How to invest in the stock market

I have tried a few different criteria and I like to start my picking process with the below process. I start a stock screener where I can compare the current stock price to cash. If this is > 2, meaning that at least 50% of the share price is comprised of the amount of cash in the bank. I am even more apt to invest with the company if they have a long standing history of dividends, and even greater chance if they have a history of increasing that dividend. This shows that the company is dedicated to their shareholders and will act accordingly.
Also one should look at their price to earnings, (P/E), because this represents the premium that you are paying to gain access to their earning power. For example, Johnson and Johnson at the time of writing this has a P/E of 11.62, which means that for ever $11.62 that you invest with them they returned $1 in earnings. This doesn't take into account their dividend history just earnings. One must also realize that analysing the P/E of companies in different sectors is unadvisable.

Thirdly, Return on Equity, is a ratio that looks at how well the company uses its capital to make money. If two companies have near equal P/E and they are in the same sector, then this would be a good tiebreaker. Ideally this shows that company A, with a higher ROE is a more efficently managed company than company B. I like this because when you take the market as an aggregate you are abstracting to a high degree and whether your company makes gears, cogs or harvest heart valves from pigs, we are looking at getting paid regardless of what the company produces. And the ROE measures exactly that, how well the company uses its capital to make us money.