Orthopedics This Week - 2018 | July 17, 2018 | Page 2

ORTHOPEDICS THIS WEEK VOLUME 14, ISSUE 23 | JULY 17, 2018 2 Orthopedic Power Rankings Robin Young’s Entirely Subjective Ordering of Public Orthopedic Companies THIS WEEK: Right now, investors are looking at earnings, cash flow and steady management teams. The external variables (trade wars with China and Canada, interest rates upward bias and whatever the latest political drama is) are on the shelf for the next couple, three weeks. The view right now is generally upbeat, but we can see how institutions are voting with their dollars. Big, steady, cash rich companies. Like JNJ, MDT, SYK. RANK LAST WEEK COMPANY TTM OP MARGIN 30-DAY PRICE CHANGE 1 1 Johnson & Johnson 25.13% 2.69% 2 3 Medtronic 21.05 2.94 MDT is the 3rd most attractive valuation in ortho AND was the 2nd best performing stock in the last month. 3 8 Stryker 18.20 4.62 Nice 30-day stock performance, but that's a rebound from the strange rumor that SYK and BSX might merge. Good news, it set up a buying opportunity for astute investors. 4 2 Orthofix 8.01 (0.03) This feels like a big cap market right now. OFIX's performance is likely to be a quarter-by-quarter sales and earnings report thing. 5 5 Zimmer Biomet 22.74 0.80 Oddly, ZBH's valuation is one tick lower than SYK. That's because analysts may be low-balling this and next quarter's sales and EPS estimates. Can ZBH beat? 6 6 NuVasive 11.86 0.80 NuVasive has been steadily announcing new products. It creates a sense of momentum among customers. Analysts think sales rose 6% for Q2. 7 4 Integra LifeSciences 15.60 (4.75) Institutional investors are playing with their portfolios ahead of earnings season and IART came out on the short end. Maybe the expected 30% sales growth is too high? 8 7 ConMed 9.06 1.10 CNMD is holding its own in this crazy market. Probably because analysts are forecasting a decent 5% rate of sales growth for the June quarter. 9 10 Smith & Nephew 18.57 (1.83) For the March quarter, SNN's sports medicine, large joint repair and trauma business grew by 6%—led by a very strong 13% pop in Sports Medicine and Large Joint repair. 10 NR Alphatec Holdings (10.92) (18.90) ATEC was crunched in the last month. Some short term investors left the stock. But the new team (Miles, for starters) is building for the long run. Blue light special. COMMENT JNJ was hit with a whopping $4.69 billion talcom powder verdict, but investors are shrugging it off. Wont't hit earnings this year, if ever—they expect. ryortho.com | 1-888-352-1952