Ford Motor Company (F), National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NOV): Invest Like Ken Fisher With These Stocks

Ken Fisher is a famed investor, and the son of investing icon Philip Fisher. Through his best selling book Super Stocks and his track record at his firm, Fisher Investments, Fisher has established himself as a growth stock authority.

In his aforementioned book Super Stocks, Mr. Fisher introduced the investing world to a new valuation metric, the price-to-sales ratio. Since the days of Ben Graham investors had happily measured price against earnings, but never sales.

The results have been impressive. According to Fisher Investments, since its inception stocks chosen following the Kenneth Fisher model have outperformed the market four-fold.

With that kind of performance, you have to believe that price-to-sales is a good way to find quality stocks. Here are a few that meet Fisher’s criteria of a low p/s ratio and also seem to have good prospects overall.

Treading profits

Since 2009 auto sales have led the U.S. recovery. Auto sales have been the largest percentage of U.S. GDP over the past five years, and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (NYSE:CTB) has been a chief beneficiary.

So while the stock currently trades at a multi-year high, it still trades at a remarkably low price-to-sales ratio of just 0.52. If the idea is to invest in companies that trade at a cheap valuation compared to trailing twelve month sales, with the stock market average being 2.1, a valuation at 0.52 of sales is remarkably low.

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (NYSE:CTB) is coming off of a remarkable earnings beat of 33% and is trading at a price-to-earnings growth ratio of just 1.14, so it seems like those revenues are hitting the bottom-line well.

U.S. auto sales met most lofty projections last year, and they’re expected to rise again throughout 2013. With rising gas prices and new improved fuel efficiency standards coming from the White House, I think auto sales could be moving upward for a while. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (NYSE:CTB) could make sense here. Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) could be in a growth position for many of the same reasons, after all someone will need to make these new, more fuel efficient vehicles. U.S. auto sales, however, aren’t exactly Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F)’s biggest concern.

The auto maker has been gaining market share in its already industry-leading U.S. truck division. Production has picked up significantly for its F-150, the best selling truck in the U.S.

So the real question for Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) is the struggling European market.