Hunting breakout candidates: accelerating earnings growth confirmed by price strength near the 52-week high, automated across the entire market.
Save the strategy and StockScorer checks its rules for you every day. You'll get a heads-up whenever a stock crosses the upper or lower score threshold.
Gap to MSCI World: +11.1 percentage points total, +0.4 per year
Index, start = 100
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Based on all 16,182 stocks with a score. Not rated are stocks that the profile does not classify because of a size limit or an exclusion rule.
| Score | Number of stocks | High match | Medium match | Low match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -2 | 3,976 | 0 | 0 | 3,976 |
| -1 | 2,262 | 0 | 0 | 2,262 |
| 0 | 2,599 | 0 | 0 | 2,599 |
| +1 | 3,053 | 0 | 0 | 3,053 |
| +2 | 2,292 | 0 | 2,292 | 0 |
| +3 | 1,351 | 0 | 1,351 | 0 |
| +4 | 495 | 0 | 495 | 0 |
| +5 | 142 | 142 | 0 | 0 |
| +6 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
Every stock runs through the same disclosed rules. The points add up to a score, traceable down to the individual rule.
Each rule checks a metric against a threshold, here for example “C: Quarterly earnings growing > 25% (YoY)”.
In this profile, each rule that is met counts +1 or −2 points.
The sum is the score. That gives three classes: high, medium, low match.
These terms describe only the match with the criteria, not a recommendation to buy or sell.
The latest quarter must be more than 25% above the prior-year quarter: growth now, not someday.
The multi-year earnings trend (3-year CAGR above 25%) plus a return on equity of at least 17% separates flashes in the pan from real growth machines.
A price near the 52-week high and 12-month relative strength above +15% show institutional money moving in.
Rising prices on rising volume, otherwise the breakout lacks conviction.
These exact rules run over every stock daily.
After signing up for free, you can copy the full profile in the rule editor, adjust its thresholds, and save it as your own starting profile.
See and copy all rules for freeIndex, start = 100
The backtest shows a total return of +251.2%. The MSCI World reaches +240.1% over the same period.
The same strategy with the same settings, started at every possible date. Each dot is a separate run over 5 years.
The periods overlap heavily, neighbouring runs share almost all periods. The spread therefore looks smaller than it would for independent periods. Past results say nothing about future ones.
Strategy calculated without fees and taxes, dividends reinvested.
Point-in-time composition since June 30, 2009: each period uses the members at that time. Stocks that left the market early may be missing, which favours the result.
Historical period, quarterly rebalancing. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Purely mechanical rule application, no curated-list effect: stocks with a high match can fall just like any other stock.
Dots per card, in this order: Profitability, Growth, Momentum. Filled means at least one rule in the category is met.
For aggressive investors with high volatility tolerance and the discipline to cut losers quickly. Momentum strategies live on rigorous risk management: the deduction for prices deep below the 52-week high is the built-in ripcord.
Growth Momentum looks for the most dynamic stocks in the market just before or during their breakout. The model is William O'Neil's CAN SLIM system, based on a study of the strongest price winners across several decades: explosive earnings growth in the latest quarter (C) and over years (A), plus a high return on equity as the second A condition, a price near the 52-week high (N), rising trading volume (S) and market leadership in relative strength (L). The approach deliberately runs contrary to value investing: the focus is on strength in the expectation that trends continue, not weakness in hope of a recovery. O'Neil explicitly favours young, smaller growth companies; StockScorer reflects that with a priority for small caps.
Six criteria earn one point each: quarterly earnings growth above 25% versus the prior-year quarter (C), annual earnings growth above 25% per year over a 3-year window plus a return on equity of at least 17% (A, two criteria), a price at most 10% below the 52-week high (N, O'Neil's own tolerance), a volume increase of at least 25% versus the prior period with a positive price (S) and a 12-month relative strength of more than +15% versus the market (L, as a proxy for O'Neil's RS rating of 80 or above). If a stock trades more than 30% below its 52-week high, that costs 2 points, a StockScorer construction with no counterpart in the original (O'Neil's own risk rule there is a 7 to 8% stop-loss on the individual position).
The upper threshold is a uniform 5 points across all size classes, with priority given to small caps: O'Neil does not tier by size but explicitly favours young, small growth companies. Out of six possible points, five are needed, effectively all criteria at once. That is intentional: the most explosive breakouts happen in smaller names, but that is also where the noise is loudest.
C: Current earnings, earnings growth in the latest quarter > 25% YoY (+1).
A: Annual earnings, earnings growth over 3 years > 25% p.a. (+1) AND return on equity ≥ 17% (+1, O'Neil's second A condition).
N: New highs, price at most 10% below the 52-week high (+1).
S: Supply & demand, volume at least 25% above the prior period with a positive price (+1).
L: Leader, 12-month relative strength > +15% versus the market (+1). Price > 30% below the high: −2.
Annual growth (A) follows the original: it is measured via the 3-year CAGR, because CAN-SLIM looks for the current growth phase, not a five-year smoothed average. Since the 23 August 2026 fidelity round, a return on equity of at least 17% adds O'Neil's second A condition, the N tolerance follows the original at 10%, and the S criterion now requires a concrete volume increase of 25% (O'Neil cites 40 to 50% above average on the breakout day itself, softened here via a 3-month comparison).
Documented deviations: market leadership is measured via 12-month relative strength as a proxy for O'Neil's RS rating (percentile of 80 or above). The original criteria I (institutional buyers) and M (market direction) are dropped for lack of data; they are qualitative judgments that cannot be derived from metrics. The 30% deduction is a StockScorer construction with no original counterpart, O'Neil's own risk management is a hard 7 to 8% stop-loss at the position level, something a scoring system cannot structurally replicate.
In the backtest, the quarterly-earnings and volume criteria are neutralised for lack of historical data points; 52-week high, relative strength and long-term growth are reconstructed historically. The rule-coverage panel in the backtest scales the thresholds proportionally and discloses this transparently.
For trend-oriented investors who accept shorter holding periods and manage positions rigorously by score: momentum rewards discipline, not patience.