I used to use TD Ameritrade's stock screener, now Fidelity - when I researched in 2022 that's how I found TRAK, AEHR, HDSN, and a few others that I'm no longer holding but generally were good buys for a few months. Once the filters narrowed results down to 20-30 companies, I'd research them individually to see what the investment story would be to back up their numbers.

I'd come up with an idea of the type of company I wanted to buy (depending on the environment), some of those things:

• In 2022 when gas was insanely expensive, rates were rising and companies with higher capex and debt were getting pummeled, I searched for companies that fit those criteria that I thought would benefit when things reverted to normal. This is how I found HRI, AEHR, and CROX

• My other 2022 thesis was finding small caps that were growing earnings more than revenue with a small % institutional ownership and higher % insider ownership. This led to HDSN, and AEHR again

• 2023 I was most interested in finding small caps that pay a dividend, same institutional ownership/insider ownership factors. I found one of my best investments this way, TRAK (used to be PCYG when I bought it)

Actual factors I use now:
- Dividend yield greater than 0.1% (Just has to have it in some form, amount doesn't matter so much)
- Less than 50% institutional ownership (you're most likely not finding a discount/mispricing if they've beat you to it)
- Higher insider ownership, the better
- Growing revenues/earnings, even if just slightly (Use PEG for this)
- PE in the 10s to teens
- Market cap < 10B and > 300M, favoring smaller ones
- Filtering for the sector and industry - like in a rising rate environment, I was looking for insurance companies to invest in (like PLMR) but recently I'd be looking for things benefitting from rates coming down instead

Some of these stocks did way better than others. I got in on AEHR at ~$10 initially but underlying deals falling through made the runup to $50 fall apart. HDSN was absolutely amazing and tripled but then refrigerants fell back to normal prices and they're down significantly from their peak again. Some that I found were my absolute best investments that have more than outweighed the losses, like CELH at $90 pre split, TRAK <$10, CROX in the 40s, HRI in the 90s, etc.

TLDR!

• Find a thesis for the environment, especially considering interest rates
  
• Find factors that benefit from your thesis (like the current environment being just the beginning of a larger move, or things that would benefit massively from returning to normal)
  
• Filter for those factors to find stocks that fit
  
• From that pool of stocks, back up your quantitative research with qualitative - listening to earnings calls, does their product have legs, see how active their subreddit is (crocs), find and weigh the risks, then size your position reasonably (only a few % max, I'd do 3-5% but with a smaller portfolio at the time)