One thing I notice is many here have a tendency to base their investments on actual real life observations.
They see a business or a product, they see it well sold, they tend assume the company is a good investment.
Or they deal business with a plc, they assume the company is a good investment based on their observation (like payments/purchases etc)
Or they have a relative in a plc or they actually know the ceo, they assume the company is a good investment.

Sometimes it works but sometimes it won't.
Which means this isn't a fail proof strategy.

Why? Because one is basically judging a book by its cover.   
What we see must be backed by financial numbers.
Like said yesterday, sometimes we can see a good business.
But that good business might not as be as profitable as it looks.
For instance, some good looking might be highly leveraged.
We can only see this by looking at its numbers.
Or we can see a good business, good profit too....
but whatever good is hindered by simple issues like EPS, making the stock investment highly expensive....
or sometimes there could huge mitigation lawsuits against the company we might not know unless we read the financials....
or even sometimes the business and good profit we see, is one without any growth... ie... year in year out, company profit is just constant and from market pro view point, such company's profits is unattractive due to the lack of growth......

better stop here........ for now.....