Leading stocks but no buy point

Hi Pat! I've been using marketsmith for a while and understand the methodology of focusing on leading groups and stocks. However, I'm late to the trend and the leading stocks, mostly in tech, have been stalling or going up slowly, sometimes whipping, and rarely present a good base/buy point. For someone who missed the uptrend of the current leaders, if the market takes a down turn and brings the leaders down with it, how will other stocks fare and how will you determine the next group of leaders? Also this might be a history question: are there stocks that manage to out-perform others during a bad market and how do you spot them early?