How to find stocks for beginners!

[bigeddy15]

Hey guys. I recently opened up an online stock trading account and purchased my first set of stocks. I am a complete rookie to the stock market but have been investing in mutual funds for the past 4 years. I always read about great investors preaching never to invest on something you hear about in the news, yet I can not for the life of me find out about any stocks except for the news! Is there any way that people have come across to find stocks? In a perfect world i could go to a website that literally lets me click on a sector of the market and allow me to browse all the stocks in that sector? Can anyone help a rookie out!

-Drew

[Rickson9]

Hey guys. I recently opened up an online stock trading account and purchased my first set of stocks. I am a complete rookie to the stock market but have been investing in mutual funds for the past 4 years. I always read about great investors preaching never to invest on something you hear about in the news, yet I can not for the life of me find out about any stocks except for the news! Is there any way that people have come across to find stocks? In a perfect world i could go to a website that literally lets me click on a sector of the market and allow me to browse all the stocks in that sector? Can anyone help a rookie out!

-Drew

The vast majority of public companies have web sites where they allow for the download of their financial statements.

Why somebody would invest in a stock before reading the financial statements - I have no idea, unless they have money to burn.

[bigeddy15]

I understand and have personally viewed the financial statements released by the companies that I have personally invested in. Although that being said, how is the average joe supposed to understand what the statements say and the difference between a good statement and bad one. My question still remains unanswered though. How can I find out about these companies!?

[Rickson9]

I understand and have personally viewed the financial statements released by the companies that I have personally invested in. Although that being said, how is the average joe supposed to understand what the statements say and the difference between a good statement and bad one. My question still remains unanswered though. How can I find out about these companies!?

Search for a stock screening application.

With regards to understanding financial statements - book stores have books entitled, "The Interpretation of Financial Statements".

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+interpretation+of+financial+statement s&x=0&y=0

Books are great.

[trent]

There are many investments newsletters following equities, that can give you ideas what to invest in. The trick is to find the good ones :).