50 stocks to buy in June

Related topics: StockScouter, dividends, investments, utilities, growth stocks

If you're interested in the steady income and low volatility that characterizes the utility sector, StockScouter's Benchmark Portfolio for June is an ideal starting point for your investment research.

Utility companies dominate the 50-stock portfolio, created with StockScouter, MSN Money's stock-picking tool.

Each month, StockScouter generates a list of 50 stocks whose business fundamentals, price behavior, valuation and stock-ownership characteristics appear to predict a rising price this coming month, based on how those factors have influenced stock prices in the past.

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Here are StockScouter's best investment ideas for June:

Put StockScouter to work

Investment research firm Gradient Analytics uses StockScouter to create daily and monthly stock lists. Writer Jon Markman, at the time a columnist for MSN Money, collaborated with the company to devise strategies for putting the tool to work.

One of Markman's strategies involved investing an equal amount of money in each of the stocks in the computer-generated portfolio, selling them six months later, then beginning the process again. For investors who prefer to handle fewer stocks, Markman recommended using the strategy with just the top 10 stocks on the list.

An investor who followed Markman's 10-stock strategy since it was launched would have realized a gain of 711% through May 31, according to Gradient Analytics, and had an average annual return of 23.3%.

Over the same period, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX)rose by 11.1%.

An innovative mix

StockScouter depends on advanced mathematics and software and an innovative mix of measurements and historical testing to forecast the short- and long-term outlook for all U.S. companies that have traded on the major exchanges for at least the past six months.

The analytical tools are applied to score stocks on fundamental, valuation, technical and ownership components.

This score is combined with each company's StockScouter rating to come up with the list in the above chart. Only stocks with a final closing price above $3 are eligible for the list.