The Globe and Mail attempts to identify profitable North American financial companies with reasonable valuations in its Tuesday, March 7, edition. The Globe's Craig McGee writes in the Number Cruncher column that two months into the new year, surging markets show no real sign of slowing down and investors are appearing to maintain their appetite for riskier securities. The financials sector has led the charge with total returns of 33.3 per cent for the S&P/TSX capped financials index and 46.4 per cent for the S&P 500 financials index. Mr. McGee says he searched for mid-cap and large-cap financial companies that offer reasonable value and high profitability. He ranked financials with the best mix of price to book, forward price to earnings, return on equity, three-month consensus earnings estimate revision no worse than minus 5 per cent and earnings variability (measured as the standard deviation of earnings per share over the past five years divided by the median value of EPS). Stocks that Mr. McGee believes are worth consideration are IGM Financial, Laurentian Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia and, Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services.