Cardinal Health (CAH) reported fiscal first-quarter earnings per share of 54 cents, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 43 cents and the year-ago earnings of 47 cents.   Sales   Total sales in the reported quarter increased 6% year over year to $24.8 billion. Growth was witnessed across all the business segments.   Pharmaceutical segment revenues increased 5% year over year to $22.6 billion. Growth was primarily due to higher sales to existing pharmaceutical distribution customers. Sales to bulk customers increased 6% year over year to $11.3 billion. Sales to non-bulk customers increased 5% year over year to $11.2 billion.   Medical segment revenues increased 10% year over year to $2.2 billion. Growth can be primarily attributed to higher sales to existing customers. In addition, the CareFusion Corp. (CFN) spin-off has resulted in immediate revenue recognition from international sales to CareFusion.   Margins   Cardinal Health ...

Cardinal Health, Inc. (CAH) has offered to buy back $1.2 billion of its long-term debt securities (notes) as part of its plan to reduce long-term debt after spinning off its CareFusion Corporation division on Aug 31, 2009. These securities carry maturity dates from 2011 to 2026. The offer expires on Sept. 24 and the owners of these securities must tender their notes by Sept 10 to receive the early tender premium. The notes were issued by Cardinal Health and its subsidiary, Allegiance Corp., Cardinal will finance the buyback with a combination of both cash in hand and a $1.4 billion it is expecting to generate from the CareFusion spin-off. The amount remaining after financing the tender offer will be used for retiring notes due in Oct 2009. We view the buyback as a good use of the company’s cash balance. Cardinal’s cash balance stood at roughly ...

Companies featured in this edition of the newsletter: ACTC, CVM, CUR, DKAM, FMTI, ICLK, IMUC, IWEB, OMCM, ONEZ, SIHI, TAGS

Markets took pause from their four week run this week, as some less than encouraging economic reports coupled with profit taking led to slight declines in all of the major indices. All told, the Dow ended the week down 0.5%, surrendering 48 points to close at 9321, bringing its YTD gains to 6.2%. The Nasdaq was off 0.7%, closing at 1985, up a healthy 25.9% on the year, while the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 were down 0.6% and 1.5% respectively, paring their yearly gains to 11.2% and 12.9%.

Disappointing economic data relating to inventories and consumer sentiment soured the mood for much of the week, as worse than expected declines in retail sales, consumer sentiment, and business and wholesale inventories gave investors cause for concern. Retail sales

...

  Omnicell, Inc. (OMCL) reported poor results for the second quarter of 2009. GAAP-diluted EPS was $0.03, compared to $0.08 in the year-ago quarter. Excluding stock-based compensation expenses, non-GAAP EPS was $0.10, compared to $0.17 in the year-ago quarter. Net revenue for the quarter was $52.6 million, a decline of roughly 17% year over year.  Product revenue declined roughly 21% year over year to approximately $42 million. We believe that the decline can be attributed to the present economic turbulence that has resulted in a lower number of medication and supply automation systems installed. Services and other revenue increased roughly 2% year over year to $10.6 million. Gross margin was roughly flat year over year at approximately 51.2%. Both research and development (R&D) and selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses increased as a percentage of total sales due to lower revenue. Higher operating expenses as a ...

Healthcare Stocks…Are They Truly Recession-Proof?

This past weekend, I was up at my hunting and fishing club in northeast Pennsylvania enjoying some ice fishing. At our club at least, it’s a pleasant social activity with great food, wine and stories shared among the members and spouses.This year, it happened to fall on the coldest day of the winter, with the temperature dipping to 18 below.

As you might expect this close to the inauguration, many folks are wondering what effect President Obama’s policies will have on the markets and investing. One of our members who’s a doctor, said: “Invest in healthcare stocks. It doesn’t matter who’s in the Whitehouse, and they’re recession-proof.” Are they?

The answer depends on what area of healthcare you’re talking about. According to Health Affairs, an industry journal, national healthcare spending hit $2.2 trillion in 2007, or just under $7,500 for every man, woman and child

...

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SSpYq8j_wfI/AAAAAAAAAl0/9kY9DN2tjic/s1600-h/ohio.jpg"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 125px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SSpYq8j_wfI/AAAAAAAAAl0/9kY9DN2tjic/s320/ohio.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272123808625443314" //abr /Long gone are the days when the French system of trading furs in Ohio was synonymous of wealth. Today Ohio’s economy is one of the most dynamic in America. These are some interesting facts about Ohio:br /br /1. Ohio is one of the top consumers of energy in the country.br /2. The state has a biomass energy program aimed to increase development and production of alternative biomass fuels in the state.br /3. In 2007 Ohio’s gross domestic product was $466 billion.br /4. The state’s manufacturing industries are the top producers in the U.S. of plastics and rubber, and electrical equipment and appliances.br /5. Walmart is Ohio’s largest employer, employing over 50,000 workers.br /6. The state’s top exports are automobiles and machinery.br /7. Ohio’s exports account for 4% of the total U.S. ...

Maverick CapitalMaverick Capital Management Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of HedgeFundBlogger.com's Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Lee Ainslie started Maverick Capital back in 1993 with $38 million. Nowadays, the fund is worth $10 billion. Ainslie, like many of the other fund managers I've profiled, has a background rooted in learning from legendary great Julian Robertson at Tiger Management. So, due to the fact that these proteges learned from the best and have had great success running their own hedge funds, I continually try to find a reason not to follow these funds. And, needless to say I'm never successful. Some contacts over at Maverick have explained that their hedge fund strategy is straight up stock picking, both long and short. They made ...

Dutton Associates, one of the largest independent investment research firms in the United States, today announced it is reiterating its “Strong Speculative Buy” rating with a higher price target of $1.50 for Neoprobe Corp. (OTCBB: NEOP), a biomedical company forecast to generate profit in the second half of 2010 with earnings per share of 12 cents for the full year.

Driving the projection is the company’s commercialization of Lymphoseek, a proprietary radiopharmaceutical currently in development for the identification of sentinel lymph nodes during lymph node biopsies to stage various tumor types, including breast, melanoma, and head and neck carcinomas.

Moving forward with its research, the company has initiated patient recruiting for the first of two phase III clinical trials for Lymphoseek, and expects to commence the second phase III trial in the third quarter. According to the 15-page report by Dutton & Associates, the delay in this second phase III

…

This is a reprint of my 25 August 2008 RealMoney column.

Owens & Minor (OMI) is the nation’s leading distributor of medical and surgical supplies to the acute-care market. It’s also a health care supply-chain management company and a national direct-to-consumer supplier of testing and monitoring supplies for diabetics.

Most of its revenue is derived from fees based on a percentage of the value of products distributed, but 32% of its revenue is contracted on the basis of the company’s costs. Its primary competitor in medical/surgical distribution is Cardinal Health (CAH) . In the direct-to-consumer diabetes supply business, its largest competitor is Liberty Medical, a subsidiary of MedcoHealth Solutions (MHS) .

Owens & Minor has been establishing a track record of earnings surprises, beating analysts’ estimates in each of the last three quarters. Analysts are beginning to reward the company with higher full-year 2008 and 2009 estimates, which now stand at

...

Glenview Capital, an $8 billion+ hedge fund run by Larry Robbins, made the following major buys and sells in Q1:

Significant New Positions

1. Brocade Communications (BRCD) -5.6 million shares

2. Coach (COH) - 4.8 million shares

3. Ebay (EBAY) - 4.5 million shares

4. ITT Educational services (ESI) - 2 million shares

5. Polo Ralph Lauren (RL) - 500,000 shares

6. Qualcomm (QCOM) - 1.9 million shares

7. Smart Balance (SMBL)- 2.5 million shares

8. Wyeth (WYE)- 1.25 million shares

Significant Sold Positions

1. Goldman Sachs (GS)- 250k shares

2. GPO Aeroportuario (PAC) -1.2 million shares

3. Teradata (TDC) -2 million shares

4. Thomson (TRI)- 3 million shares

5. Wesco (WSC) - 1.3 million shares

6. Tween Brands (TWB) - 450k shares

Significant Reductions/Additions

1. Telllabs (TLAB) - sold 10 million shares (60% of holding)

2. Wellpoint (WLP) -sold 2 million shares (50% of holding)

3. Amdocs (DOX) - added 4 million shares (now owns 8.7 million shares)

4. Arvinmeritor (ARM) - added 2 million shares (now

...