How to Pick Stocks

The classic stock-selection frameworks, one per lesson: fundamental analysis, value, growth, GARP, income investing, CAN SLIM, and Dogs of the Dow — what each strategy actually screens for, who it suits, and where each one breaks.

1
Fundamental Analysis
Reading the three financial statements, the ratios that compress them, and the qualitative questions — moats, management, industry — numbers can't answer.
2
Value Investing
Buying businesses for less than they're worth — Graham's margin of safety, the metrics that find candidates, and the value traps that punish shortcuts.
3
Growth Investing
Owning the fastest-compounding businesses and paying up for them — what growth investors screen for, why it works, and how it ends when it doesn't.
4
GARP Investing
Growth at a Reasonable Price — Peter Lynch's middle path between value and growth, the PEG ratio that anchors it, and how to run the screen honestly.
5
Income Investing
Building a portfolio around dividends — yield vs growth, payout ratios, dividend aristocrats, REITs, and the yield traps that snare beginners.
6
The CAN SLIM Method
William O'Neil's seven-letter system for finding market leaders — earnings acceleration, new highs, relative strength, and the market filter, explained.
7
Dogs of the Dow
The famous ten-minutes-a-year strategy — buy the Dow's ten highest yielders, hold a year, repeat. How it works, its record, and its Small Dogs variant.

How to Pick Stocks

Every stock-picking strategy ever devised is an answer to the same problem: thousands of listed companies, one portfolio, and a market that has already priced in everything obvious. The honest starting point is that most people who pick individual stocks underperform a simple index fund — not because picking is impossible, but because it's a competition against professionals, algorithms, and your own psychology simultaneously. The strategies in this course are how disciplined investors tilt that competition: each one is a filter that narrows the market to a specific kind of opportunity, paired with rules that keep emotions from renegotiating the plan midstream.

The seven lessons cover the classic frameworks, each self-contained: fundamental analysis (the toolkit underneath all the others), value, growth, GARP, income, CAN SLIM, and Dogs of the Dow. They differ in what they hunt — cheapness, momentum, yield, quality — but share one trait worth noticing before you start: every durable strategy defines in advance what qualifies and what forces a sale. That's the real dividing line between a strategy and a collection of hunches, and it's the habit this course is actually trying to teach. Pair any of them with our stock screens to turn the rules into live candidate lists.