The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, Aug. 21, edition that manufacturing has been an underperforming sector of the Canadian market, down 2.9 per cent over the past 12 months. The Globe's Peter Ashton writes in the Number Cruncher column that only basic materials and cyclical consumer goods have performed more poorly. Meanwhile, the Canadian dollar is down more than 16 per cent versus the greenback in this same period. A lower dollar makes Canadian manufactured exports less expensive and should boost the fortunes of the manufacturing sector in the coming quarters. Mr. Ashton looked for Canadian manufacturing stocks poised to benefit from a lower Canadian dollar. He set a minimum market cap of $500-million. He looked for companies with reasonable valuations by screening for forward price-to-earnings ratios of 25 or less. He also limited his results to companies with projected earnings-per-share growth rates of at least 5 per cent in the coming year. As well, Mr. Ashton filtered for companies with debt-to-equity ratios of 1.2 or less. His recommended picks are Magna International, Linamar, Exco Technologies, Martinrea International, Canam Group and New Flyer Industries.