Here are the results for this week's leading stock scan. The query looks at the returns for the last five trading days and then sorts the stocks by those showing the strongest performance. As a contrarian, the stocks of particular interest to me would be ones where we have skepticism so I have taken the addition step of filtering the list to stocks that have seen a net put accumulation on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) buy-to-open data. There are also some basic filters to eliminate penny stocks and those that don't trade frequently. A description of the column headings is below.

Companies included in today's scan are: MBIA Inc (MBI), Zions Bancorporation (ZION), PetSmart, Inc (PETM), JetBlue Airways Corp (JBLU), Tiffany & Co. (TIF), SunTrust Banks (STI), Royal Caribbean Cruises. (RCL), Nordstrom (JWN), Prudential Financial (PRU), Toll Brothers (TOL), BB&T Corp. (BBT), Wachovia Corp (WB), FirstFed Financial (FED), American International Group (AIG), Guess? (GES), Sears Holdings Corp (SHLD), Kohl's Corp. (KSS), Lowe's Companies (LOW), Carnival (CCL), BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ), United Therapeutics (UTHR), General Growth Properties (GGP), KB HOME (KBH), Southwest Airlines Co (LUV), Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER)

• 5-Day Return - The 5-day percent return, through the previous day's close.
• Short Interest to Float - Total short interest divided by the stock's float. Relatively high levels of short interest are bolded. Click here for more information on short interest.
• Total Ratings - The number of analysts who track the stock, according to Zacks.
• Buy Percent - The percent of the analysts who rate the stock as a "buy". I use this to help gauge sentiment and potential buying demand. If everyone already loves a stock, that means a steady stream of new money will need to enter the stock to fuel a rally. Click here for more information on analyst rankings.
• Net ISEE Buy- to-Open - This data is based on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) buy-to-open data. I net call accumulations for the last five days against puts accumulation over that time. The number displayed shows any imbalances. For example, if a cell says "1,642 Puts" that means there have been 1,642 more puts bought than calls. Since this is buy-to-open data, this can be a good source for finding stocks where skepticism is emerging on this strength.

Note - sentiment data is current as of the previous trading day...