Recently I started a quest to evaluate every company as it published its annual results, however briefly. The marathon evaluation halted when I went on holiday. And it failed to resume when I discovered a fatal flaw in the plan.

The Human Screen freed me from the drudgery of screening by computer and familiarised me with every company in the market, not just the few meeting the inflexible and imperfect criteria of computer screens.

But computers have an enormous advantage over humans. They calculate far more quickly, and calculation was the flaw in the plan. To evaluate each company I was calculating 16 statistics. I just couldn’t do it for enough companies, considering it’s only the first stage of the stock selection process and I still needed to make time for more in depth research.

So, I’m backtracking slightly, and relying on computer generated data somewhat. It’s not a humiliating retreat though. No, no, no. The spirit of the Human Screen lives on in the Interactive Investor Annual Results Report, which I will be updating most days.

It’s an unholy combination of man and machine (in the form of the excellent Stockopedia), a Cyborg Screen, perhaps, that will still familiarise me, and. I hope, readers, with the whole market, while uncovering interesting companies to research.

I’ve already picked out Dunelm, Galliford Try, Swallowfield, Asian Citrus, Hargreaves Services and CVS for further investigation. FW Thorpe and Ricardo would also be in that group, were it not for the fact I’ve already researched them.

The Human Screen is dead. Long live the Annual Results Report.

(OK, maybe I need to think of a new name!)