After the new edition of the IBD comes out each night, I start my stock screening. I get my stocks almost exclusively from the Stocks on the Move column every night. I just copy down the ticker symbols from the stocks above the line on both the NYSE and the NASDAQ. This should also tell you that I don’t look at any over the counter stocks – only NYSE and NASDAQ. I then take those stock symbols and put them in the My Stocks List of investors.com.
I do this because I am looking for one particular type of stock — one that institutional investors are buying. This buying shows up in stocks that have large increases in price on heavy volume.
Once I put the stocks in my list, I then screen them further as follows:
- Volume – I want to see at least 100,000 shares traded daily. You can find the volume number under the price and volume.
- Earnings Per Share % Change (Latest Quarter) – I want stocks over 25%. You can find this under the fundamentals tab.
- Earnings Per Share % Change (Prior Quarter) – I want stocks over 25%.
- Sales % Change (Latest Quarter) – Again stocks over 25%.
- Earnings Per Share Estimated % Change (Current quarter) – Over 25%
- Earnings Per Share Estimated % Change (Current year) – Over 25%
- Composite Rating – Over 70. Under the SmartSelect ratings
- EPS Rating – Over 70
- RS Rating – Over 70
- SMR Rating – A, B, or C
- Accumulation/Distribution Rating – A, B, or C
- Group Relative Strength – A, B, or C
I have recently lowered my stock screening criteria in a couple of areas so that I could look at more stocks on a daily basis. The first is in the Composite, EPS and RS ratings. I will now go to as low as 70. With the other SmartSelect ratings, I also now include stocks with a “C” rating. I did this so that I could look at more stocks on a daily basis. My thinking is that I might be able to catch a stock a little sooner than I could before. I also am looking for stocks with stellar earnings and sales as opposed to stellar ratings.
Once I have the list compiled, I like to sort it by price percentage change to see the best stocks in the stock market today. I then move on to looking at particular buy points or set ups in my stock market investing strategy.
Usually, I then post my watch list on my twitter feed which can be found in the sidebar.