Sprucing Up the 'Clean Stocks' List

Can investors ever prove that a stock is clean?

Probably not. No matter how hard you research a company, you can never produce a 100% guarantee that someone -- the CEO, the accountants, the board -- isn't conspiring to fake the quarter's numbers. In fact, if there's a company out there without even a tiny skeleton in management's closet, I've yet to meet up with it.

That's why I launched my Clean Stocks project as a collaborative effort between myself and readers to build a list of stocks that investors can trust. Putting a company through tests like those that readers and I have developed exposes a company's character. I couldn't ask for a better illustration of a company with great character than T. Rowe Price(TROW Quote). ...