Welcome back to my weblog. Sounds like one of those black and white Count Dracula movies huh....should say something like "Velcome back to my Veblog"...oh well, maybe I am a better stock-picker than comedian....Today the market is up. I was on Yahoo chat last night and I told everyone I thought the market would be down....maybe predicting market moves isn't my forte...Anyhow...how about Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (MMSI) today? MMSI is having a wonderful day today trading at $23.10 up $1.89 or 8.91% on the day.
According to money.cnn.com, Merit "...develops, manufactures and distributes disposable medical products for use in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease."
On July 23, 2003, Merit reported second quarter results for the quarter ending June 30, 2003. Results, according to NYTimes on the Web were revenue for the quarter of $34.6 million up 20% from last year's $28.8 million. Net income was a record $4.2 million or $.28/share up 56% from last year's $2.7 million or $.18/share.
Morningstar.com shows Merit with a very nice steady increase in revenue starting at $68.4 million in 1998, $78.0 million in 1999, $91.4 million in 2000, $104.0 million in 2001, $116.2 million in 2002, and extrapolating the current quarter we should get somewhere north of $130 million in revenue in 2003.
Free cash flow has been solid with $1 million reported in 2000, $14 million in 2001 and $13 million in 2002.
According to Morningstar, Merit has $16.4 million in cash, almost enough to cover both the current liabilities of $13.9 million and the long-term liabilities of $3.2 million combined. In addition, they are reported to have $36.0 million in other current assets.
According to Yahoo.com, Merit has a market cap of $442.41 million with 19.15 million shares outstanding and 17.47 million of them that float. There are 761,000 shares out short, representing 3.032 days of average trading volume. I am finding it hard to believe who might want to short this stock....The trailing p/e is at 29.46, a little rich, and the price/sales is at 3.25. Yahoo reports estimates of $.76 this year and $.89 next year.
I like this stock a lot. Honestly. I do not own any shares...but would be happy to buy some if I can figure out WHERE I will get the money lol. I cannot own everything!
Thanks again for stopping by. Please visit often and share this URL with your friends. If you have your own website, I would be HONORED to have you provide a link to this site. Regards!
Bob