This is now the 2nd longest bull market in modern history. That means the easy money has already been made and valuations are near fully engorged. Gladly, there is not much fear of a bear market either.

When you add it all up it says the bull market is still on. Just that the pace of gains for the broader market is slowing down to around 5% per year….10% if we are lucky.

I know that doesn’t get your heart racing. But compared to the unspectacular returns for cash and bonds it is a pretty fair shake.

To be clear, these modest gains are the likely outcome if you stick with most mutual funds or index investing. Gladly there are proven strategies that can help you select better stocks and handily beat the market.

Below I share with you the 4 essential ingredients for selecting the best stocks at this time. I truly believe that following these strategies can lead to doubling, even tripling, the average market return.

Ingredient #1: Value

2013 was a gangbuster year for the stock market with 32% gains for the S&P 500. All you had to do is strap yourself to the best growth stocks and the money would just roll in.

That party came to a screeching halt in 2014 as overpriced growth stocks were violently punished. Since then it pays to be much more selective.

The problem is that most investors have a set of historical standards for what they believe equates to a value stock. I am referring to certain measures of PE or Book Value or PEG etc. that typically denote an undervalued security. Unfortunately, 8+ years into a bull market you will discover that most every stock is above those water marks. And that is most certainly true in an investment landscape that has never had bond rates this low making stocks all the more attractive by comparison thus driving up valuations.

Or let me put it another way. Those looking for absolute value based on these historical measures will find no stocks in their basket. So the key is to use relative value measures to squeeze out additional gains. That is where the Zacks Value Score comes into play.