Stocks for March 17, 2008

Welcome to another week of unabashed volatility. Without further ado, here is the latest list of stocks passing three or more filters.

Symbol	Top Ranked	Zacks	PEG	SuppDem	VL	IBD Stock checkup
BUCY	1	1	2		1	A+
RIG	1	1	1		1	A+
WFR	1	1	1		1	A
WDC	1	1	1		1	A-
AUY	1		1	1		A+
FLS		1	1		1	A+
ISRG	1		1		1	A+
KWK	1	1	2			A+
PCLN			1	1	1	A+
GLW		1	2		1	A
LIFC		1	2		1	A
MUR		1	1		1	A
VIP	1	1	1			A
FLIR		1	1		1	A-
RIMM	1		1		1	A-
WMB		1	2		1	A-

Two new stocks on the core list are RIG and WMB. Transocean, Inc. (RIG) operates offshore rigs to the hightest bidder. The Williams Companies, Inc. (WMB) produces and transports natural gas in the United States. These stocks are off the core list:

• DE
• MATK
• MOS
• NDAQ
• ORCL
• SWN

Core list (with n of 10 weeks passing):

Symbol	Passing weeks	Earnings
LIFC	8
POT	8
TNE	8
ESRX	7
FLS	7
ISRG	7
MA	6
NOK	6
NOV	6
PCLN	6
VIP	6
WFR	6
BUCY	6
RIG	5	Earn 7-May
WMB	5

	moving down this week
	moving up this week
	new this week

The market was down sharply today (Friday) because Bear Stearns needed a bailout from the New York Fed and JP Morgan Chase. You can't write drama like this. In the mean time, President Bush and Fed Chair Bernanke are admitting that while things are not rosy, they have have a firm grip on the economy and will act quickly to save it.

(My opinion: keep an escape plan at the ready.)

Yes, the 400 point jump was nice last week in response to the additional liquidity and the Fed agreeing to use the (possibly worthless and certainly unpriceable) CDOs and SIVs as collateral to get some fresh cash. Once again, the government is stepping in to prop up large, private orgaizations, shielding them from their own poor decisions.

We got the bounce on Monday, but it seems to me that our foreign investors are beginning to figure out that the dollar is going the way of all flesh (and to its intrinsic value of paper). Go long only with offsetting short positions. (As an alternative, think about ETFs that are ultra short, that is, that go up 2% when their sector goes down 1%. An example is SKF, which is an ultra-short on financial stocks.) Enjoy!