A Penny Saved

As a non-active stock investor (meaning I have a few that I’ve had for over a year and my retirement accounts, but I don’t actively trade now.) it’s been a little while since I had a full gamut of stocks to choose from.  I’m curious though.  How do those of you who actively buy stocks pick those stocks?

When I still had my buyandhold.com account, I used the Kiplinger stock finder to weed stocks down to a bearable number and then had a spreadsheet with a custom formula to decide from there.  I can’t remember off hand what exactly the formula took into effect except that it only worked well for dividend paying stocks.  I’m a fairly big believer in dividend paying stocks.  I feel they perform better on the long term.

I’ve heard of some people exclusively buying stock in companies whose products they use regularly and I must admit I’ve selected a few companies that way.  I’ve also bought stock through employee stock purchase plans as well.  Neither of those has turned out well for me.  Dividend paying stocks have nearly always done well for me, however.

So, how do you do it?  Roll Dice?  Wheel of fortune like wheel?  Random number generator?  Or do you have something more scientific?

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