Friday's Prospects

On Thursday, May 30:

Of 2,309 stocks and exchange-traded funds in this week's analytical universe, 54 that are traded on the major American stock exchanges broke beyond their 20-day price channels, 24 to the upside and 30 to the downside.

In addition, eight that are traded over the counter broke out, two to the upside and six to the downside.

Within my analytical universe, 2.7% of symbols gave bull or bear signals, down from 5.4% the prior trading day.

The ratio of bull to bear signals is 1:1.4, compared to 1:11.5 the prior trading day, suggesting a neutral bias to the market's day. My cut-off point for bullish bias is 2:1 or greater, and for bearish bias, 1:2 or smaller.

Ten of the major-exchange symbols survived my initial screening, nine having broken out to the upside and one to the downside. The upside breakouts are CFN, CLWR, CNO, INFA, JNPR, LG, LPL, LPNT and LXRX. The downside breakout is CPHD.

None of the over-the-counter symbols survived my initial screening.

I'll do further analysis on the survivors that confirm their signals by trading beyond their breakout levels on Friday, May 31.

The symbols I'm analyzing are mid- and large-cap stocks having analyst coverage, as well as selected exchange-traded funds. I screened them for

• the odds of a successful trades in the direction of the breakout since the present uptrend began on the S&P 500 weekly chart, on Oct. 4, 2011,
• a yield adjusted by those odds of 5% or greater,
• and absence of an earnings announcement within the next 30 days. 

For bear signals, I also screened to ensure the ability to do a trade, either because of the presence of options or sufficient liquidity to allow for short sale.