Captchris is right on. I am almost constantly researching or reading something about the markets when I am on the road. I stumbled across YGE when I was searching for an alternative energy fund for my portfolio. Dug a little deeper and found that YGE is the largest vertically integrated solar cell producer in the worlds largest and growing energy market. Seemed like a good buy and the fundamentals were there. The rest is history. I guess the short answer is research research research. Yahoo Finance and Fool.com are great because there are a lot of discussion boards of people just talking about stocks and funds. There are lots of books out there worth looking at as well. Gives you something to do during those long sits.