Finding Leading Stocks

The Screen Behind Today’s Breakout List

One of my favorite ways to use the Relative Strength Stock Screener is starting with the Leaders / CANSLIM preset, then layering Today’s Market Movers on top of it.

That combo has been surfacing a lot of names I like today.

ALAB is breaking out to new highs.

LRCX is breaking out to new highs as I write this.

TER is right near new highs.

This is why I like combining leadership filters with current-day strength. It helps narrow the market down to the names that already have strong characteristics and are actually moving right now.

Not All Semis Are Breaking Down

Semiconductors have weakened, but leadership has not disappeared.

A few names are still bucking the trend.

TER, TSM, and LRCX are all acting well, with each either near new highs or breaking out toward new highs today.

Right now, TER, TSM, and LRCX are still showing strength.

The Quiet Warning Showing Up Under the Surface

A lot of leading stocks are still acting strong.

Many are making new highs. Many still have great relative strength.

Price is still king, and I would never execute a trade based on one data point alone.

But I am noticing something worth paying attention to.

On the most recent earnings reports for a lot of leading names I’ve been following, fund ownership has dropped.

Again, this does not mean the move is over.

These stocks can absolutely keep running higher from here. That’s exactly why price always comes first.

Also, sometimes this happens for a quarter or two, then funds increase again and come right back into the name.

But when leading stocks are pushing higher while fund ownership starts declining, it can be an early sign that some institutions are taking profits into strength.

If price starts to break down later, this gives us a possible clue as to what may have been happening under the surface.

Some names where I’m noticing this:

SIMO, ALAB, MRVL, LITE, TTMI, NVT, LASR, AMD, STRL, LRCX, AAOI.

This is not a sell signal.

This is not a prediction.

Just something I’m taking note of.

This Is Why You Track Leadership Before Everyone Else Sees It

On April 8, the market gave us the signal.

We had a follow-through day, the NASDAQ-100 reclaimed key moving averages, including the 50-day and 200-day, and the conversation shifted from defense back toward offense.

But the real edge was not just knowing the market was improving.

The edge was knowing where to look.

When the market gets stronger, I want to be focused on the strongest industry groups and the strongest stocks inside those groups.

That is exactly what we had been tracking for months.

• Telecom.

• Computer Data Storage.

• Semiconductors.

Many of these names were not random new ideas. They had already been showing up in our work, some for months, and some even last year.

So when the market confirmed on April 8, there was no need to bounce around looking for the next hot ticker.

The leadership was already there.

From the April 8 signal to yesterday’s close:

AAOI up 40%

LITE up 12%

CIEN up 12%

VIAV up 30%

SNDK up 81%

WDC up 38%

STX up 53%

TER flat

AEIS down 4%

AEHR up 50%

LRCX up 12%

FIX up 30%

GLW flat

Not every stock works.

That is normal.

But when the market confirms, and multiple stocks from the same leading groups start moving together, that is usually not a coincidence.

That is institutional money flowing into a theme.

Strong market.

Strong industry groups.

Strong stocks.

That is the process.

The goal is not to chase every move.

The goal is to already know where the strength is clustering before the move becomes obvious.

This Is What Real Leadership Looks Like

It’s not a coincidence.

When we look at the Top 10 Industry Groups right now, we’re seeing clear clustering of strength:

• Telecom: AAOI, LITE, CIEN, VIAV

• Computer Data Storage: SNDK, WDC, STX

• Semiconductors: TER, AEIS, AEHR, LRCX

All showing up in the top groups.

This is exactly how leadership reveals itself.

It’s not just one stock. It’s clusters of strength moving together.

When you start seeing multiple names across the same industry groups all:

• Breaking out

• Showing strong relative strength

• Backed by strong fundamentals

That is not random.

That is institutional money flowing into a theme.

This is how real trends work.

Stay focused on where the strength is clustering, just like we teach in the MTS Course. https://tradingmomentum.substack.com/s/mts-course

How do we find the strongest names in the strongest groups?

Relative Strength Stock Screener.

Use it now as part of the MTS Web App https://momentumtradingstrategy.app/

That’s where the opportunity is.

LRCX: A Textbook CANSLIM Leader With Ideal Price and Volume Action

Lam Research is a textbook CANSLIM name and a clean example of how price and volume tell the story before headlines do.

This is what leadership looks like.

• Strong earnings and sales growth.

• High ROE.

• RS in the upper 90s.

• Institutional sponsorship building.

• Industry group strength tied directly to the AI Theme.

But the real tell is the volume price relationship.

You get volume drying up on pullback.

You get volume confirmation on the breakout.

Strong chart on the weekly and daily timeframe.

That combination is not random. That is professional accumulation.

This is how winners behave:

• Demand shows up when price moves up

• Supply disappears when price pulls back

• Relative strength expands before most traders notice

Semiconductor equipment is one of the engines behind this bull cycle, and LRCX sits right in the middle of the AI buildout. When a stock checks every CANSLIM box and then confirms it with clean volume behavior, you pay attention.

This is not prediction.

This is recognition.

Price action is bullish with higher highs and higher lows. Volume is an indicator and confirms the move. Fundamentals support.

That is how real leaders are identified.