Seeking Alpha: How The Healthcare Sector Became Another Way To Play The Jobs Report

There used to be a time when healthcare was one of those all-weather “safe” plays. No matter the ups and downs of the economy, healthcare stocks never sank too far. As second quarter earnings are highlighting quite clearly, those days are clearly long past now. Healthcare investors need to hope for real improvement in job and wage statistics if the sector is to grow. Though there is still some leverage to be had in hospitals boosting their capital spending from the unsustainably low levels of 2008-2010, that play has its own expiration date.


Where Have All The Patients Gone?
Take a look at the earnings from companies like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Bard (NYSE: BCR), and St. Jude (NYSE: STJ) and problems pop out. None of these companies are seeing much real volume growth in their device businesses, as patients are staying home and out of doctors' offices and hospitals. Even at a company like Covidien (NYSE: COV), that is actually doing relatively well, the underlying organic growth is not terribly robust outside of taking share from other med-tech rivals.

To read the full piece at Seeking Alpha:
How the Healthcare Sector Became Another Way to Play the Jobs Report