Trade-Ideas: Abbott Laboratories (ABT) Is Today's Unusual Social Activity Stock
Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer or Stephanie Link.
Trade-Ideas LLC identified
(
) as an unusual social activity candidate. In addition to specific proprietary factors, Trade-Ideas identified Abbott Laboratories as such a stock due to the following factors:
- ABT has more that 20x the normal benchmarked social activity for this time of the day compared to its average of 18.45 mentions/day.
- ABT has an average dollar-volume (as measured by average daily share volume multiplied by share price) of $264.8 million.
Identifying stocks with 'Unusual Social Activity' tends to be a valuable process for traders looking to capitalize on the 'talk of the town' stocks that are basking in far more attention from the StockTwits financial community than normal. Good press? Bad press? It ultimately doesn't matter if it's good or bad if you know how to trade around the sentiment. Certain hedge funds use such data for their proprietary algorithms and it is not uncommon to see shared social sentiment play itself out in a stock's price trend.
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More details on ABT:
Abbott Laboratories manufactures and sells health care products worldwide. The stock currently has a dividend yield of 2%. ABT has a PE ratio of 42.2. Currently there are 13 analysts that rate Abbott Laboratories a buy, no analysts rate it a sell, and 5 rate it a hold.
The average volume for Abbott Laboratories has been 5.5 million shares per day over the past 30 days. Abbott has a market cap of $71.3 billion and is part of the health care sector and health services industry. Shares are up 4.6% year-to-date as of the close of trading on Tuesday.
Analysis:
rates Abbott Laboratories as a
. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its increase in net income, solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share and expanding profit margins. Although the company may harbor some minor weaknesses, we feel they are unlikely to have a significant impact on results.
Highlights from the ratings report include:
- The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Health Care Equipment & Supplies industry. The net income increased by 53.3% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, rising from $589.55 million to $904.00 million.
- The stock has not only risen over the past year, it has done so at a faster pace than the S&P 500, reflecting the earnings growth and other positive factors similar to those we have cited here. Looking ahead, the stock's rise over the last year has already helped drive it to a level which is relatively expensive compared to the rest of its industry. We feel, however, that the other strengths this company displays justify these higher price levels.
- ABBOTT LABORATORIES has improved earnings per share by 10.8% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. This company has reported somewhat volatile earnings recently. But, we feel it is poised for EPS growth in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, ABBOTT LABORATORIES reported lower earnings of $1.12 versus $1.32 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($2.15 versus $1.12).
- The gross profit margin for ABBOTT LABORATORIES is rather high; currently it is at 53.32%. Regardless of ABT's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, the net profit margin of 16.87% trails the industry average.
- ABT, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 0.9%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 5.3%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.
- You can view the full Abbott Laboratories Ratings Report.
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