...Again, I am going to try to be extremely brief with a post. Looking through the top % gainers on the NYSE today, I came across an old favorite of mine, Laboratory Corporation of America (LH) which closed at $80.00, up $5.56 or 7.47% on the day. I do not own any shares of this stock, nor do I own any options.
I first posted LH on Stock Picks Bob's Advice on June 20, 2003, as one of the earliest posts on this blog. At that time, the stock was trading at $30.68. With today's close at $80.00, this represents a gain of $49.32 or 160.8% since posting.
What drove the stock higher this morning was the announcement of 2006 4th quarter results. Net sales for the quarter came in at $898.6 million, up 9.3% compared to the 2005 same quarter. Net earnings climbed 16.6% to $103.7 million, up from $88.9 million last year. Earnings per diluted share grew 26.6% to $.81 compared with $.64/diluted share last year.
Analysts had expected earnings of $.72/share on revenue of $874 million, so the company thus beat expectations on both earnings and revenue. In addition, the company raised guidance to earnings of $3.93 to $4.09 from prior outlook of $3.86 to $4.01 and indicated revenue growth of 11 to 13% to $3.98 billion to $4.06 billion. Analysts had been estimating earnings of $3.91 on sales of $3.98 billion. From my perspective, this was a perfect kind of report with strong earnings and revenue growth, beating expectations as well as raising guidance!
Some of the highlights from the Morningstar.com "5-Yr Restated" financials on LH include steady revenue growth from $2.2 billion in 2001 to $3.3 billion in 2005 and $3.5 billion in the trailing twelve months (TTM). Earnings have also steadily increased from $1.27/share in 2001 to $2.71/share in 2005 and $3.07/share in the TTM. Interestingly, the number of shares outstanding, after growing from 139 million in 2001 to 144 million in 2003 has been decreasing, with 140 million in 2004, 134 million in 2005, and 125 million in the TTM as the company has been apparently buying back significant number of shares actually enhancing shareholder value!...
$80.0 (02/16/07)
