The choice of stocks depend on what a person wants.
Dividend payouts are stocks picked by people who are looking to earn consistent revenue, rather than watch their principle amount grow. On the other hand, those who want their money invested to go 3-4 fold invest in stocks which have growth potential. Often, those companies are the ones which offer least dividend because they are heavily reinvesting all their money back in business.
Brand name is most important in choosing a stock. The brand name and management decides the company's goodwill in the market, the trust people have, the potential for the company to grow and others. Similar to how we trust branded stuff more than cheap imports from neighbours.
Profitability is a good index to understand how much you can get as returns from a stock. A company more profitable though with lesser business can afford to play with more funds than those with cut throat margins. The former grow faster.
Cash reserves and other aspects give us better understanding of the company's abilities to handle funds.
Yes, macro and micro policies are extremely important in deciding what the future prospects of a business are. And those are what will decide the future value of the stock price. The norm is a stock price is reflective of factors about the company for the coming 6 months.
All the best...