Sell in May and go away is an old investing adage that has rung true so far this month with the S&P / ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) posting another down day to be around 0.7% lower in afternoon trade.
However, there are several stocks thumping the market for multiple reasons. Let's take a look at each and assess whether there's room to run further.
Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) is benefitting from fuel prices at five-year lows and its strongest global passenger growth since 2010. The airline has also been drastically reducing costs and recent success has even seen talk of a dividend payment.
Investors dizzy with excitement over Qantas's prospects have bid the stock up 3.3% to $3.70 on a market valuation around $7.8 billion. However, this does not look a stock to chase as the tailwinds currently supporting it could reverse anytime soon.
EVOLUTION FPO (ASX: EVN) is a gold miner that today updated the market on its current mineral and ore resource reserve inventory. The stock lifted 4 cents or 3.4% to a 52-week high of $1.22 on the inventory news, which is no great surprise as the gold price also firmed overnight.
If you buy into the idea that gold miners are at a cyclical low then now may be the time to speculate on companies like Evolution. However, gold looks unlikely to enter a bull market anytime soon given the low rate, low inflation world seems here to stay for a while yet.
Ziptel Ltd (ASX: ZIP) is a speculative tech and communications play that has climbed 4.5 cents or 7% today despite releasing no specific news to the market. The company has a travel sim card product offering that allows users to save on phone bills when travelling overseas. It also has a Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) application that users can use on their mobile phones to talk online on a low-cost basis.
Ziptel recently announced it will launch its latest ZipT app on June 22 and is talking up its chances of converting many of the world's mobile handset users to the ZipT app soon enough. Buying into this story is an option, but a high risk one.
Sirtex Medical Limited (ASX: SRX) has jumped an incredible 35% today, which goes to show just how much confusion there is in the market about what the results of its SIRFLOX trial mean for the potential sales growth of its SIR-spheres product.
While the market might be confused on the science, it should not be an issue for the eminently qualified Professor Ricky A. Sharma MA, MB, Bchir, FRCP, FRCR, PhD from the Gray Institute of Radiation and Oncology, University of Oxford. Professor Sharma is the man who has been selected to discuss the results at an upcoming oncology conference of 30,000 oncology professionals, which is likely to result in a lot of publicity for Sirtex if nothing else.
The company also reported strong sales growth of its flagship treatment today and is arguably a spec buy given the strong underlying growth and hard to quantify potential. It's worth noting though that there's no need to take a risk on a massively valued stock like Sirtex, when you could buy a gangbusters growth stock on an attractive valuation.
I'm not kidding either!
