John V.'s  Instablog

This weeks results from my Super Stock Screener.  Screening is an excellent starting point for finding winning stocks.

My thoughts:  Wow, my last post about being cautious was clearly way too conservative as the market basically crashed this week.  I should have pounded the table for people to get out, but at this point if you haven't sold by now then you're either a "long-term investor" or you missed the window of opportunity for doing so (for the moment).  The market did bounce some on Friday, so going forward if you do still own stocks then you may have to see how things play out this week at the least.  The best scenario would have been that you used stop-loss orders and got sold out before the drop (like me) and are now in cash patiently waiting for the next opportunity to arise.

The best thing to come out of this awful week is that it is now easier than ever to use the Super Stock Screener to find new opportunities.  The number of names on the screening list has been dramatically reduced, and despite the market crash there are still several attractive-looking names on the list.

Last week on the July 31st screen there were 37 stocks, and now that number has been pruned down to 21 stocks, what a drop!  However, these 21 are probably the best out there as they continue to meet the requirements of the screen, which means they are still relatively close to their 52-week highs and also have the best earnings and sales fundamentals as well.  I'm sure one of these stocks will (eventually) be the next market winner so if you keep a watch list then many of these names should be on it.

Amazingly there were actually 3 stocks new to the screen this week which is surprising due to the amount of selling.  One of the new ones is Apple Computer (NASDAQ: AAPL) which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, and the other is a stock I'd bet no one is familiar with; Commvault Systems (NASDAQ: CVLT).  Both are worth keeping an eye on in case this market turns around.

The list of stocks that fell off the screen are too numerous to mention so take a look at the list below.  You may love some of these names but remember, if they fell off the screen then they are probably lacking the "stuff" that makes them worth owning.  Don't buy anything just because it was hot 3-6 months ago, instead buy stocks that big investors think are great right now.

As always this is not a buy list but rather a starting point for doing more research.  Stocks that are new are underlined and have an Asterisk (*) next to their company name.

Stock that fell off the Super Stock Screener results from July 31st are below:

Note: This screen is fairly wide (EPS>=45%, Sales>=25%, ROE>=10, RS>=90, Price within 20% of High) and I do have tighter screens as well.  To keep the screen results manageable I removed Industry Groups that I either do not believe in (Financial) or are so Commodity that I have no edge in how to pick one from another (Oil&Gas).