12 Biggest Health Providers Looking Fit

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Health care reform it’s finally done and decided upon. And regardless of your personal feelings about healthcare reform, as an investor you need to make sure you leave your politics at the door and simply focus on the opportunity. And the biggest opportnity right now is in health insurance stocks and service providers — particularly in AmerisourceBergen Corp. (ABC), Express Scripts (ESRX), Humana Inc. (HUM) and Medco Health Solutions (MHS).

My current fundamental analysis of the 12 largest health care providers and health services stocks (by market cap) shows not a single sell recommendation among this group of stocks. As a whole, this industry seems to have a number of stocks with big potential based on this week’s latest Portfolio Grader rankings.

Personally I would rather this reform hadn’t happened — but I would also rather see U.S. unemployment about half of what it’s at. Sometimes you have to play the hand you’re dealt. On a broader note, one of the unintended consequences of the massive health care reform measure that was signed into law by President Obama last week will be that the U.S. economy must now must absorb the coming 2011 tax increase and a substantial 3.8% Medicare tax increase in 2013. This will impact both large and small businesses. As a result, the Fed is likely to keep interest rates low through at least 2014.

But regardless of the longer term trends, the data my team of analsysts crunched over the weekend indicates that that the 12 largest health provider and service stocks as a group look very healthy indeed. The complete sector breakdown is below. Portfolio Grader, my FREE stock ranking tool, offers updated recommendations each week on about 5,000 publicly traded stocks. The database is updated every Monday morning to give you the latest info on the hottest Wall Street companies.

Ticker  Company Market Cap (B) Overall Grade
ABC AmerisourceBergen $8.1 A – Strong Buy
AET Aetna Inc. $14.8 C – Hold
CAH Cardinal Health Inc. $12.8 B – Buy
CI CIGNA Corp. $9.8 B – Buy
DGX Quest Diagnostics Inc. $10.6 C – Hold
ESRX Express Scripts Inc. $27.7 A – Strong Buy
FMS Fresenius Medical Care $16.3 B – Buy
HUM Humana Inc. $8.0 A – Strong Buy
MCK McKesson Corp. $17.1 B – Buy
MHS Medco Health Solutions Inc. $30.9 A – Strong Buy
UNH UnitedHealth Group Inc. $37.4 C – Hold
WLP WellPoint Inc. $28.4 B – Buy

 

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