The Globe and Mail attempts to identify steady stocks showing consistency is turbulent times in its Thursday, Feb. 11, edition. The Globe's Ian Tam writes in the Number Cruncher column that he focused on liquid stocks that have exhibited characteristics of consistency over the medium-to-long term. He ranked stocks on the following factors such as earnings variability (where a lower score is preferred), consistency of analyst expectations for earnings (a lower spread indicates that analysts have a more consistent view of the stock), five-year earnings per share growth, annual earnings momentum and annual cash flow momentum. To qualify, stocks needed have an average daily trading volume of at least $2-million. Only stocks with a debt-to-equity ratio of less than 0.4 and a cash-flow-to-debt ratio of more than 0.2 were considered. Stocks showing consistency during volatile times are Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, CGI Group, Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Bank of Montreal. Mr. Tam recommends investors conduct their own independent research before acting on any of his investment recommendations.