Johnson & Johnson results, these were quite tricky to look at, remember that there are three distinct parts to this business, the consumer division, which is the lowest margin of all their businesses. But has all the well known brands. But so does the MDD division (Medical devices and diagnostics) and perhaps even more so, Prescription products, where all the high margin stuff comes from. And amazingly some old eerr.... drugs, are still huge sellers.
Here is the official release -> Johnson & Johnson Reports 2011 Third-Quarter Results. The guidance part was a little higher than most suspected, they bumped it up around two percent for the year. The stock certainly on that basis looks cheap at less than 13 times forward earnings. If you could pay that for almost any global business, and let us face it, they are defensive too, with a yield of 3.5 percent, I would say that you should just jump at that! The expectations for the year after that is for five percent earnings growth. I can tell you that Mr. Market did not really like the earnings, the stock went lower by nearly three percent yesterday. I like it, you get everything you would want in this healthcare segment, which will grow as people get richer and also grow older and need to spend more on their health upkeep.