How do you know what stocks to invest in?

Question

What is considered good criteria?

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no perfect criteria that will guarantee success.

I use Telechard to screen the 7000+ stocks in the universe. From there I narrow the selection down to what I call myUniverse of Stocks to approximately 2500. This screen is based on...
Price > $5
90 day Volume > 250,000
Capitalization > $100M

From here I use multiple screens to narrow my selection down to several hundred by choosing for instance...
Relative Strength >70
MoneyStream >70
Profit Margin in the upper 50th percentile
Revenue Growth
Earinings Growth
PEG < 1.5

Once I have my selection I look at the charts for a good buying opportunity...
MACD crossing above the zero line
Stocastics are not overbought
Good Industry in good Sector (Top 20% industries)

There are many derivatives of this method to determine what stocks to invest in.
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Answer 2

Here are some old advice from the big names:
Buy what you know. If you use the product, chances are others too. If there is a better product made later you will will know it sooner than somebody that has never heard of either product.

There is the moat rule. The moat is the company's ability to fend of rivals with a better product. There are lots of different types of portable MP3 players, but if you ask somebody to name one, the first name (and probably the only name) they give you is IPod. Therefore Apple has a wide moat when it comes to mp3 players. Apple has a narrow moat when it comes to computers. Companies with wide moats have good grow as long as the moat is wide.

The future is now. There are always future trends and if you do the research you can see how a trend will affect a company. In 11 years, 80 million more Americans will have turned 65. That's about 1/3 of the population and doesn't count those that are already retired. For those that think the future is 15 minutes from now, they don't see the big picture. If you can buy the stocks of the companies that those retired people will use, you will probably see a big jump in stock prices when those people start using the products. You could have bought XOM for almost $42 in May of 1989, collected good dividends for 16 years and sold the stock for over $80 during the last gas crunch. All you had to know was was going to be a good chance of another gas crunch when more an more people around the world would drive cars and make things. Of course stocks could even give you even a bigger return if you can spot the right future trends.

Answer 3

Do lots of homework! Go to various websites and looks for stocks that have a combination of strong earning, sales and low debt. They are out there. You can start right here on Yahoo Finance. Do some research and invest soon. They market is strong right now and it is a good time to jump in.

One of the best stocks I can recommend is Quantas Services (PWR). Their earnings came out today and their 1st quarter earning were TRIPLE what they were this time last year. This company builds and rebuilds company infrastructures. This company made a ton of cash off the Katrina disaster helping companies rebuild down there. They are emerging as the leader in this sector.
I bought it a year ago at $16/share and it is about to close at $28 today...a 75% increase!! This is a growing company that I would strongly recommend. Get in early because I project this stock to hit $40 by this time next year. Good luck and happy investing!

Answer 4

you can invest your money at a stock like AENS.OB. A great protential growth stock with a 1y Target Est: 36.80 and now its just 0.98. It generates a great sheet of Annual and Quarterly increase revenus data.
Act now before its too late for that.
It would become your first milestone.