| Stock (Symbol) | Stock Price | |
Express Scripts (ESRX) |
$63 |
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| Data is as of | Expected to Report | Sector |
November 6, 2013 |
Feb 18 – Feb 21 |
Healthcare |
| Sharek’s Take | ||
 Express Scripts is going through a slow period profit growth that should end next quarter. The reason profits are being held back is the company signed a new customer and these new deals often have kickers in the beginning of the plan that customers get. Profit growth should be back in the double-digit range two quarters from now.ESRX is a good value at only 13 times earnings. The only issues is revenue isn’t growing. The company is making EPS go up by utilizing more profitable generic drugs for its customers and by buying back shares. Management bought back 12 million shares last quarter, using $750 million of the $1 billion the company had in cash flow. |
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| One-Year Chart | ||
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| Earnings Table | ||
 Profits grew only 5% last quarter as sales fell 4%. Luckily ESRX bought back stock.ESRX missed by a penny, and has been making around what analysts projected for the last year.Annual Profit Estimates haven’t moved much all year. Profit growth should return to the mid-teens next year. |
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| Fair Value | ||
 I feel this is a safe stock to own. You can get it for 13 times earnings and I think the P/E will eventually hit a high of 16 within the next two years. This stock has decent upside, but the profit growth rate of 15% is not as good as I would like. |
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| Ten-Year Chart | ||
 This has been a great stock for my clients. I wish the company could keep growing as fast as it had, but at least we can pretty-much could on the 15% growth. That’s acceptable. |
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| Power Ranking | Bottom Line | |
Growth Portfolio
20 of 25 |
Express Scripts will have slow growth for the next two quarters, and that means the stock will have little fuel to kick it to the next level. Upside is good for long-term investors though. This is a conservative stock that can grow 15% a year.Buy-and-hold.ESRX ranks 20th in the 25 stock Growth Portfolio Power Rankings. It doesn’t have enough juice for the Aggressive Growth Portfolio. | |
Aggressive Growth Portfolio
N/A |
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This stock has been stagnant as profit growth has been slow. Still, at 