Every day, the sun rises on Wall Street, and a plethora of professional analysts wake to issue new opinions on stocks. Here at the Fool, we use our "This Just In" column to examine some of these picks -- and the track record of the company behind the picks -- so individuals can make better investing decisions.
In addition to following professional banks, anyone can use Motley Fool CAPS to monitor the collective opinions of more than 115,000 members, many of whom demonstrate better investing insight than published analysts do.
Enough top-performing CAPS investors are striking a newly bearish tone on Amedisys (Nasdaq: AMED) to lower the home-health and hospice-services company from its long-held five-star rank to a less-than-stellar three stars. With 779 members weighing in on Amedisys, there's plenty of analysis and commentary to give us insight on the company.
Although it operates in a boring industry, with peers such as Apria Healthcare and Lincare Holdings (Nasdaq: LNCR), Amedisys has spiced things up with an aggressive acquisition strategy. Along the way, it has picked up some smaller competitors, including TLC Health Care Services.
But recently, Citron Research -- which has reported on questionable accounting at companies such as ArthroCare (Nasdaq: ARTC) and Emcore (Nasdaq: EMKR) -- recently issued a negative report on Amedisys. Shares promptly sank 18% that same day. Citron compares the company's business, mostly Medicare reimbursement, to selling to Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) and questions how the company can grow margins that are way ahead of industry peers.
Although it stopped short of accusing Amedisys of Medicare fraud, Citron nonetheless spooked investors and stirred up memories of WellCare (NYSE: WCG) and Amerigroup (NYSE: AGP), which had shares hammered in the past two years in separate incidents with Medicare and Medicaid. Some investors also worry about the high turnover in the company's CFO position, especially given the newly raised billing questions. Now that investor favor has faded, 71 of the 779 CAPS members rating Amedisys believe it will underperform the market.
To see what the very best CAPS members are saying now about Amedisys -- as well as about other winning stocks that they're picking and panning -- head on over to CAPS and have a look. Unlike analyst opinions, which are reserved for paying clients, the community research and resources in CAPS are totally free.
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