If the 2018 market proved anything it is that you need to own stocks with an earnings backbone. That’s because like the cream, great companies with strong earnings and strong products pipelines tend to quickly rise to the top. One such company is medical device maker Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), suggests Jim Woods, editor of Fast Money Alert.
The diversified medical device maker, whose products include blood glucose monitoring kits, nutritional healthcare products, diagnostic products and equipment, has seen strong EPS growth that’s put it in the top quartile of all publicly traded companies (growth over the past two quarters and past several years).
That growth has been recognized by the fast money in 2018, as ABT’s 2018 gain of nearly 27% puts it in the top 6% of price performers over the past year (it also pays a 1.8% dividend yield for even more upside).
One personal note here, I am about to get some firsthand knowledge of one very interesting new Abbot product called DRG therapy. This surgically implanted electronic stimulation device is used for chronic pain management (in my case injuries from years of martial arts, bodybuilding and military training).
The device delivers pain relief to a reported 74.2% of patients who suffer from complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS. Hopefully, I will be in that near three-quarters of patients with those positive results.
For Wall Street, the upside in Abbott has allowed it to trade well above its 200-day moving average in 2018. And despite the volatility we witnessed in most stocks during Q4, the shares ended the year back above its short-term, 50-day moving average at a time when most stocks were tanking.
I suspect the stock is just getting started, and in 2019, I think this healthcare standout is a good way to ease the 2018 portfolio pain. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Jim Woods was long ABT in his Fast Money Alert advisory service.
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