Thursday’s Earnings

Four of our Buy List stocks reported earnings last Thursday, and overall, it was a pretty good showing.
Amphenol (APH) reported earnings of 61 cents a share, which was a big increase over the 46 cents a share it earned last year. Wall Street was looking for 58 cents a share. The company also boosted its full-year outlook to a range of $2.34 and $2.38 per share. The earlier range was between $2.26 and $2.31 per share. The stock gapped up 14.6% on Thursday. Amphenol is now going for about 21 times earnings, which is a bit high, but nothing outlandish.
Amphenol is now our top-performing stock this year, and it was our second best last year. The stock is up over 63% since we added to the Buy List 18 months ago.
Harley-Davidson (HOG) saw its Q2 earnings drop 23%, from $1.15 a share to 95 cents a share. As bad as that sounds, it easily beat Wall Street’s forecast of 76 cents a share. Obviously, the economy is having a big impact on Harley. For the full year, HOG sees earnings between $3.00 and $3.18. Still, the shares have fallen for 20 months, and don’t seem to have found a bottom yet.
Danaher (DHR), which is a very diversified stock, reported earnings of $1.09 a share compared with 96 cents last year. That beat forecasts by three cents a share. The company now sees Q3 earnings coming in at $1.09 to $1.14 per share. For the full year, Danaher raised guidance to a range of $4.34 and $4.42 per share from its earlier range of $4.30 to $4.40. The stock is going for about 18.5 times earnings which seems about right.
Stryker’s (SYK) earnings rose to 73 cents per share from 65 cents last year. This was in line with forecasts. The stock pulled back on the news, but I don’t see any reason for alarm. This was also the 30th straight quarter of double-digit sales growth. The company expects full-year profit of $2.88 per share. I like Stryker a lot but I wouldn’t mind seeing it cheaper.

Posted by on July 21st, 2008 at 3:12 pm


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