Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (BIDU), National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NOV), LinkedIn Corp (LNKD): 5 Stocks to Consider for April

For the past 19 months, I’ve been doing my best to help the world invest better. Every month, I publicly call out a few stocks that I’m considering adding to my Roth IRA; on Friday, I’ll let you know which stock made the cut.

So far, my monthly picks have returned 16%, slightly more than the S&P 500 return over the same time frame.

Read below to find out what five stocks I’m thinking about buying and why, and at the end I’ll be offering up access to a special premium report that digs super-deep into the details of one of the companies I’m considering.

Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU)
Fellow Fool Kevin Chen came out with a list of 25 scintillating facts about China’s Internet potential, and although Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) is only mentioned tangentially, the message is clear: Internet use is catching on in China. I think with a 80% market share and a blueprint for success — in the form of American counterpart Google — Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) is well positioned to succeed.

Throw on top of that the fact that the company had 596,000 small and medium-size business partners at the end of the year — with a potential market of 40 million — and the fact that the stock is trading for just 13 times expected earnings, and you can see why I think the market’s being short-sighted here.

National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV)
This is another ho-hum pick that I’ve already added twice to this portfolio in the past. National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV) is something of a one-stop shop for any company looking to extract energy from the earth — be it oil or natural gas. In much the same fashion that it was the shovel salesman — and not the prospectors — who made a fortune in the gold rush, National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV) stands to benefit from our continued reliance on energy from the earth.

Source: National Oilwell Varco media gallery.

The aging fleet of deepwater rigs around the world aren’t getting younger, and I expect repairs and new orders to keep NOV’s backlog at a more than healthy level. As long as we drive cars with gas and use natural gas to heat our houses, NOV’s products will be in demand. But with today’s price, at just 10 times 2013’s expected earnings, the market doesn’t seem to agree with me.