Thursday's Prospects

On Wednesday, June 12:

Of 2,320 stocks and exchange-traded funds in this week's analytical universe, 91 that are traded on the major American stock exchanges broke beyond their 20-day price channels, seven to the upside and 84 to the downside.

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

Within my analytical universe, 4.2% of symbols gave bull or bear signals, up from 2.5% the prior trading day.

The ratio of bull to bear signals is 1:13, compared to 1:6 the prior trading day, a strengthening bearish bias.

Seven of the major-exchange symbols survived my initial screening, four having broken out to the upside and three to the downside. The upside symbols are GBCI, PTNR, SCSS and SEP. The downside symbols are CCJ, MCP and NFX.

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 Thursday, June 13.

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 whatever their open interest or sufficient volume to allow for the short sale of shares.

My cut-off point for bullish bias is a ratio of bull to bear signals of 2:1 or greater, and for bearish bias, 1:2 or smaller, rounded to the nearest whole number.