The Globe and Mail attempts to identify stocks showing consistent profit in its Thursday edition. The Globe's Ian Tam writes in the Number Cruncher column that one of the key ratios to measure profit is return on equity, which is net income (or bottom line) of the company divided by the book value of shareholder's equity. In other words, this ratio measures the return that is generated to owners of the company's stock. Mr. Tam says for this column he has combined time periods and measures of ROE to rank Canadian-listed equities. Mr. Tam considered the latest forward-looking ROE versus the sector median, with higher figures preferred. As well, he also considered average ROE over the trailing five-year and 10-year time frames. He looked at standard deviation of ROE over the trailing five-year and 10-year time frames to see how volatile a company's reported ROE is over those periods, with lower figures preferred. To qualify, companies needed to have three active analysts covering the stock and a debt-to-equity ratio less than that of the sector median to avoid overly leveraged companies. Mr. Tam recommends buying Computer Modelling Group, National Bank of Canada, Equitable Group, BCE and Metro.