Cash is the lifeblood of any business. It offers the flexibility to make decisions, the means to make potential investments and the fuel to run its growth engine. In fact, it holds the key to a company’s existence, development and success, and indicates its true financial health.In this regard, stocks like PDC Energy, Inc. PDCE, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation LPX, Encore Wire Corporation WIRE and Veritiv Corporation VRTV are worth buying.Before investing in the right stocks, one must go beyond profit numbers and look at a company’s efficiency in generating cash flows. Even a profitable business can succumb to failure if its cash flow is uneven and eventually, file for bankruptcy. However, one can effectively judge a company’s resilience by looking at its efficiency in generating cash flows. This is because cash not only shields it from market mayhem, but also indicates that profits are being channelized in the right direction.Particularly, uncertainties in the global economy, market disruptions and dislocations, as well as liquidity concerns resulting from geopolitical tensions or the pandemic have reestablished the relevance of analyzing a company’s cash-generating efficiency.To figure out this efficiency, one needs to consider a company’s net cash flow. While in any business cash moves in and out, it is net cash flow that explains how much money a company is actually generating.If a company is experiencing a positive cash flow, it denotes an increase in its liquid assets, which gives it the means to meet debt obligations, shell out for expenses, reinvest in the business, endure downturns and finally return wealth to shareholders. On the other hand, a negative cash flow indicates a decline in the company’s liquidity, which in turn lowers its flexibility to support these moves.However, having a positive cash flow merely does not secure a company’s future growth. To ride on the growth curve, a company must have its cash flow increasing because that indicates management’s efficiency in regulating its cash movements and less dependency on outside financing for running its business.Therefore, keep yourself abreast with the following screen to bet on stocks with rising cash flows.Screening Parameters:To find stocks that have seen increasing cash flow over time, we ran the screen for those whose cash flow in the latest reported quarter was at least equal to or greater than the 5-year average cash flow per common share. This implies a positive trend and increasing cash over a period of time.In addition to this we chose:Zacks Rank 1: No matter whether market conditions are good or bad, stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) have a proven history of outperformance. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.Average Broker Rating 1: This indicates that brokers are also highly hopeful about the company’s future performance.Current Price greater than or equal to $5: This sieves out low-priced stocks.VGM Score of B or better: This score is also of great assistance in selecting stocks. Importantly, this scoring system helps in picking winning stocks in their industry categories.Here are our four picks out of the 11 stocks that qualified the screening:PDC Energy, Inc., headquartered in Denver, CO, is an independent upstream operator engaged in the exploration, development and production of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PDC Energy’s 2022 earnings has moved 28.9% north to $13.32 over the past month. PDCE currently carries a VGM Score of A.Louisiana-Pacific Corporation is a leading manufacturer of sustainable, quality engineered wood building materials, structural framing products as well as exterior siding for use in residential, industrial and light commercial construction.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Louisiana-Pacific’s 2022 earnings has been revised upward to $11.87 per share from $8.54 in the past month. LPX currently has a VGM Score of A.Encore Wire is a low-cost manufacturer of copper electrical building wire and cable. The company is a significant supplier of both residential wire for interior electrical wiring in homes, apartments and manufactured housing, as well as building wire for electrical distribution in commercial and industrial buildings.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Encore Wire’s 2022 earnings has been revised upward to $10.74 from $9.76 in a month’s time. WIRE has a VGM Score of A.Veritiv Corporation engages in offering North American business-to-business distribution solutions. It provides packaging, print and print management, publishing, supply chain, facility and logistics solutions that span the entire lifecycle of core business operations.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current-year earnings has moved up 44.1% to $14.05 in the past month. Currently, VRTV carries a VGM Score of B.Get the rest of the stocks on the list and start putting this and other ideas to the test. It can all be done with the Research Wizard stock picking and back-testing software.The Research Wizard is a great place to begin. It's easy to use. Everything is in plain language. And it's very intuitive. Start your Research Wizard trial today. And the next time you read an economic report, open up the Research Wizard, plug your finds in, and see what gems come out.Click here to sign up for a free trial to the Research Wizard today.Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.Disclosure: Performance information for Zacks’ portfolios and strategies are available at: https://www.zacks.com/performance. Just Released: Zacks Top 10 Stocks for 2022 In addition to the investment ideas discussed above, would you like to know about our 10 top picks for the entirety of 2022? From inception in 2012 through 2021, the Zacks Top 10 Stocks portfolios gained an impressive +1,001.2% versus the S&P 500’s +348.7%. Now our Director of Research has combed through 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank and has handpicked the best 10 tickers to buy and hold. Don’t miss your chance to get in…because the sooner you do, the more upside you stand to grab.See Stocks Now >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report LouisianaPacific Corporation (LPX): Free Stock Analysis Report PDC Energy, Inc. (PDCE): Free Stock Analysis Report Encore Wire Corporation (WIRE): Free Stock Analysis Report Veritiv Corporation (VRTV): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research