But the idea behind it is pretty powerful.

Unfortunately, it's something that many people overlook.

The strategy is finding stocks that are making new 52-week highs, or at least trading within 10% of their 52-week highs.

Why is this so important?

Because in anybody's portfolio, you're bound to have some great stocks and some not-so-great stocks. (And in today's market, you probably have more of the latter.) Think about it, though, if someone were to ask you about your best holdings, you're likely to name off the stocks in an uptrend or making new highs.

Your worst holdings? The ones going lower.

You'll rarely single out a stock because it has a low P/E ratio or a great Return on Equity. Sure, those things do matter. However, if the stock making new lows has a cheap P/E and industry beating ROE, you'll quickly identify it as one of your worst holdings - and you would be right to do so.

The winners in your portfolio are the ones going up. Period.

But for some reason, many investors are fearful of buying these kinds of stocks.

If you're one of them ? you need to start thinking differently.

What's the difference between being in a stock making a new 52-week high and getting into one making a new 52-week high? At that particular moment in time ? nothing.

Sure, if you're already in it and it's making a new 52-week high, then you might feel 'safer' because you've already built up a cushion of profit. But that's no guarantee it won't go down. Plus, any stock's gains can be wiped out in a single trading day.

But if you are in a stock making a new high, you're likely rooting for it to go higher, and are excited to see what happens the next day.

So why not get excited about getting into a stock making a new high?

Because you missed it? Because you want it to go down first?

Believe me, somebody is just as excited about that stock going up as you would be if you were in it.

Remember, stocks going up are the winners.

Stocks going down are the losers.

And the ones going up are doing so for a reason. Just because you didn't know about it earlier doesn't make it any less attractive.

So try looking for winners (i.e. stocks going up) the next time you're looking for stocks to buy.

One of the easiest ways to do this is with our free screener on www.zacks.com.

You can build a screen yourself that looks for these types of stocks. Or you can select one of our predefined screens that already does this. Afterward, you can tweak and modify them however you wish.

Then add as many other items as you wish.

With the Research Wizard, you can add even more ideas to your screen, including the Zacks Rank and many more.

The screen I'm running this week is:

• Current Price/52 Week high >= .90
  (That means stocks trading within 10% of their 52 Week High.)

• Price >= $5

• Average 20 Day Volume >= 100,000

• Zacks Rank <= 3
  (Only Strong Buys, Buys or even Holds can get thru.)

(If you had these in your portfolio, you'd definitely consider them as your some of your best stocks.)

ALK Alaska Air Group, Inc.
DLTR Dollar Tree, Inc.
GVA Granite Construction Corp.
SXCI SXC Health Solutions Corp.
WPP Wausau Paper Corp.

Get the rest of the stocks on this list and start screening for winning stocks (stocks going higher) on your own.

Now is the time to start planning for 2009. You can do it. Sign up now for your free trial to the Research Wizard and resolve to start make better trading decisions today!

Click Here for your free trial to the Research Wizard

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.