If we want to know whether or not the animal spirits are flowing and hence driving towards a blow-off top, we have to look under the surface of the market. When we noticed the solar stocks making parabolic moves back on May 20th, it turned out to be a very good sign of that (temporary) top which occurred just 2 days later. Now, once again, there are an abundance of junk and speculative stocks making parabolic moves...
I constructed a stock screen to look for the stocks making the biggest moves, but I wanted to make it neutral with respect to market cap, because one could argue that small cap stocks are always making the largest percentage moves. So I entered the below criteria - the key one being "beta" which measures single stock volatility relative to the market - irrespective of market cap. Then I used an annualized percentage minimum gain of 80% - to pare the list down to close to a manageable 100 (133):
As you will see below, the screen proved that a blow-off is in fact occurring under the surface of the market and as usual it's including some of the junkiest stocks in the market.
First off, the screen picked up stocks ranging in market capitalization from $23 million up to $159 billion ! (Citigroup). And as far as 52 week percentage gains, the range is from 80% as we would expect, all the way up to 2,100 %.
Occupy This !!!
If you can imagine, almost all of the largest capitalization stocks in this ultra-high-performer list were recipients of Fed bailout money back in 2008: Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, General Motors. The aftermath of 2008 may have cost global taxpayers $33 trillion, but as usual Wall Street made bank:
Bank of America - one year gain: 103%
Morgan Stanley - one year gain: 108%
Next are the top performing speculative stocks of the past year. All going (even more) parabolic...
Revolution Lighting - one year gain: 2,136%
From $.11 to $5.41 - No froth here...
Acadia Pharmaceuticals - one year gain: 1,159%
From $1.42 to $20.68
BNCCorp - a regional bank with market cap of $43 million - one year gain 523%
From $2.16 to $13.95
Canadian Solar - up 642% for the year and well above its May high...
In May the Nikkei was making a blow-off top. Here it is finishing up a correction and waiting to roll-over into the abyss:
INVEST AT YOUR OWN RISK.
