish strategy assignments and be ready to execute on the first clean signal.

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Blue Portfolio Performance Dashboard

Overall Performance

Period	Blue Portfolio	SPY	Variance	Status
This Week (est.)	~+1.2%	+1.6%	-0.4%	Slight lag
YTD	~+4.0%	+0.8%	~+3.2%	✅ Outperforming
Since Inception	+22.6%	+38.83%	-16.2%	Closing

Note: Portfolio-level weekly return is estimated. YTD outperformance reflects strong performance from legacy holdings (GNRC +68%, LMT +36%, CNQ +25%, MO +17%) offsetting recent underperforming adds.

Sector Allocation vs S&P 500 (Individual Stocks)

Sector	Current %	Target %	Gap	Status
Technology	16.6%	29%	-12.4%	🔴 Critical underweight
Financial Services	8.6%	13%	-4.4%	🟡 Underweight
Healthcare	13.1%	12%	+1.1%	✅ On target
Consumer Cyclical	6.8%	10%	-3.2%	🟡 Underweight
Communication Services	14.2%	8%	+6.2%	🟡 Overweight
Industrials	11.4%	9%	+2.4%	✅ Close enough
Consumer Defensive	10.1%	6%	+4.1%	🟡 Overweight
Energy	3.1%	4%	-0.9%	✅ Close
Basic Materials	9.0%	2%	+7.0%	🟡 Significantly overweight
Real Estate	2.4%	2%	+0.4%	✅ On target
Utilities	0.0%	2%	-2.0%	✅ Minor gap

Overall Allocation:

• Individual Stocks: 58.4%
• ETFs (Passive): 41.6%
• Target: 60/30/10 (Stocks/ETFs/Cash)

Key Insight: The Technology gap (-12.4%) is the single biggest structural issue in the portfolio right now. Basic Materials is also significantly overweight at +7.0% above target — mostly driven by a very strong legacy position in Kinross Gold (K.TO, up +617% since purchase). That’s a good problem, but it creates imbalance. No rush to sell a winner, but new capital will not go to Basic Materials until the sector rebalances naturally.

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Next Week’s Focus

Primary goal: Finish strategy assignments across the rebuilt Blue list.

This is the unglamorous but important work — running each quality stock through the four backtests, recording which strategy fits best, and setting the TradingView alerts. Once complete, the entry timing question is largely answered. The system does the watching; I do the 5-minute pre-buy verification.

Sectors to prioritize for new positions:

1. Technology (most underweight at -12.4% — looking for Strategy A candidates: momentum names in strong trends)
2. Financial Services (underweight at -4.4% — likely Strategy B candidates: regime-change value names)
3. Consumer Cyclical (underweight at -3.2%)

Stocks on watch: Completing the Blue list backtest pass this week — specific tickers will be named once strategy assignments are confirmed and alerts are set.

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