In early March, there were thousands of profitable, growing companies whose shares could have been bought for next to nothing. But there were two problems: We value investors had long since exhausted our cash by buying on dips, and many of us were resigned to a lifetime of shuffling from one homeless shelter to another, where the ability to identify undervalued securities is of limited utility.

Eight months later, markets are up more than 50% and such bargains are difficult -- but not impossible -- to find.

We used the Google Finance stock screener to search for companies with a market capitalization of at least US$500-million that pay a dividend. To ensure they have yet to participate in the recovery, we insisted that their current price/earnings ratio could not exceed 10 and most importantly, that their current share price could not be any higher than it was a year ago.

The criteria reduced the list of candidates from 2,652 companies to just 29. We then set the screener to apply three criteria for financial solvency: a current ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities) of at least one, which reduced the list to 11 names, and total debt of no more than 50% of current assets, measured over the most recent year and quarter. Three names fell off as the result of that requirement.

Three more criteria were set to screen for profitability: a return on assets of at least 5% over the past trailing 12 months, a gross margin of at least 5% and a net profit margin of at least 5%.

Lastly, we set up two hurdles to ensure our candidate companies were growing: a five-year earnings per share growth rate of 5% and a similar 5% threshold for revenue growth over the past five years.

The finalists came down to six names.

We then turned our attention to the Bloomberg terminal (you probably don’t have one unless you are well-heeled or a very active trader, or both; it rents for $1,700 a month) where we selected the company with the most enthusiastic analyst coverage. Precision Drilling Trust (PDun/TSX) won out with 12 “buys,” three “holds” and no sells among the 15 analysts who cover the company.

Despite their enthusiasm, Precision’s shares are down 27% this year, making it the laggard among publicly traded oil and gas servicing companies. For example, Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR/NYSE), the biggest company in the industry, is up 85.7%, the next largest, Helmerich & Payne Inc. (HP/NYSE) is 70% ahead on the year, and Patterson-UTI Energy (PTEN/NASDAQ) is up 39%.

Precision had a solid third quarter, notes Jeff Fetterly, an analyst at CIBC World Markets in Calgary. He rates Precision a “sector outperformer” with a 12-18 month price target of $9.50.

Precision’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $91-million beat the consensus estimate of $81-million, while cash flow of 21¢ a unit was ahead of CIBC’s estimate of 18¢, Mr. Fetterly noted. “We believe the worst of the current downturn is behind Precision,” he said.

Kevin Lo, an analyst at FirstEnergy Capital in Calgary, has an “outperform” rating on Precision and a $10 target price.

Mr. Lo said energy companies seeking natural gas under shale deposits require high-tech rigs capable of horizontal drilling -- the supply of which “is rapidly dwindling to the point where we see very few rigs available.” Precision has about 250 rigs capable of drilling horizontally, only half of which are working, which leaves the other half available to be put back to work, Mr. Lo says.

“While we suspect that some of these rigs are not able to work without significant upgrades, and others are shallow, the majority should be able to work in the less intensive shale plays and conventional basins and garner significant day rates over other less capable rigs,” he said in a recent note to clients.

In a column last week, Peter Hodson, manager of the Sprott Growth Fund, listed Precision Drilling among companies that may be a takeover target.