Sector Check: Financials & Retailers

There's a well-known maxim that the best time to buy is when there is blood in the streets. Well, blood is flowing in both the retailers and financials. While I'm no glutton for punishment and I seldom have the desire to play the hero by trying to pick at bottoms, I still recognize the importance of running scans with the goal of targeting both high and low risk opportunities within both of these sectors.

Much like I did back in September with the homebuilders, my goal today was to run a number of relatively intensive scans (which are both excruciating complex and relatively time consuming) to create a small list of both high and low risk targets. (As a quick update, using today's closing prices the homebuilder high risk group is collectively down -28.7% with no gainers while the homebuilder low risk group is down -1.8% with an even split of gainers and losers.)

How you could use either of these target groups really will depend on your own personal strategy. For example, those who are market neutral, a potential pair trade could be created by shorting the high risk stocks while going long the low risk positions. Likewise, if you are bearish on retail and financials, targeting the high risk positions makes sense while those looking to play the bullish contrarian will want to focus on the low risk situations. That's the beauty of doing these kinds of sector scans because no matter your personal view, you can still build a strategy around it.

Based on my scans (the same kinds that I've used before that closely examine both fundamentals and technicals, with an emphasis on financial stability and risk), here's the top high and low risk targets for both retailers and financials as of today.....[READ]