Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Here's Why You Should Retain Avanos Medical Stock for Now

Read MoreHide Full Article

Avanos Medical, Inc. (AVNS - Free Report) is well poised for growth on the back of robust performing segments — Chronic Care and Pain Management, and strong product portfolio. However, stiff competition remains a concern.

Shares of Avanos Medical have lost 38.3%, against the industry’s rally of 7.9% in a year’s time. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index has inched up 0.5% in the same timeframe.

Avanos Medical, with a market capitalization of $1.25 billion, is a medical technology company that offers infection prevention, surgical, respiratory, digestive health and pain management solutions. It anticipates earnings to improve 13.2% over the next five years. Moreover, it has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 1.5%, on average.

Let’s take a closer look at the factors that substantiate the company’s Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



What’s Deterring the Stock?

Avanos faces significant competition in both U.S. and international markets. Consequently, intense competition continues to weigh on margins.

What’s Favoring It?

Avanos reports through two broad segments — Chronic Care and Pain Management. Both the segments performed robustly in first-quarter 2020, thereby contributing to the company’s top line. We expect the company to continue gaining from these strong performing segments in the near term.

Avanos boasts a broad product spectrum, which is a significant contributor to the top line. In fourth-quarter 2019, the company received FDA clearance for its new 80-Watt COOLIEF Radiofrequency System for neurological lesion procedures.The launch of this new generator together with robust clinical evidence highlighting the efficiency of COOLIEF is anticipated to drive growth.

Notably, the company offers an innovative portfolio focused on respiratory and digestive health, and surgical and interventional pain management to improve patient outcome and reduce cost of care. These products include post-operative pain management solutions, minimally-invasive interventional (or chronic) pain therapies, closed airway suction systems and enteral feeding tubes.

Estimates Trend

For 2020, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $670 million, indicating a decline of 3.9% from the prior year. The same for earnings stands at 59 cents per share, suggesting a decline of 44.9% from the year-ago comparable period.

Key Picks

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader medical space include Aphria Inc. , HMS Holdings Corp. and West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (WST - Free Report) , each currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Aphria has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 24.6%.

HMS Holdings has an estimated long-term earnings growth rate of 11%.

West Pharmaceutical has a projected long-term earnings growth rate of 9.2%.

Today's Best Stocks from Zacks

Would you like to see the updated picks from our best market-beating strategies? From 2017 through 2019, while the S&P 500 gained and impressive +53.6%, five of our strategies returned +65.8%, +97.1%, +118.0%, +175.7% and even +186.7%.

This outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. From 2000 – 2019, while the S&P averaged +6.0% per year, our top strategies averaged up to +54.7% per year.

See their latest picks free >>


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (WST) - free report >>

AVANOS MEDICAL, INC. (AVNS) - free report >>

Published in