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Shares of medical-product maker Baxter International ( BAX ) hit an all-time high Tuesday after the company beat Q1 estimates and raised its guidance. Baxter’s earnings, excluding one-time items, rose 6% over the year-earlier quarter to 36 cents a share, beating analysts’ consensus by seven cents, according to Thomson Reuters. Sales declined 1% to $2.38 billion, beating Wall Street’s number by about $22 million. Excluding the foreign-exchange impact, sales rose 4%. Baxter added 13 cents to its full-year EPS guidance, now $1.59 to $1.67, up from $1.36 last year. The company said that its constant-currency sales growth should be 3%; it had previously guided 2% to 3%. For the second quarter, Baxter forecast earnings of 38 to 40 cents a share, topping analysts’ average estimate of 35 cents. It said that sales should grow 2% — even including the FX impact — where the Street had expected a slight decline. Baxter stock hit a new high of 44.75 in early trading on the stock market today . In afternoon trading, shares were up less than 1%, near 44. Baxter’s products, which include IV systems, dialysis machines and surgical equipment, are sold mainly to the hospital market, which has been looking strong this earnings season, according to Leerink analyst Danielle Antalffy. “This — now the third consecutive growth quarter in the U.S. after two consecutive quarters of low-single-digit declines — could serve as another encouraging data point, in addition to Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ), St. Jude Medical ( STJ ) and Abbott Laboratories ( ABT ) (Q1 reports) last week, that supports a potential trend for improving U.S. procedure volumes overall,” Antalffy wrote in a research note. The fortunes of hospital stocks supports her view: The Medical-Hospitals group has been among the fastest-rising of IBD’s 197 industry groups, leaping from No. 191 to six weeks ago to No. 39 at present. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News