Investors often fail to think through sales growth as a dependable metric when it comes to picking winning stocks. This might be because of their preconceived notion that a company's stock price is typically sensitive to its earnings momentum. However, betting on stocks completely depending on such a perception may not prove worthwhile.

It's worth keeping in mind that in cases when companies incur a loss, albeit transitorily, they are valued based on their revenues not earnings, as top-line growth (or decline) is usually an indicator of a company's future earnings performance. In contrast with price to earnings and price to book value ratios, which can turn negative and cease to be relevant, the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is available even for firms that have hit choppy waters.

Further, a company can improve earnings by resorting to cost control measures while maintaining stable revenues. But superior profits could be achieved through continued revenue growth.

Also, earnings and book value are largely influenced by several factors including accounting decisions tied with depreciation, significant charges, and inventory. However, management has limited opportunities to manipulate sales, which further underscores the importance of P/S ratio.

A huge sales number does not necessarily convert into profits. Hence, considering a company's cash position along with its sales number can prove to be more prudent. Substantial cash in hand and a steady cash flow lend a company more flexibility with respect to business decisions and investments.

Choosing the Winning Stocks

In order to shortlist stocks that have witnessed impressive sales growth along with a high cash balance, we have selected 5-Year Historical Sales Growth (%) greater than X-Industry and Cash Flow greater than $500 million as our main screening parameters.

But sales growth and cash strength are not the absolute criteria for selecting stocks. So, we added certain other factors to arrive at a winning strategy.