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5 Stocks With Recent Price Strength as Indexes Hit Record High

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U.S. stocks are firing on all cylinders with the major stock indexes hitting new highs on Dec 17. Wall Street bulls, which regained momentum in November after two months of market turmoil, strengthened in December.  

Moreover, on Dec 20, the U.S. Congress has finally reached an agreement to approve $900 billion of a fresh coronavirs-aid package. Notably, the first round of around $2 trillion fiscal stimulus injected by the Trump administration in March, terminated in July. Several economic data showed that lack of a new fiscal stimulus has slowed the pace of U.S. economic recovery to some extent in the last four months.

Year to date, the three major stock indexes — the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite — have rallied 5.8%, 14.8% and 42.2%, respectively. By any means, this is an impressive performance considering the global outbreak of the pandemic and coronavirus-led economic devastations.

At this stage, wouldn’t it be a safer strategy to look for stocks that are winners and have the potential to gain further?

Sounds Good? Here’s How to Execute It:

One should primarily target stocks that have freshly been on a bull run. Actually, stocks seeing price strength recently have a high chance of carrying the momentum forward.

If a stock is continuously witnessing an uptrend, there must be a solid reason or else it would have probably crashed. So, looking at stocks that are capable of beating the benchmark that they have set for themselves seems rational.

However, recent price strength alone cannot create magic. Therefore, you need to set other relevant parameters to create a successful investment strategy.

Here’s how you should create the screen to shortlist the current as well as the potential winners.

Screening Parameters:

Percentage Change in Price (4 Weeks) greater than zero: This criterion shows that the stock has moved higher in the last four weeks.

Percentage Change Price (12 Weeks) greater than 10: This indicates that the stock has seen momentum over the last three months. This lowers the risk of choosing stocks that may have drawn attention due to the overwhelming performance of the overall market in a very short period.

Zacks Rank 1: No matter whether market conditions are good or bad, stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) have a proven history of outperformance. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Average Broker Rating 1: This indicates that brokers are also highly hopeful about the stock’s future performance.

Current Price greater than 5: The stocks must all be trading at a minimum of $5.

Current Price/ 52-Week High-Low Range more than 85%: This criterion filters stocks that are trading near their respective 52-week highs. It indicates that these are strong enough in terms of price.

Just these few criteria have narrowed down the search from over 7,700 stocks to just 18.

Here we present five out of those 18 stocks:

Monarch Casino & Resort Inc. (MCRI - Free Report) is dedicated to deliver the ultimate guest experience by providing exceptional services as well as the latest gaming, dining and hospitality amenities.

The stock price has jumped 16.2% in the past four weeks. The company has an expected earnings growth rate of more than 100% for next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year has improved 19.6% over the last 60 days.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. designs, engineers, manufactures, distributes, and sells vehicles, components, and production systems. It operates through five segments: North America, LATAM, APAC, EMEA, and Maserati.

The stock price has climbed 16.2% in the past four weeks. The company has expected earnings growth of more than 100% for next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next year has improved  22.7% over the last 30 days.

Piper Sandler Companies (PIPR - Free Report) operates as an investment bank and institutional securities firm that serves corporations, private equity groups, public entities, non-profit entities, and institutional investors in the United States and internationally.

The stock price has surged 11.3% in the past four weeks. The company has expected earnings growth of 0.5% for next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 8.7% over the last 30 days.

EnPro Industries Inc. (NPO - Free Report) designs, develops, manufactures, and markets engineered industrial products worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Sealing Products and Engineered Products.

The stock price has advanced 11.3% in the past four weeks. The company has expected earnings growth of 25.6% for next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved by 0.3% over the last 30 days.

InMode Ltd. (INMD - Free Report) designs, develops, manufactures, and markets minimally-invasive aesthetic medical products based on its proprietary radio frequency assisted lipolysis and deep subdermal fractional radio frequency technologies.

The stock price has gained 9.1% in the past four weeks. The company has expected earnings growth of 28.1% for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has improved 24.6% over the last 60 days.

You can get the rest of the stocks on this list by signing up now for your 2-week free trial to the Research Wizard and start using this screen in your own trading. Further, you can also create your own strategies and test them first before taking the investment plunge.

The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.

Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance.

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