Wednesday’s digging turned up four attractive penny stock breakout alerts for Thursday; each is detailed below.

Our penny stock breakout trade alerts are picks primarily based on a proprietary short-term trading system, with a heavy reliance on strong, high-volume moves. (Sorry, the other factors can’t be disclosed.)

Though corporate performance is considered along with technical factors, it’s a minor consideration… the short-term scope of these trades can make company fundamentals somewhat meaningless.

These are high-risk, short-term, high-reward penny stock ideas. If you’re looking for something a little more tame and with a longer time frame, check out our Penny Stock Pick Alerts commentary.

Click on the thumbnail chart for a full-size chart.

GTC Biotherapeutics Inc. (GTCB)

Wednesday’s surge on high volume may have just been the beginning; take a look at what happened the last time GTCB bolted out of nowhere on high volume (in December and January). The stock ultimately ran from 14 cents to a peak of 95 cents. Wednesday’s break to new multi-week highs tips the risk/reward scale in favor of the bulls.

Alberta Star Dev. (ASXSF)

This penny stock recommendation is based on the classic cross above the 200 day moving average line. However, the crossover didn’t occur on Wednesday - it unfolded on Friday of last week.

Why the delay? Like we said, our proprietary system is based on several other factors; the recent cross above the 200 day line is just a little gravy. Even without the use of the system though, we’d still prefer to wait on a retest and recovery before jumping on the trend.

Given the long-term trend required to make such a crossover, we almost put this pick in the longer-term Penny Stock Pick Alert list. But, now that the stock has broken above several key resistance lines, the pace could be brisk. That potential speed (and eventually falter) is better suited for short-termers.

GlobalScape Inc. (GSB)

We’ve seen a slew of moving average crossovers here - for several time frames - since March. More importantly though, those moving averages are starting to act as support rather than resistance. Wednesday’s pop just added a tad more stickiness to the reversal.

One of the more compelling views of this chart and its technical indicators isn’t a daily chart, but rather, a weekly chart. The potential rebound to $7.00 is stark when looking at the bigger picture, and we can also see the slow (but healthy) curve from a downtrend into a new uptrend.

That slow reversal has yielded a parabolic SAR buy signal on the weekly chart. While the SAR tool is considered somewhat elementary in addition to being ineffective on a daily chart, for longer-term time frames, the parabolic SAR signal is an incredibly effective technique…. as long as it’s not used alone. (That’s the value of our trading system - it used multiple strategies to find the best of the best.)

Verso Paper Co. (VRS)

Another classic cross above several moving averages… a move that’s been a while in the making, but accelerated on Wednesday. We’re now back to January’s levels, and moving rapidly.

Verso Paper’s chart is one that prompts us to reiterate these are high-risk, high-reward penny stock plays. The move was strong, but there’s not safety net. On the other hand, there’s not real ceiling in view either. We think the reward justifiers the risk.

Side note: We can’t help but wonder if Verso is just one materializing example of our bullish prediction for small cap paper stocks. If it is, it took about one day for us to be validated. Yes, we plan on doing more of the industry studies like the one we did for paper companies.

We hope you find these penny stock recommendations useful as well as profitable. If you want more and even better picks, the best way to get them is to sign-up for our free e-newsletter. (Some picks only appear in the e-mail version of the newsletter, so bookmarking our site isn’t going to do you the most good.)