Inflation has been picking up lately, and in a recent Seeking Alpha column Validea CEO John Reese looks at how you can use the advice of Warren Buffett and Joseph Piotroski to keep your portfolio ahead of the inflation curve.

Reese looks at a 1977 article Buffett authored in which he said that, for a company to benefit from an inflationary period, it would have to increase its return on equity, which Buffett said could be done only in one or more of five main ways: increasing turnover; cheaper leverage; more leverage; lower income taxes; wider operating margins.

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According to Reese, “Buffett said that he didn’t think most companies, or the corporate world as a whole, could do those things with any degree of regularity during an inflationary period. But most companies doesn’t mean all companies. Some of Buffett’s main ROE conclusions are also part of the method Joseph Piotroski developed some two-plus decades later to identify winning stocks. The Piotroski method may thus offer some hints about individual stocks that have shown an ability to do the types of things Buffett said were necessary to thrive during inflationary times.”

Reese looks at some stocks that get high marks from his Buffett- or Piotroski-based models. Among them: recreational vehicle maker Polaris Industries.