"What do you want to buy today?"

Don't take it to heart.  Him asking that question doesn't mean he's short-term oriented or looking to trade quarters.  It's just a way to keep the consistent flow of ideas going.  Flip the conversation and talk sh*t about companies you don't like or obvious logic loopholes to change up the pace.  I don't think he's asking for new, fully researched, high-conviction, actionable ideas every day and just wants to engage with the analysts more.  Have fun with the chat and idea generation, it's often the more interesting part of the job.

It's just chatter and brainstorming.  The idea generation process can be as simple as chatting about a stock during lunch or over a beer and doing the math on the back of a napkin.  It is preferably done this way because if every idea has to be screened with a formal process, it would take too much time or too complex that it ends up being wrong or a misread.  

Lastly, I think the PM is also looking for consistency in your views.  

Edit:  I want to add that the instinctive response to that question with an easy-to-understand variant view or investment thesis is the gut response that comes from experience and pattern recognition, and with experience is often right.  To chat/banter thoughtfully about stocks is not water-cooler talk but just as much real work as reading through 10k's and building out models, except it will take many iterations of the fundamental groundwork to fully benefit from it.