Medical Company Stock Analysis

An Unbiased Look at Investing in Three Medical Companies

Apr 27, 2009

In today's struggling economy investing in stocks still makes sense if you're willing to stick with it for the long term. Three medical companies offer possibilities.

Wright Medical Group (stock symbol: WMGI) specializes in reconstructive joint devices. The stock traded at a 52-week high of $33.26 on September 19, 2008. As of this writing it was trading between $14.31 and $14.99. Both Thompson Reuters and Market Edge Second Opinion, two stock publications, rated this company's stock as "neutral" but Standard & Poor, another stock rating service, lowered their recommendation to "strong sell" from "buy".

One tool that can be very useful to the average investor who wants a consensus opinion is the Jayhawk Consensus which takes the average of independent advisor ratings. Out of 21 advisor ratings collected by this consensus 11 recommended selling this stock, eight recommended holding it and only two recommended buying it.

Symmetry Medical Group

Symmetry Medical Group (stock symbol: SMA) provides implants to orthopedic device manufacturers. The stock traded at a 52-week high of $21.99 on September 19, 2008. As of this writing it was trading between $6.87 and $7.20. Thompson Reuters rated this stock as an "outperform" and Market Edge Second Opinion rated it as a Long-Term Investment.

According to the Jayhawk Consensus ten advisors recommended holding this stock and nine recommended buying it.

Rotech Healthcare Inc.

An interesting penny stock to consider is Rotech Healthcare, Inc. (stock symbol: ROHI) which provides home medical equipment to health care providers. The stock traded at a 52-week high of $0.32 on April 23, 2008. As of this writing it was trading between $0.15 and $0.17. Thompson Reuters, Market Edge Second Opinion and Jayhawk have not provide ratings on this stock but an examination of their performance over the past year indicates this stock is on an upswing.

If you are looking for a medical company to buy stock in it's certainly inexpensive. However, a lot of inexperienced investors tend to buy penny stocks on the hopes that it will skyrocket and they can make a quick profit. The fact that there is limited research available on this stock is an additional cause for concern. Even though 200 shares would only cost about forty dollars don't expect that forty dollars to multiply to four hundred dollars overnight.

All the information provided for this article came from E-Trade (www.etrade.com).

The copyright of the article Medical Company Stock Analysis in Shares/Stocks is owned by Marc Daley. Permission to republish Medical Company Stock Analysis in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.