By Rob Otman
Agilent (NYSE: A) is an $18.12 billion company today. Investors that bought shares one year ago are sitting on a 25.94% total return. That’s above the S&P 500’s return of 16.29%.
Agilent stock is beating the market, and it reports quarterly earnings tomorrow. But does that make it a good buy today? To answer this question, we’ve turned to the Investment U Stock Grader. Our Research Team built this system to diagnose the financial health of a company.
Our system looks at six key metrics…
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✗ Earnings-per-Share (EPS) Growth: Agilent reported a recent EPS growth rate of 40.54%. That’s below the healthcare sector average of 62.43%. That’s not a good sign. We like to see companies that have higher earnings growth.
✗ Price-to-Earnings (P/E): The average price-to-earnings ratio of the healthcare sector is 32. And Foot Locker’s ratio comes in at 32.20. The company looks expensive compared to many of its competitors.
✓ Debt-to-Equity: The debt-to-equity ratio for Agilent stock is 46.33%. That’s below the healthcare sector average of 59.09%. The company is less leveraged.
✗ Free Cash Flow per Share Growth: Agilent’s FCF has been lower than that of its competitors over the last year. That’s not good for investors. In general, if a company is growing its FCF, it will be able to pay down debt, buy back stock, pay out more in dividends and/or invest money back into the business to help boost growth. It’s one of our most important fundamental factors.
✓ Profit Margins: The profit margin of Agilent comes in at 15.75% today. And generally, the higher, the better. We also like to see this margin above that of its competitors. Agilent’s profit margin is above the healthcare average of 11.86%. So that’s a positive indicator for investors.
✗ Return on Equity: Return on equity tells us how much profit a company produces with the money shareholders invest. The ROE for Agilent is 12.16%, and that’s below its sector average ROE of 17.98%.
Agilent stock passes two of our six key metrics today. That’s why our Investment U Stock Grader rates it as a Hold With Caution.
Please note that our fundamental factor checklist is just the first step in performing your own due diligence. There are many other factors you should consider before investing. That’s why The Oxford Club offers more than a dozen newsletters and trading advisories all aimed at helping investors grow and maintain their wealth. For more details, click here. …read more
Source:: Investment You
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