The Globe and Mail attempts to identify Canadian stocks with better-than-industry value and growth characteristics in its Thursday, Aug. 14, edition. The Globe's Craig McGee writes in the Number Cruncher column that he looked for stocks with the best combination of the following metrics: Industry-relative forward price to earnings; industry-relative price to book; industry-relative reinvestment rate (operating earnings less dividends as a percentage of shareholders' equity); industry-relative quarterly earnings momentum (the rate of change of earnings over the past four quarters versus one quarter ago); industry-relative revision of the consensus EPS estimate over the past three months; and industry-relative earnings surprise and price momentum. Over the 12 months ended July 31, this strategy generated a total return of 38.9 per cent versus 26.5 per cent for the S&P/TSX Composite Total Return Index. Following this strategy back from 1985 would have generated an annualized total return of 15.9 per cent while the index came in at 8.7 per cent. Mr. McGee's recommended picks are Parex Resources, Catamaran, Wi-LAN, Thompson Creek Metals, Advantage Oil & Gas and Goldcorp.