Research archive for JNJ

Johnson & Johnson reported quarterly earnings yesterday and promptly traded up to a new all-time high, above $185 per share. Almost all Vestact clients own this one, so this is very good news.

Right, so the market took a beating yesterday as reported above. The fall in the Nasdaq of over 2.2% smacked a number of our portfolio holdings. However, Johnson & Johnson rose by 2.6% to reach a new all-time high of $183 a share. So far this year J&J is up 6.5%, whereas the S&P is down 6% and the Nasdaq is down 11.2%. J&J has outperformed the Nasdaq by 17.7% in 3 months. Sometimes it pays to be boring!

Yesterday Johnson & Johnson reported results which beat on earnings but missed on revenue. Sales grew by 10.4% to $24.8 billion, boosted by $1.8 billion in Covid vaccine sales.

On Friday afternoon Johnson & Johnson announced that it would spin off its consumer division, leaving behind the pharmaceutical and medical devices divisions. The consumer business includes brands like Neutrogena, Listerine, Johnson's Baby and Band-Aid. They are doing something similar to General Electric, where shareholder pressure has resulted in the company splitting off very different divisions. The share price jumped 4% on the news but only ended up 1.2% at the market close on Friday evening.

Johnson & Johnson was out with quarterly results before the opening bell yesterday. The numbers were satisfactory, and company guidance for full-year profits was hiked, by 15 cents, to a range of $9.77 to $9.82 a share.

Yesterday, Johnson & Johnson released bumper second-quarter numbers, beating expectations. This was mostly thanks to a great recovery from their pharmaceutical and medical devices businesses, driven higher because individuals can do elective surgeries again without throttling the healthcare system.

Johnson & Johnson results for the first quarter were out yesterday and I'm pleased to say that they looked pretty good. Sales of pharma products were strong, especially for cancer drugs Darzalex (see below) and Imbruvica.

Yesterday J&J released their Q4 earnings, beating estimates on the top and bottom line. J&J has been one of our most stable holdings over the years, where the share price hasn't gone up as much as we would have liked, but during tough times it doesn't drop either. The cherry on top is that they pay a healthy dividend.

Yesterday Johnson & Johnson released third quarter results which blasted past expectations. Despite the tough conditions they managed to increase sales by 2% to $21.1bn for the quarter. Earnings per share increased 3.8% to $2.20 and guidance for the full year sales increased by $1bn.

We keep a close eye on the recommended holdings in Vestact portfolios. Last week Johnson & Johnson announced a transaction to buy Momenta Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq-listed with the share code MNTA) for about $6.5 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Yesterday Johnson and Johnson released their Q1 numbers before the US market opened. The stock finished yesterday 4.5% higher. The first number that you need to know is that they increased their dividend by 6.5%. In the current environment where some companies are suspending their dividend, J&J is increasing theirs. This shows the strength of their balance sheet, and it is a very strong signal from management about their expectations for the future of the company.

What about buying pharmaceutical stocks at a time like this? In the middle of a global pandemic of such major proportions, big money is being thrown at Covid-19 diagnostics, treatment, vaccines and immunity enhancers.

The medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant Johnson and Johnson (J&J), reported a mixed set of fourth-quarter numbers after a tough year on the litigation front. The company's profit beat expectations thanks to the resilience of the pharma business, good growth in medical devices, and improved profitability in the consumer business. However the numbers are a little light on the revenue front.

Two weeks ago Johnson and Johnson announced that an FDA test had found a very minute trace (0.0002%) of asbestos in a batch of baby powder. The J&J share price dropped over 6%, wiping billions off of their market cap. Not to mention the repetitional damage and the costs involved in recalling the 'contaminated' batch. Last night, near the close of trading J&J announced that the FDA had done further tests, along with a plethora of tests done by two other independent labs, and all the tests showed zero asbestos. So why did the original test show something different? J&J explains below.

This is the second day in a row that I'm writing in this newsletter about our favourite pharmaceutical and healthcare products holding Johnson & Johnson. Yesterday it was about the (mostly) ridiculous lawsuits that they face, and today it's about their third quarter results.