My dad used to make a good bit of money in the stock market by following his "system" he called it.
It went something like this.
He would search for 52-week highs. He didn't have just a ton of money to play with so he only paid attention to stocks under $25. He would spend hours looking at 6 month charts until he found one that met his criteria.. A flat line and then a slowly rising break through. Once he found that chart, he would look at the volume. If the volume began to increase as the line climbed, he would take it further. He would look up all the news and stuff on the stock. If the company had been in the green the past 6 months and was expected to profit more, he would buy the stock..
That simple "system" he had only failed him once. I just wish he woulda had more money in the market to play with. He would make an extra $10,000-$20,000g a year using that. However he has steered away from the market the past few years for some reason.