Abbott Labs Earns $1.32 per Share for Q1

Earnings season has begun for our Buy List stocks. This morning, Abbott Labs (ABT) reported fiscal Q1 earnings of $1.32 per share. That topped estimates by five cents per share. However, revenues came in lighter than expected: $10.5 billion versus $10.7 billion.

What was the culprit for the sales shortfall? Ironically, it was good news. It appears that as Covid vaccines take hold, there’s less of a need for Abbott’s Covid tests. Sales of Abbott’s Covid test kits came in at $2.2 billion, but that was down from $2.4 billion in Q4.

“We’re off to a very strong start to the year, with all four of our major businesses achieving strong growth,” said Robert B. Ford, president and chief executive officer, Abbott. “We’re particularly pleased with the growing momentum of several recently launched products and continue to forecast more than 35 percent EPS growth for the year.”

The most important news is that Abbott is standing by its full-year guidance figure of $5 per share. That’s very conservative guidance. Abbott should have no trouble topping $5 per share this year.

The stock is currently down about 4% today.

Posted by on April 20th, 2021 at 8:15 am


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