With the new month, it is time for another monthly performance update of my stock screen machine. If you had purchased every stock within my stock screen machine at the closing price on March 31 and held through the closing price of April 30th, here is how you would have done:

The screens and filters performed fairly well last month. We had a improved success ratio in terms of gainers to losers and two screens produced sizeable gains - Cream Of The Crop & Market Leaders - with gains of +11.88% and +10.61% respectively. The most significant laggard was the Pounding The Table screen which failed to keep up with the market's performance although it outperformed most of my screens back in March. Also, it is interesting to see the losing popularity filter do so well in April versus prior months. In prior months, stocks showing up on that filter were good sell candidates, but not so in April. A clear sign of much better market overall.

Within all of the screens, the top 10 best performers in April were Continental Resources (CLR), Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), CF Industries (CF), Agrium (AGU), Gerdau Sa Ads (GGB), Southwestern Energy (SWN), Bucyrus (BUCY), BHP Billiton (BBL), Banco Bradesco Sa (BBD), & Apple (AAPL).

The top 10 biggest losers were L.B. Foster (FSTR), Bruker (BRKR), Perceptron (PRCP), Meridian Bioscience (VIVO), Rofin-Sinar Tech (RSTI), Newmarket (NEU), Cal-Maine Foods (CALM), Memc Electronic Material (WFR), Barrick Gold (ABX), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).

Looking over all of the stats I have, it has very much been and up and down year without much consistency in terms of performance from one month to the next. Clearly, the challenge for the market this month is to build upon the great April rebound and I remain confident that these screens will continue to be helpful to you in your own research.