There is no one method, however, two major though on investment, value investment and technical investment.
Value investors swear by fundamental analsyis, which involves appraising a company's financial condition and management, and an industry's competitive position. Value investors are also called long term investos, Warren Buffet, Charles Munger, Peter Lynch represent value investment method.
Technical investors, on the other hand, ignore fundamentals and instead, use charts based on the pas performance to identify price trends and cyclical movements of particular stocks, industreis or the market as a whole. Technical investors are also called short investors, active investors, daily investors. Jim Simons represents technical investment approach.
and there are another type of investors, who feel every factor must be considered study both fundmental and technical information . For retail investors, this means that you probably leaves very little time for your famiies. Many institute investors fall into this categories.
Quant investors are specialized investors who applies mathematical and quantitative methods to evaluate financial products or markets.
Of course, there's the less time-consuming method fo throwing darts at teh stock page, or ask your dog to pick a stock for. you. (It's often argued that this method is as effective as any other method).