Recently the question was asked about how the ‘Master List’ was put together.

Using Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) eTables, for which we pay a monthly subscription fee, we use their screening tools to extract companies with high ratings ranked by both the Industrial Group Rel/Str and their SMR Rating.  The cutoff point for inclusion on the list varies from time to time in order to produce a sufficient number of names for the ‘Master List.’  Typically the list will range between 150 and 200 names which then are subjected to further technical analysis.  The first step identifies companies that are both members of strong Industrial Groups and individually have strong fundamentals.