As the stock market seesaws, you are no doubt receiving advice to go for “quality” when selecting investments.

A focus on companies with a track record for earnings growth can be a good approach, especially if dividend income is your objective. It will also be important if we are indeed heading into a deflationary “ice age,” which was predicted recently by analysts at Société Générale.

But what’s wrong with investing for growth? Typically, companies with the fastest sales growth can make investors a lot of money. Apple Inc. AAPL, +1.57% has been one of those for years, despite continued nay-saying.

To be sure, a company doesn’t need to show large and steady profits for its stock to soar. Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +5.69% is a notable example, with its stock rising 67% this year. The company’s sales per share over the past 12 months have risen 16%, though earnings per share have been negative.

To find strong and healthy companies, we looked at the S&P 1500 Composite Index and identified those that posted the fastest sales growth while also increasing earnings.

Here are the top 10:

We didn’t include companies that merely shrank their net losses per share. Each company showed positive earnings per share for the past 12 months.

We focused on per-share numbers because these “bake in” any dilution from the issuance of more shares to fund acquisitions, expansion or stock-based compensation for executives. Per-share numbers will also factor in any reduction in share counts from buybacks.

Here’s a set of very impressive EPS growth data for the same group of companies:

Here’s how those 10 stocks have performed:

In comparison,the S&P 1500 Composite Index is down 4% this year and has returned 44% over the past three years and 96% over five years. This group measures up quite well against the index for longer periods, but this year’s numbers show just how volatile these names can be in the short run.

So we have a diverse group of companies that is pretty much on fire, growing sales and earnings significantly over the past 12 months. But how do the stock valuations measure up? Our decision to limit the list to those with growing profits means price-to-earnings ratios have some meaning.

Here are current-year and forward price-to-earnings ratios for the group:

Company Closing price - Sept. 9 Consensus 2015 EPS estimate Consensus 2016 EPS estimate Price/ 2015 EPS estimate Price/ 2016 EPS estimate Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc. $39.80 $4.06 $2.91 9.8 13.7 ANI Pharmaceuticals Inc. $51.67 $2.46 $3.40 21.0 15.2 Avago Technologies Inc. $127.17 $8.85 $9.56 14.4 13.3 Gilead Sciences Inc. $103.82 $11.58 $11.64 9.0 8.9 Synaptics Inc. $71.73 $5.69 $6.87 12.6 10.4 Minerals Technologies Inc. $50.83 $4.30 $4.70 11.8 10.8 Lithia Motors Inc. Class A $109.87 $6.77 $7.61 16.2 14.4 Balchem Corp. $57.35 $2.50 $2.75 23.0 20.9 Skyworks Solutions Inc. $86.42 $5.26 $6.17 16.4 14.0 Walker & Dunlop Inc. $23.24 $2.34 $2.46 9.9 9.5 Source: FactSet

In comparison, the S&P 1500 Composite Index trades for 16.4 times the weighted aggregate consensus 2015 EPS estimate among analysts polled by FactSet, and for 14.8 times in 2016. Most of the stocks trade at lower P/E ratios, and even the ones trading higher aren’t outrageously expensive.

Here’s a roundup of analyst sentiment for the stocks:

On the whole, the numbers are telling a positive story for this set of companies. But there are no guarantees. The next step for a long-term investor considering one or more of these stocks is to learn as much as possible about what each company does and carefully consider their growth prospects for the years ahead.