In St. Jude Medical's (NYSE:STJ) third-quarter earnings release yesterday, company CEO Daniel Starks said the company expected annual growth of at least 15% and noted that the medical device maker's long-term growth program is on track. From an operations standpoint, the company's results were fairly impressive.
Apparently this was not enough to please traders, who have since pushed shares down 10%.
After adjusting for non-recurring items, St. Jude posted a 21% increase in its EPS, as net sales climbed by 13% compared to the company's year-ago quarter. All five of the company's key business lines were instrumental in this improvement. Three of the five lines produced double-digit gains in quarterly sales.
The two biggest areas of business, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) and pacemakers, both performed quite well. ICD product sales surged 17% versus the prior year Q3, and pacemaker sales checked in with a 9% rise over the same time period.
Aside from the pullback in share price, there may be additional opportunity in St. Jude for investors who have been eyeing the stock. Earlier this week one of St. Jude's chief rivals, Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), issued a product advisory that could open the door for St. Jude and Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) to steal future market share.
During St. Jude's conference call, Starks did say, "Experience has taught us how hard it is to predict what the consequences will be when another company issues a product advisory."
Since the market's response to St. Jude yesterday, it is evident that expectations have been set high for this stock. However, the balanced growth that the company has reported leads me to believe that it is in fact on track to push its share price higher in subsequent quarters.
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