I must say people at SmartMoney are really diligent to come up with new stock ideas: they have been pumping out a new stock screen every trading day, since August 1997. I also agree they did find some interesting perspectives to look for stock ideas, like:
Bottom-Fishing: This screen finds out companies trading at close to 52-week low and with positive projected EPS growth this year.
Foxhole: This screen looks for companies that regularly perform well when the market turns south. It primarily asks for a low beta ratio (potentially negative) and PEG ratio below 1.0.
Takeover-Targets: This screen looks for companies with low EV/EBITDA ratio, low debt/capitalization ratio and higher-than-average net margin for acquisitions targets.
Free Cash Flow: This screen helps to find out cash cows, defined as low price/FCF ratio, higher-than-average revenue growth and low debt ratios.
Short-Squeeze: This is the screen that looks for issues with short interest > 20 days, high institution holding and low debt ratios. Companies must trade above $5 to qualify
There are dozens more screens, like Bargain Growth, Rocket-Fuel, Efficiency Experts, Insider-Buying, Profitability, Contrarian, Unheard-Of, etc. I admire SmartMoney for their work to find readers more stock ideas. To me, stock screens are definitely a good way to get stock ideas. On the other hand, I am no advocate of mechanical investing; I still do a lot of fundamental analysis for stock ideas before I make an investment decision.