50 stocks to buy in November

Bears have taken a beating in October; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX)is on track for its best month since 1974. That's after a miserable summer in which the battered index lost 14.3% from July 1 to Sept. 30 in volatile trading that apparently left stocks too cheap for investors to pass up.

But can the euphoria continue? The rally faces some formidable roadblocks in November, including the potential for political gridlock on both sides of the Atlantic.

A tentative deal to ease Europe's sovereign debt crisis could unravel as details emerge. Further, the Nov. 23 deadline for the congressional "supercommittee," which is seeking ways to cut the federal deficit, could be missed. Failure by the panel's 12 members to find consensus could spook investors; stocks swooned in July when it appeared that Congress wouldn't pass a federal debt-ceiling deal.

For investors seeking reliable clues about what's likely to work in this market, StockScouter's Benchmark Portfolio for November is an ideal place to launch investment research.

The 50-stock portfolio was created using 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 in the coming weeks, based on how those factors have influenced stock prices in the past.

Here are StockScouter's best investment ideas for November:

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 a month 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 in January 2001 would have realized a gain of 637% through Sept. 30 of this year, according to Gradient Analytics, and had an average annual return of 21.6%.

Over the same period, the S&P 500 Index lost 6.6%.

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 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.