Government Spending and Orthopaedic Device Firms

Significant uncertainty about fiscal budgets and capital spending at hospitals leads us to place orthopaedic device firms under review

Julie Stralow, CFA 4 October, 2011 | 9:28AM
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We're placing shares of orthopaedic device firms Smith & Nephew (SN.), Stryker (SYK), and Zimmer (ZMH) under review as we adjust our short-term expectations, which depend on elective procedure volumes that can be delayed in uncertain times and on capital spending budgets at hospitals (primarily at Smith & Nephew and Stryker) that can be frozen in those times as well.

In recent weeks, significant uncertainty has arisen about developed market economies and fiscal budgets at national government levels. Given these concerns, we suspect that even the modest economic rebound we had been building in during the next couple of years may be too optimistic. We will trim our expectations primarily through 2012 due to rising economic uncertainty. We don't expect valuation adjustments to be more than 10%, but they will lower the price we'd consider buying shares in the related firms.

Read the full research report for Smith & Nephew here. Morningstar Research is a feature of Morningstar.co.uk Premium--find out more here.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
Smith & Nephew PLC1,157.00 GBX0.87Rating

About Author

Julie Stralow, CFA  Julie Stralow, CFA, is a senior securities analyst with Morningstar.

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