Then think about them from a business standpoint. Are they still growing? Do you see them owning a bigger market share in the future? What do you think about their leadership? Do you understand what they do?

If you are interested in learning and buying individual stocks, I really enjoy William O'Neal's method (Investors Business Daily). My dad learned these methods long ago and is now retired and simply does stock management and chart reading. I know people say you can't beat the market, but my dad has beat the market for probably the last 10 years running. He has great discipline with selling losers, hits a lot of winners, and has grown a couple of accounts (his and some clients) by magnitudes more than an ETF would have over the same time frame.

This is better than the lottery method of just picking penny stocks or picking stocks off a list. Do a little research.