Tuesday's Prospects

On Friday, May 24:

Of 2,309 stocks and exchange-traded funds in this week's analytical universe, 39 that are traded on the major American stock exchanges broke beyond their 20-day price channels, six to the upside and 33 to the downside.

In addition, six that are traded over the counter broke out, all to the downside.

The ratio of bull to bear signals is 1:6.5, suggesting a bearish bias to the market.

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.

None of the major-exchange symbols or over-the-counter symbols survived my initial screening, a first since I adopted this method of analysis. The failures were all due to either less-than-even odds of success in the direction of the signal, or insufficiently high adjusted yields.

The four major-exchange symbols that had sufficient odds but failed on the yield adjustment are PG to the upside, and GME, TTA and HTA to the downside.