3 Stocks Breaking Out

Volatile markets seem to be the norm these days, as stocks gyrate through ups and downs on a daily basis. Sometimes buyout news and other short-term forces can send individual stocks soaring by 10%, 25%, even 50% -- even on the market's worst days.        

For example, shares of Sun Bancorp rose 37% after billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and other investors agreed to sink $100 million in the bank.              

But beyond less-predictable events like that one are stocks with fundamentally compelling reasons behind a big move. The trick is to find those stocks. That's where Motley Fool CAPS comes in.

The story behind the story
CAPS is no crowd of lemmings. Its best-performing members' opinions do more to shape each company's rating than the picks of their poorer-performing peers. Here's an example of how we can use the collective wisdom of more than 165,000 CAPS members to filter out the noise and find companies with strong potential.

We'll use CAPS' handy stock screening tool to quickly zero in on companies with a stock price increase of at least 15% in the past four weeks, a market cap of greater than $100 million, and a beta of less than 3. Then we can use the insight of the CAPS investment community to add context to these market movers.

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.
^From June 11 through July 9.

Lloyds Banking Group
Keeping with the trend of many U.K. banks, Lloyds has been selling non-core assets over the past year to help shore up capital in a fragile global economy. In a move similar to HSBC's (NYSE: HBC) plans to sell some private equity units, Lloyds is selling a portfolio of private equity investments and also putting up 600 of its branches for sale. But unlike HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds took big government bailouts, which puts more pressure on them to shrink their balance sheets.

Despite the government's owning a large piece of the bank, many CAPS members still see potential to profit going forward as 95% of the 1,030 CAPS members rating Lloyds Banking expect it to beat the broader market averages.  

Halliburton
Though they still have a ways to go, Halliburton shares have been working their way back to where they were prior to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, for which Halliburton provided cementing. Well owners Anadarko (NYSE: APC) and BP (NYSE: BP) are quarrelling over Anadarko's responsibility to contribute to cleanup costs, for which BP has already paid more than $3 billion. But Fitch Ratings recently said the spill won't affect its investment-grade credit rating of Halliburton since it received indemnity from BP over spill-related costs.

With the company's worldwide exposure and much of the spill uncertainty apparently answered, many CAPS members believe Halliburton shares will continue their recovery. Nearly 95% of the 2,955 CAPS members rating Halliburton are bullish.           

First Solar
It's been a rocky few years for the solar industry, but stock in First Solar has been edging up once again as the company sees growing demand for large-scale solar projects. Power generation company NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG) has been expanding its solar power generation business with the purchase of a farm built by First Solar last year and the acquisition of a whole pipeline of farms.

First Solar is also setting up a separate unit to build large-scale projects, which it believes represent the next leg of growth for the company and provide a strong sales channel for its modules and panels. Despite the company's seeing rising global demand for its panels, some CAPS members remain cautious on the sector because of constrained government budgets potentially affecting subsidies. As such, a lukewarm 81% of the 3,775 CAPS members rating First Solar believe it will be a market-beating investment.  

And you?
What's your story? Whether you buy the tale of a stock that's soaring or souring, your own research is more important than collective opinions. But these collective opinions can make your due diligence a whole lot easier.

Add your take on these or any of the 5,400 stocks that our 165,000-plus members have covered in Motley Fool CAPS. It's totally free to be a part of the community, and the payback is more than worth it.