Alert HQ for the week ending 7-3-2008

This post is to announce that the latest list of stock alerts is up and available at Alert HQ. Each week we scan over 7200 stocks and ETFs looking for fresh BUY and SELL signals.

The markets tumbled again this week (it seems I say this every week lately), with the S&P 500 down 1.2%, the NASDAQ down 3% and the Dow down 0.5%. The biggest loser of all was the Russell 2000, down a whopping 4.6% in just four days of trading.

The Dow, the NASDAQ, the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500 are all showing double digit losses year to date. Stocks have formally entered bear territory.

As I said last week, this is making it difficult to find good stock alerts on the BUY side and is putting tremendous pressure on previous BUY signals. Again this week, the SELL signals based on daily data greatly outnumber the BUY signals: 64 SELL signals and 8 BUY signals. We see the same situation in the signals based on weekly data: only 2 BUY signals and 26 SELL signals.

What to do with so many SELL signals? If you are not disposed to trading on the short side, you may take a contrarion approach and look through our list of SELL signals for good companies that are beginning to trade at bargain prices. Build that watchlist and be ready to move when price levels are attractive.