Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Jennifer Schonberger :: Townhall.com Columnist
7 Health-Care Stocks to Nurse Your Portfolio
by Jennifer Schonberger
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When the administration initially unveiled its health-care overhaul plan, investors ran for the exits in the health care sector, shunning the once-desired safe haven for the recession. Now investors are having a change of heart. The catalyst is the belief, and therefore bet, that the most onerous measures of the health-care bill have been killed off. Fears that the bill would hamper the industry's profits whether it was insurers, hospitals, or drugmakers are easing, as many perceive that the "worst case scenario" could be averted.

In fact, investors and analysts are now beginning to focus on the potential positive measures of the bill, such as if coverage were extended to include millions of the uninsured, that could be a boon for the sector.

As the sector has been beaten down, valuations on the space are appealing. Also, if the market did take a turn for the worse -- the economic fundamentals aren't on solid ground yet -- health care would still remain a defensive play, giving your portfolio downside protection.

With all this in mind, let's look at some companies in the space. To uncover prospective investments in the health-care sector, I used the Fool's CAPS screening tool to look for companies that:

ratings of four or five stars, the second-highest and highest ratings from our CAPS community

And voila! Here's what my scan popped out today:

Company

Market Cap (in billions)

Price-to-Earnings (TTM)

Current Ratio

Return on Equity (TTM)

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT)

$70.2

13.3

1.6

26.9

Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN)

$61.6

14.4

3.9

20.6

China Medical Technologies

$0.5

5.6

7.5

25.3

Genoptix

$0.48

14.8

10.4

22.6 Continued...

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