J&J: Better, but Not Best

On the surface, Johnson & Johnson's (NYSE: JNJ  ) 5.8% year-over-year increase in adjusted earnings doesn't look too bad, but I wouldn't call it a signal that the company will experience a quick turnaround, either.

Sales were up 8.3% in the second quarter, but that was almost entirely due to overseas sales growth; U.S. sales were up just 0.1%. And only a third of the overseas increase was due to operational growth; a weak dollar contributed the other two-thirds of the growth by making overseas sales higher when reported in dollars.

One big highlight of the earnings report was the sale of consumer products in the United States, which fell only 8.5% in the second quarter. It's still a negative number, but it sure beats the 13.8% drop in the first quarter and the whopping 28.8% drop in the fourth quarter of last year. With recalls winding down, Johnson & Johnson can focus on winning back the customers it lost to Bayer, Merck (NYSE: MRK  ) , and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE  ) , which all sell competing consumer-health products, as well as to generic-drug maker Perrigo (Nasdaq: PRGO  ) , which has probably picked up a few penny-pinching consumers.

Johnson & Johnson's other two divisions -- pharmaceuticals and medical devices -- posted operational gains both here and abroad. The latter is likely to take a hit in the coming quarters as Johnson & Johnson proceeds to withdraw from the drug-eluting-stent market. But after getting beaten up by Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX  ) , Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT  ) , and Medtronic (NYSE: MDT  ) over the past few years, it'll be more like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound than anything else.

Is Johnson & Johnson going to recover? Of course it is; it's Johnson & Johnson, a 125-year-old company. But we'll need to see a few quarters of positive sales growth in consumer products before we can say the turnaround has truly begun.

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