The bull is running.
Today's pick for the morning is Quest Diagnostics (DGX) on the NYSE. Quest is having a geat day trading at $64.28 up $2.78 on the day. The p/e is reasonable at 19.90 and they don't have a dividend.
Last quarter results were posted on April 22, 2003, per the NYTimes on the web. Earnings per share increased 28% to $.86 from $.67 in the quarter ending March 31, 2003, and revenue of $1.1 billion for the quarter grew 15.4% over the prior year. This includes acquisitions of Unilab and American Medical Laboratories. Pro Forma revenue growth (assuming that these were both part of Quest for both periods) acually grew just 3.2%.
By the way, DGX "is a clinical laboratory testing company which offers testing services used by the medical profession in the detection, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of diseases." per Cnn.money.
Looking at Morningstar.com, we find revenue growth very consistent, starting at $1.5 billion in 1998, increasing to $2.2 billion in 1999, $3.4 billion in 2000, $3.6 billion in 2001 and $4.1 billion in 2002.
Extrapolating the current quarter we would get about $4.4 billion in 2003.
The company spins off lots of free cash flow starting at $253 million in 2000, increasing to $317 million in 2001 and up to $441 million in 2002.
DGX has about $820 million in current assets vs $636 million in current liabilities and $919.4 million in long term debt. They also report $2,499 million in other long term assets. A little heavy on debt perhaps but with all the free cash flow this shouldn't be a problem imho.
A very interesting stock and should be at the top of all of your potential picks. I do not own any shares of this but certainly would be interested in acquiring shares if the opportunity availed itself.
Happy Monday!
Bob