Hi, there are no such thing as stupid questions when one is in the pursuit of knowledge.

Personally, when it comes to stock selection, I'll use fundamental analysis for my stock picking. Fundamental analysis including reading annual reports and their financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, cash flow etc...), learning how to interpret the info from annual reports. For example, you should learn how to interpret  financial ratios (Current ratio, ROE/ROA, Debt ratio, P/E, Dividend yield etc....). Different ratios have different use. Current ratio for example to measure the liquidity of the company, ROE/ROA use to measure profitability, while Debt ratio is used to measure....well debt.

P/E and Dividend yields for example are known as investment valuation ratios. Investors normally use the ratios in this category for their stock picking. For those who want to dig further about the company, then they may use other ratios mentioned above, which can be obtained from the company's annual report
You can dig around the forum, or google to learn about these ratios.

As for timing, that's where the TA came in. Charts gives you a visual of the price action. Without charts, it's very hard to see what are the reactions of investors to that particular stock. TA gives you an idea where you can consider buying, selling, or just don't do anything and stay out from the counter. My two favourite websites to learn the very basics of TA are:

Babypips

Chart school
Another important things to learn, especially if you're considering trading as opposed to buy and hold, is risk and money management. For me these are the most important thing in my trading business, because I have a very limited capital, hence I need to manage it wisely to minimize losses.

One important thing to remember: There is no holy grail in investing/trading. Market movement is random, and it will do whatever it wants, and it doesn't give a damn what people thinking the market should be.

If you're student, I suggest you join investment challenge organize by your uni, or by stockbroker to gain more exposure in stock market, learn the mechanics etc. One of the famous one is OSK Investment Challenge (I was one of the winner back then ).

Good luck. 

p/s: I focus more on FCPO now, because I'm too lazy to go through over 1000 stocks to select which one to go in  .

I already have few in my list, but to wait for opportunity to buy, it might take months/years before the opportunity comes knocking on my door. So for recurring  income, I choose FCPO, because I can only focus on the timing, and risk/money management. I still review the stocks in my list once in awhile though