I'm invested in several healthcare stocks, and the one that I'm most excited about is Intuitive Surgical (ISRG -3.19%). The stock is down 15.5% year to date as I write this, making it more attractively priced than it was last year.
It's a major specialist in robotic surgery equipment, boasting more than 16 million procedures performed on its equipment and more than 9,900 machines installed in hospitals around the world (in 72 countries, actually). The stock has averaged annual gains of nearly 24% over the past decade, too.
In its second quarter, Intuitive's procedure volume grew 17% year over year, while revenue rose 21%. Better still, much of its revenue is recurring, thanks to service contracts and sales of supplies and accessories. (Indeed, Intuitive Surgical derives 84% of its revenue not from the systems themselves, but from servicing, supplies, and accessories for the machines.) It's fair to expect continued growth in the years ahead.
So why is the stock down? Well, several reasons. For one thing, the Trump administration's tariffs and threats of tariffs are creating a lot of uncertainty and could negatively impact Intuitive's business. And while it's long been the top dog in robotic surgery, medical technology titan Medtronic has debuted a promising system for robotic urologic surgeries.
Is investing in Intuitive Surgical a good idea now? It seems like a good idea to me, as long as you expect to hold the stock for many years. Its recent forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 48 is indeed below its five-year average of 56, but both of those numbers are on the steep side. Thus, there's a non-zero chance that the stock will pull back for a while -- though over many years, I do expect it to keep growing. That's why I plan to hold on to my shares for another decade, at least.
