34 Stocks Returning 7% this Week

As I wrote a week ago, something was squirrely (sp?) - the markets (thanks to a last minute push up 0.6% in the closing minutes) was flat for the week but very few stocks were making large moves, in fact only 21 made 8%+ last week. I wrote

this week was deceiving - the market ended flat due to miraculous buying in the last 30 minutes, but the underlying action was quite poor. This is showcased by the low number of big winners this week. I count only 21 names which returned 8%+ this week which is more apt for weeks the market is down 3-4%.

To highlight my suspicion of last week's "funny trading" in the indexes (ahem, hello Mr. Hand), this week the indexes were down 3%ish and we had more stocks (barely) returning 8%+ this week - 27. So as I said, last week was good for the talk shows but for anyone actually owning stocks and not indexes it was not a good week. I've lowered the % gain threshold this week to 7%, but its still a sparse group (understandably considering the bad week in the markets) - what can I say - fertilizer, coal, and natural gas (and/or oil exploration) continue to dominate. This is not a bipolar market.... this is plainly an incredibly narrow market where you have to be in teeny slivers of subsectors to make any money. It's harsh out there.

My gut (just a hunch) tells me this could be one of the last (if not last) weeks these same groups will be on this list ... if the 'rotational' selloff does in fact continue per previous patterns. Some of these stocks in the "blessed sectors" are nowhere near even minor support levels, so there are some major "air pockets" below if they do begin to sell off. We shall see (this would require the market to continue to selloff - and in fact it might get a oversold bounce in the near term). Let's see if this list is dominated by retail, financial, technology, or homebuilder type of names sometime in the next 1-3 weeks.

Criteria as always

1. Market capitalization $2B+
2. Average trading volume 100K+
3. Stock price $10+
4. Returns 7%+

Green we own, blue we have owned or discuss in the blog. One new group that has been long dormant are a few gold related stocks... strangely gold has been trading poorly while inflation ramps worldwide - I do believe oil has seemingly replaced gold as the "inflation" hedge, but gold might be the "Armageddon" hedge it always has been. Polycom (PLCM) is a proxy high oil play - its actually a "technology" company that dominates the teleconferencing business - so when its too expensive to fly somewhere to meet business associates - the play here is you teleconference. Research in Motion (RIMM) reports next week...

Symbol	Company Name	% Price Change 1 Week
ELN	Elan Depository Receipt	25.4
ESI	ITT Educational Services Inc	22.2
CRK	Comstock Resources Inc	15.4
HK	Petrohawk Energy Corp	14.8
ENER	Energy Conversion Devices Inc	14.4
SQM	Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile	13.8
FCL	Foundation Coal Holdings Inc	13.1
XCO	EXCO Resources Inc	12.8
IPI	Intrepid Potash Inc	12.8
DNR	Denbury Resources Inc	12.2
OSG	Overseas Shipholding Group Inc	11.2
FRO	Frontline Ltd	10.6
MYGN	Myriad Genetics Inc	10.4
WYE	Wyeth Ord Shs	10.2
IHS	Information Handling Services Inc	9.6
HP	Helmerich & Payne Inc	9.5
CZZ	Cosan Ltd	9.2
MEE	Massey Energy Co	9.2
VIV	Vivo Participacoes SA ADR	9.0
FSUMF	Fortescue Metals Group Ltd	9.0
TRA	Terra Industries Ord Shs	8.9
RIMM	RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED	8.7
PVA	Penn Virginia Corp	8.6
KGC	KINROSS GOLD CORP	8.4
TS	Tenaris ADR	8.4
WAB	Wabtec Corp	8.0
BEAV	BE Aerospace Inc	8.0
GDP	Goodrich Petro Ord Shs	7.9
WEN	Wendy's International Inc	7.9
CHK	Chesapeake Energy Ord Shs	7.9
PLCM	Polycom Inc	7.7
CF	CF Industries Holdings Inc	7.5
GOLD	Randgold Resources ADR	7.4
AAUK	Anglo American ADR	7.0