How should stocks be picked?

How are you finding your stocks? Are you watching Cramer on Mad Money and simultaneously punching in orders on your laptop? Or buying a stock because your daughter loves her designer jeans as in the Ameritrade commercial? Or listening to your brother in law because he works for Morgan Stanley? The guys at the gym?

Look at how one pro finds and analyzes his stocks: Charles Kirk at the Kirk Report. In his post Stock Screening and Watch-List Management he tells his own and very successful process. It might not work for you, but give it a read.

The large majority of stocks that I trade come from watch lists that I put together. The Hindsight Report stocks also come from my watch lists. I put alerts on the ones I'm most interested in and also watch to see which ones are consistently moving. A good screening service is TeleChart2005 from Warden Brothers (subscription service). A good watch list product (and it is free!) comes from Medved's QuoteTracker.