(Update 20Apr09) Found this trick in google finance (chart), hold on mouse “up” or “down”, the time frame of stock chart extends or contracts.
Stock Screener
Here is an example: market cap $5 b to 25 b; PE ratio 10 to 20; dividend yield 2% to 5%; return on equity 15% to 25% (last 5 years). You can also sort the results by “52 week price change” etc (in ascending or descending order).
Customization: you can add other criteria such as “Return on equity (ave. last 5 years)”. The reason I like return on equity is that it means real return for shareholders. Ideally I am more intereted in the free cash flow yield (definition at investopedia).
Range: Google provides default. You can see the price change for all the stocks: -99.86% to 5,094% (52 weeks). Interesting. I left it here so I can see the range (in other words, I am not filtering out any stocks using this criteria).
Results: there are 27 stocks as I ran this in recent days. I found ADP, BNI, TROW, GWW to be interesting.
Another screen: switch to smaller captial (1b to 5b), div yield 1% to 4%, added revenue growth 10% to 20% (last 5 years, match PE 10 to 20). Here is the link. It gives me 10 stocks.
At this time, I mostly use it for fun. I am not seriously use it to pick a stock, yet.
Industry
My complaints on Google Finance. A bit strange, why is Wells Fargo a regional bank, while US bank a money center bank?
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) belongs to Regional Banks
US Bank (NYSE: USB) belongs to Money Center Banks
PS, I remember years ago I used Yahoo Finance java based stock screener. But here is its web based Stock Screener.
PS2, long time ago GSeeker wrote this about Google Finance (in Chinese).