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5 Top Health Care Stocks To Watch Before February 2022

Should investors be paying more attention to these health care stocks?
The post 5 Top Health Care Stocks To Watch Before February 2022 appeared first on Stock Market News, Quotes, Charts and Financial Information | StockMarket.com.

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5 Health Care Stocks For Your February 2022 Watchlist

Without question, the global pandemic brought health care stocks to the minds of many investors in the stock market. Nevertheless, investors should find comfort in knowing that the health care sector will remain relevant with or without the pandemic. After all, humanity continues to face a variety of diseases and health conditions. Thus, we will inevitably need health care services at some point in our lives. And companies that address these needs could stand to benefit. 

For instance, companies that produce COVID-19 vaccines such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) have been performing exceptionally well over the past two years. In its recent fourth-quarter earnings report, Johnson & Johnson saw its earnings per share skyrocket to $1.77, representing an increase of 172.3% year-over-year. The company is optimistic that its COVID-19 vaccine will continue to contribute to its success. So, it should not be surprising that investors are constantly on the lookout for top health care stocks. Here is a list of some of the top names in the stock market now. 

Best Health Care Stocks To Watch Before February 2022

Anthem

Anthem is a leading health care company dedicated to improving lives and making healthcare simpler. Through its affiliated companies, Anthem serves more than 117 million people, including more than 45 million within its family of health plans. The company offers a spectrum of network-based managed care plans to individuals, employers, Medicaid, and Medicare markets. ANTM stock has risen more than 45% over the past year.

antm stock

Yesterday, Anthem announced its fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 earnings. It was yet another strong year for the company as it surpassed many analysts’ estimates on several important metrics. The company’s medical enrollment increased by 2.4 million members year-over-year and 303 thousand members in the fourth quarter to 45.4 million members.

Meanwhile, its adjusted net income was $5.14 per share for the quarter, as compared to $2.54 per share a year ago. Overall, Anthem is confident in its momentum across all its business heading into 2022. With that said, would you consider adding ANTM stock to your watchlist?

[Read More] Best Monthly Dividend Stocks To Buy Now? 5 For Your List

Abbott

Abbott is yet another health care company that reported its fourth-quarter financial update yesterday. For those unaware, this is a company that specializes in a diversified line of health care products. Its products include a line of rhythm management, electrophysiology, vascular and structural heart devices for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes care products. In fact, Abbott recently received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new cardiac mapping system to treat cardiac arrhythmias. 

coronavirus stocks to buy (ABT stock)

During its fourth quarter, the company reported sales of $11.5 billion, an increase of 7.2% year-over-year. Out of which, $2.3 billion were COVID-19 testing-related sales. Abbott has distributed more than 1.4 billion COVID-19 tests since the onset of the pandemic.

Many would deem 2021 as an outstanding year for the company as it achieved a full-year 2021 GAAP diluted EPS of $3.94, reflecting a growth of 42.7% compared to the prior year. Also, it warned that the Omicron variant would likely drive up treatment, vaccination, and testing costs in the first quarter. With that in mind, should ABT stock warrant more attention in the stock market right now?

Align

Unlike other entries today, Align Technology is a health care company that serves the dental market. In detail, the company designs, manufactures, and markets Invisalign clear aligners and iTero intraoral scanners for dentistry. To complement its Invisalign clear aligners, it has an Imaging Systems and CAD/CAM services segment that provides computer-aided manufacturing software for dental laboratories and dental practitioners. In the world we live in today, the company’s products and services are highly relevant among consumers. 

best tech stocks (ALGN stock)

With the company reporting its fourth-quarter earnings soon, investors will be on the lookout if it could maintain its strong momentum from previous quarters. The company’s record third-quarter gained significant traction among investors. Its revenue increased by 38.4% year-over-year to a record $1.02 billion.

Meanwhile, its diluted earnings per share were $2.28 as compared to $1.76 in the previous year’s quarter. Also, the wide adoption of its iTero Scanner can be seen through the 50,000 units installed worldwide. Given these considerations, would you be investing in ALGN stock ahead of its earnings release? 

[Read More] Stock Market Today: Dow Jones, S&P 500 Surges; Tesla Reports Solid Quarterly Figures

Thermo Fisher

Thermo Fisher develops, manufactures, and sells a range of health care products. It offers its products and services through various brands such as Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, and Unity Lab Services. The company believes that it will make the world a healthier and safer place by equipping its customers and health care providers with the best-in-class health care solutions.  

TMO stock

Thermo Fisher started the year by announcing the acquisition of PeproTech for a total cash purchase price of approximately $1.85 billion. Diving into the details, PeproTech is a provider of bioscience reagents that include cytokines and growth factors. These are mostly used in the development and manufacturing of cell and gene therapies.

Hence, it will likely complement Thermo Fisher’s cell culture media products and expand its product offerings and benefits. All things considered, would TMO stock be a top health care stock to watch?

[Read More] Best Artificial Intelligence Stocks To Buy Right Now? 5 To Watch

Davita

To sum up the list, we will be looking at the health care provider, DaVita. The company specializes in kidney care services such as dialysis and related lab services. Its U.S. dialysis business provides kidney dialysis services for patients suffering from chronic kidney failure. In addition, it has wide international dialysis operations that include over 300 outpatient dialysis centers located in ten countries outside of the U.S.

DVA stock

Last week, DaVita along with nearly 1,000 kidney health care providers announced the launch of 11 value-based care programs across the U.S. The goal of the programs is to help slow the progression of chronic kidney diseases and allow more patients with kidney failures to have access to kidney transplants and dialysis.

With the launch of these programs, DaVita expects to more than double the number of patients receiving integrated kidney care in the first performance year alone. So, could this be a boost for DVA stock long term?

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The post 5 Top Health Care Stocks To Watch Before February 2022 appeared first on Stock Market News, Quotes, Charts and Financial Information | StockMarket.com.

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There Goes The Fed’s Inflation Target: Goldman Sees Terminal Rate 100bps Higher At 3.5%

There Goes The Fed’s Inflation Target: Goldman Sees Terminal Rate 100bps Higher At 3.5%

Two years ago, we first said that it’s only a matter…

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3 hours ago

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March 19, 2024

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There Goes The Fed's Inflation Target: Goldman Sees Terminal Rate 100bps Higher At 3.5%

Two years ago, we first said that it's only a matter of time before the Fed admits it is unable to rsolve the so-called "last mile" of inflation and that as a result, the old inflation target of 2% is no longer viable.

Then one year ago, we correctly said that while everyone was paying attention elsewhere, the inflation target had already been hiked to 2.8%... on the way to even more increases.

And while the Fed still pretends it can one day lower inflation to 2% even as it prepares to cut rates as soon as June, moments ago Goldman published a note from its economics team which had to balls to finally call a spade a spade, and concluded that - as party of the Fed's next big debate, i.e., rethinking the Neutral rate - both the neutral and terminal rate, a polite euphemism for the inflation target, are much higher than conventional wisdom believes, and that as a result Goldman is "penciling in a terminal rate of 3.25-3.5% this cycle, 100bp above the peak reached last cycle."

There is more in the full Goldman note, but below we excerpt the key fragments:

We argued last cycle that the long-run neutral rate was not as low as widely thought, perhaps closer to 3-3.5% in nominal terms than to 2-2.5%. We have also argued this cycle that the short-run neutral rate could be higher still because the fiscal deficit is much larger than usual—in fact, estimates of the elasticity of the neutral rate to the deficit suggest that the wider deficit might boost the short-term neutral rate by 1-1.5%. Fed economists have also offered another reason why the short-term neutral rate might be elevated, namely that broad financial conditions have not tightened commensurately with the rise in the funds rate, limiting transmission to the economy.

Over the coming year, Fed officials are likely to debate whether the neutral rate is still as low as they assumed last cycle and as the dot plot implies....

...Translation: raising the neutral rate estimate is also the first step to admitting that the traditional 2% inflation target is higher than previously expected. And once the Fed officially crosses that particular Rubicon, all bets are off.

... Their thinking is likely to be influenced by distant forward market rates, which have risen 1-2pp since the pre-pandemic years to about 4%; by model-based estimates of neutral, whose earlier real-time values have been revised up by roughly 0.5pp on average to about 3.5% nominal and whose latest values are little changed; and by their perception of how well the economy is performing at the current level of the funds rate.

The bank's conclusion:

We expect Fed officials to raise their estimates of neutral over time both by raising their long-run neutral rate dots somewhat and by concluding that short-run neutral is currently higher than long-run neutral. While we are fairly confident that Fed officials will not be comfortable leaving the funds rate above 5% indefinitely once inflation approaches 2% and that they will not go all the way back to 2.5% purely in the name of normalization, we are quite uncertain about where in between they will ultimately land.

Because the economy is not sensitive enough to small changes in the funds rate to make it glaringly obvious when neutral has been reached, the terminal or equilibrium rate where the FOMC decides to leave the funds rate is partly a matter of the true neutral rate and partly a matter of the perceived neutral rate. For now, we are penciling in a terminal rate of 3.25-3.5% this cycle, 100bps above the peak reached last cycle. This reflects both our view that neutral is higher than Fed officials think and our expectation that their thinking will evolve.

Not that this should come as a surprise: as a reminder, with the US now $35.5 trillion in debt and rising by $1 trillion every 100 days, we are fast approaching the Minsky Moment, which means the US has just a handful of options left: losing the reserve currency status, QEing the deficit and every new dollar in debt, or - the only viable alternative - inflating it all away. The only question we had before is when do "serious" economists make the same admission.

They now have.

And while we have discussed the staggering consequences of raising the inflation target by just 1% from 2% to 3% on everything from markets, to economic growth (instead of doubling every 35 years at 2% inflation target, prices would double every 23 years at 3%), and social cohesion, we will soon rerun the analysis again as the implications are profound. For now all you need to know is that with the US about to implicitly hit the overdrive of dollar devaluation, anything that is non-fiat will be much more preferable over fiat alternatives.

Much more in the full Goldman note available to pro subs in the usual place.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/19/2024 - 15:45

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Household Net Interest Income Falls As Rates Spike

A Bloomberg article from this morning offered an excellent array of charts detailing the shifts in interest payment flows amid rising rates. The historical…

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4 hours ago

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March 19, 2024

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A Bloomberg article from this morning offered an excellent array of charts detailing the shifts in interest payment flows amid rising rates. The historical anomaly was both surprising and contradicted our priors.

10 Key Points:

  1. Historical Anomaly: This is the first time in the last fifty years that a Federal Reserve rate hike cycle has led to a significant drop in household net interest income.
  2. Interest Expense Increase: Since the Fed began raising rates in March 2022, Americans’ annual interest expenses on debts like mortgages and credit cards have surged by nearly $420 billion.
  3. Interest Income Lag: The increase in interest income during the same period was only about $280 billion, resulting in a net decline in household interest income, a departure from past trends.
  4. Consumer Debt Influence: The recent rate hikes impacted household finances more because of a higher proportion of consumer credit, which adjusts more quickly to rate changes, increasing interest costs.
  5. Banks and Savers: Banks have been slow to pass on higher interest rates to depositors, and the prolonged period of low rates before 2022 may have discouraged savers from actively seeking better returns.
  6. Shift in Wealth: There’s been a shift from interest-bearing assets to stocks, with dividends surpassing interest payments as a source of unearned income during the pandemic.
  7. Distributional Discrepancy: Higher interest rates benefit wealthier individuals who own interest-earning assets, whereas lower-income earners face the brunt of increased debt servicing costs, exacerbating economic inequality.
  8. Job Market Impact: Typically, Fed rate hikes affect households through the job market, as businesses cut costs, potentially leading to layoffs or wage suppression, though this hasn’t occurred yet in the current cycle.
  9. Economic Impact: The distribution of interest income and debt servicing means that rate increases transfer money from those more likely to spend (and thus stimulate the economy) to those less likely to increase consumption, potentially dampening economic activity.
  10. No Immediate Relief: Expectations for the Fed to reduce rates have diminished, indicating that high-interest expenses for households may persist.

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TJ Maxx and Marshalls follow Costco and Target on upcoming closures

Many of these stores have information customers need to know.

Published

8 hours ago

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March 19, 2024

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U.S. consumers have come to increasingly rely on the near ubiquity of convenience stores and big-box retailers. 

Many of us depend on these stores being open practically all day, every day, even during some of the biggest holidays. After all, Black Friday beckons retail stores to open just hours after a Thanksgiving Day dinner in hopes of attracting huge crowds of shoppers in search of early holiday sales. 

Related: Walmart announces more store closures for 2024

And it's largely true that before the covid pandemic most of our favorite stores were open all the time. Practically nothing — from inclement weather to bad news to holidays — could shut down a major operation like Walmart  (WMT)  or Target  (TGT) . 

Then the pandemic hit, and it turned everything we thought we knew about retail operations upside down. 

Everything from grocery stores to shopping malls shut down in an effort to contain potential spread. And when they finally reopened to the public, different stores took different precautionary measures. Some monitored how many shoppers were inside at once, while others implemented foot-traffic rules dictating where one could enter and exit an aisle. And almost every one of them mandated wearing masks at one point or another. 

Though these safety measures seem like a distant memory, one relic from the early 2020s remains firmly a part of our new American retail life. 

A woman in a face mask shopping in the HomeGoods kitchen aisle.

Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

Store closures announced for spring 2024

Many retailers have learned to adapt after a volatile start to this third decade, and in many ways this requires serving customers better and treating employees better to retain a workforce. 

In some cases, the changes also reflect a change in shopping behavior, as more customers order online and leave more breathing room for brick-and-mortar operations. This also means more time for employees. 

Thanks to this, big retailers have recently changed how they operate, especially during holiday hours, with Walmart recently saying it would close during Thanksgiving to give employees more time to spend with loved ones.

"I am delighted to share that once again, we'll be closing our doors for Thanksgiving this year," Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner told associates in a video posted to Twitter in November. "Thanksgiving is such a special day during a very busy season. We want you to spend that day at home with family and loved ones." 

Other retailers have now followed suit, with Costco  (COST) , Aldi, and Target all saying they would close their doors for 24 hours on Easter Sunday, March 31. 

Now, the stores that operate under TJX Cos.  (TJX)  will also shut down during the holiday, including HomeGoods, TJ Maxx and Marshalls. 

Though it closed on Thanksgiving, Walmart says it will remain open for shoppers on Easter. 

Here's a list of stores that are closing for Easter 2024: 

  • Target
  • Costco
  • Aldi
  • TJ Maxx
  • Marshalls
  • HomeGoods
  • Publix
  • Macy's
  • Best Buy
  • Apple
  • ACE Hardware

Others are expected to remain open, including:

  • Walmart
  • Ikea
  • Petco
  • Home Depot

Most of the stores closing on Sunday will reopen for regular business hours on Monday. 

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