Probably every time you mention the stock market someone in the group has Trading Recommendations for you. Whether you use them is another matter but people do have their opinions about the stock market and what you should and should not buy. There are numerous television programs that fill their time with Trading Recommendations form this person or that person. If you take their advice on any given day you may or may not make any money. A lot of this rests on how long you can afford to leave your money tied up in any particular stock. And sometimes it is just a matter of luck.
There are basically two general ways to analyze the stock markets and the companies who are traded on them. One of them is an analysis that uses a company's financial statements in the SEC filings. Then you would factor in a study of business trends and take into account the general economic condition of the world. Preferably one would also take the time to study various resources available on the internet and would read various financial information resources such as the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times so they can assess what they believe may happen in the near and far future.
A lot of this forecast would be based on what business the company is in. For example, you may not want to invest in a petroleum company that just had several off shore drilling wells break down and cause a disaster someplace in the world. But you may find out that some where in the world there is a great need for a product but that product is scarce or someone may have a patent on it so you may then want to invest in the company that has the patent on this produce if that company is publically traded. This is how you would integrate what is happening in the world into your analysis of a particular company's stock growth potential.
The other way to analyze a company's trends is to watch the action of the stocks as to prices rising and falling. You would also rely on charts and graphs and other quantitative techniques and resources to then forecast stock price trends. You would then analyze this data and condense it so you could choose stocks that would fall within your parameters as set by the charts and graphs.
Then there are the people who make a living giving Trading Recommendations. This is a group of professionals who have probably spent a great portion of their lives studying the various stock markets either in the United States or world wide and have also paid attention to the foreign exchange markets also. These professionals who make their living this way would also use the two ways to analyze a company's trends plus they would have close company with which they can discuss the various trends so they can make recommendations to you, their customer before you make any investment choices.