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The Cooper Companies Hits 52-Week High on Multiple Positives

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Shares of Pleasanton, CA-based The Cooper Companies (COO - Free Report) rallied to a new 52-week high of $202.70 on Mar 23, closing a tad lower at $199.70. This represents a strong year-to-date return of approximately 14.2%, better than the S&P 500’s 5.3%, over the same time frame.

For the majority of the last three months, the company’s share price has considerably outperformed the Zacks categorized Medical/ Dental Supplies sub-industry. The stock rallied 13.8% over the last three months, outshining the sub-industry’s return of 7.4% over the same time frame. Notably, the stock has a market cap of $9.78 billion. Taking the stable performance of the stock into consideration, we expect The Cooper Companies to scale higher in the coming quarters. The company’s positive long-term growth of 11.6% also holds promise.

The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Growth Catalysts

Increase in Share Repurchase Program: The Cooper Companies has recently approved a $500.0 million increase in its ongoing share repurchase program on Mar 21. Notably, in Dec 2011, the company had first authorized a share repurchase program and subsequently amended the total repurchase authorization to $500.0 million. Notably, with the $500 million increase, the program now totals $1 billion. Of this, approximately $618.5 million is remaining with no expiration date. As of Jan 31, 2017, the company had $91.1 million in cash and $902.8 million available under its syndicated revolving credit agreement.

ISO 15189 Accreditation:  Earlier this month, the company confirmed that its London and Nottingham-based laboratory wings have received the ISO 15189 accreditation that validates the quality and accuracy of the genetic testing services provided by the laboratories. The accreditation consists of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) services provided in the London and Nottingham facilities. It is the first laboratory in the United Kingdom to receive such accreditation for NIPT and PGS services.

Impressive Segment Growth: Coming to the company’s performance, in the last reported quarter, we note that all the business segments of the company contributed toward its solid growth.

The CooperVision segment (CVI) revenues increased 7% to $389.3 million (up 9% at CER) on a year-over-year basis. Coming to the major growth catalysts within the CVI segment, robust performance of Toric (31% of CVI revenues), Multifocal (10.9% of CVI revenues) and Single-use sphere lenses (25.6% of CVI revenues) propelled solid growth. The Cooper Surgical Segment (CSI) revenues jumped 29% (up 3% at CER) to $109.8 million on a year-over-year basis.

Estimate Revision Trend

In the last two months, The Cooper Companies saw eight estimates moving north against one moving in the opposite direction for the full year. As a result, the current-year estimates inched up 0.4% to $9.23 cents, over the same time frame.

Stocks to Consider

Better-ranked stocks in the broader medical sector include Inogen Inc. (INGN - Free Report) , Avinger, Inc. (AVGR - Free Report) and Fluidigm Corporation . Notably, Inogen sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) while Fluidigm and Avinger carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Inogen has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 17.50%. Notably, the stock represents an impressive one-year return of 86.2%.

Avinger projects sales growth of 30.6% for the current year. Additionally, the company has projected earnings per share growth rate of 39.53% for the current year.

Fluidigm Corporation has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 25%. The stock posted a positive earnings surprise of 1.6% in the last reported quarter.

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