A recent survey from Accenture showed that 26% U.S. consumers have had their personal medical information stolen from technology systems, and half of those who experienced a breach were victims of medical identity theft. On average, those victims had to pay around $2,500 in out-of-pocket costs per incident.
The breaches were most likely to occur in hospitals (36%), followed by urgent-care clinics (22%), pharmacies (22%), physicians offices (21%) and health insurers (21%). Half of consumers who experienced a breach discovered it themselves, through noting an error on their credit card statement or benefits explanation, while only one-third were alerted to the breach by the organization at which it occurred.
The latest count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that the medical/health care sector leads all others in the number of records compromised so far in 2017. The sector posted 31.9% (46) of all data breaches. The number of records exposed in these breaches totaled tops 630,000, or about 61.6% of the 2017 total.
good stocks: Vanguard Natural Resources LLC(VNR)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Cameron Swinehart]
Going forward I will be looking to add investments on my watchlist and trim other positions. It will be interesting to see how an overweight commodity portfolio will perform relative to the rest of the market.
Cost Basis# SharesCurrent Price% of PortfolioCurrent ValueReturnMetal/Miners Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS)$12.4985$11.043.75%$938.40-13.13%Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV)$7.95125$8.744.37%$1,092.509.04%FreePort-McMoran (FCX)$31.6731$33.874.20%$1,049.976.50%Ishares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF (RING)$13.0695$10.644.04%$1,010.80-22.74%Energy Statoil ASA(STO)$21.7940$22.683.63%$907.203.92%Vanguard Natural Resources LLC (VNR)$27.5636$27.874.01%$1,003.321.11%ConocoPhillips (COP)$63.6822.43$71.006.37%$1,592.5310.31%Agriculture CVR Partner LP (UAN)$26.3630.9$18.932.34%$584.94-39.25%Adecoagro$6.78125$7.443.72%$930.008.87%Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM)$34.8030$37.244.47%$1,117.206.55%Mixed Commodity Powershares DB Commodity Index (DBC)$26.3540$25.954.15%$1,038.00-1.54%Sprott Resource Corp$3.34400$2.714.34%$1,084.00-23.25% Total % of portfolio49.40% Cost Basis12,666.00 Current Value12,348.86 Return-2.50% Source: Investing For The Future Surge In Commodity Prices
Disclosure: I am long ADM, FCX, UAN, AGRO, RING, VNR, SCPZF.PK, COP, DBC, PHYS, PSLV. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More…)
good stocks: ThyssenKrupp AG (TYEKF)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Matthew DiLallo]
In addition, the company announced that it has agreed to acquire a steel plant in Brazil from ThyssenKrupp (NASDAQOTH:TYEKF) for $1.3 billion. While that plant has had its share of problems in the past, Ternium is getting it for a good value, and it has upside potential. The company paid slightly less than five times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for the facility. As the following chart shows, that’s below the value that steel-company stocks trade for these days:
good stocks: Repligen Corporation(RGEN)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Jim Robertson]
On Tuesday, our Under the Radar Moversnewsletter suggested going long on small cap bioprocessing stock Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ: RGEN):
As for Repligen, this one’s a bit more speculative than usual; we’re betting the long-term shape of the chart takes hold, and benefits us in the short run.
good stocks: Edwards Lifesciences Corporation(EW)
Advisors’ Opinion:
- [By Lisa Levin]
Breaking news
Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE: EW) announced plans to buy Valtech Cardio for $340 million in cash and stock. The company also announced a $1 billion buyback plan.
Epizyme Inc (NASDAQ: EPZM) disclosed that it has received Fast Track designation for tazemetostat.
Athene Holding Ltd. (NYSE: ATH) reported that it has priced its 23.8 million share IPO between $38 per share and $42 per share.
Lannett Company, Inc. (NYSE: LCI) reported the approval for its Metaxalone Tablets USP, 800 mg. - [By Ben Levisohn]
Shares of Edwards Lifesciences (EW) jumped to the top of the S&P 500 today after the medical-device maker offered its 2017 guidance this morning at its investor day.
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Shares of Edwards Lifesciences gained 6.7% to $89.31 today, while the S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 2,246.19.
Wells Fargo’sLarry Biegelsen offers his take on Edwards Lifesciences’ guidance:
Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (EW-$83.73; Outperform) provided its 2017 outlook this morning (12/8) ahead of its investor meeting today. As expected, the company highlighted its robust pipeline which should drive strong growth for years to come. However, the company now expects Q4 16 revenue to come in at the low end of the guidance range due to currency and weakness in surgical heart valves. The 2017 guidance was generally strong on the top and bottom line, with both bracketing consensus.
For 2017, EW expects sales of $3.0-3.4B and 10-14% underlying growth. This compares to consensus of $3.3B and 12.3% underlying growth (were at 12.6%)… For 2017 EPS, EW expects $3.30-3.45 which includes $0.10 dilution from the Valtech deal (something we highlighted in our preview) and $0.08-0.10 benefit from the accounting change for stock based compensation. Backing these two items out implies guidance of about $3.30-3.45 which compares to consensus of $3.40 and our estimate of $3.41…
As expected, the pipeline updates were highly positive. While the initial reaction to the Q4 guidance will likely be negative, we are highly confident that the strong 2017 guidance and robust pipeline update will be the main takeaways from the meeting today.
No negativity here: Edwards Lifesciences’ market capitalization rose to $19.1 billion today from $17.9 billion yesterday. It reported net income of $495 million on sales of $2.5 billion in 2015.
- [By Chris Lange]
The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Wednesday was Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (NYSE: EW) which jumped about 10% to $108.91. The stocks 52-week range is $81.12 to $1221.75. Volume was roughly 7.3million which is above the daily average of around 2.2 million shares.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Edwards Lifesciences (EW) soared to the top of the S&P 500 today after the medical-device company beat earnings and revenue forecasts, and raised its full-year guidance.
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Edwards Lifesciencesgained 11% to 109.33, while the S&P 500 dipped 0.1% to 2,387.45.
Mogran Stanley’s David Lewis andScott Wang contend that that Edwards Lifesciences is “back on track.” They explain:
US sequential acceleration returns to the prior curve and debunks the bear case. Sequential growth in US [transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR,] in 1Q17 was ~12%, more in line with the ~13.5% average growth rate seen in the five quarters leading up to 3Q16. It’s hard to pinpoint the drivers, but we see several dynamics, including: (i) underlying device utilization thus far in 1Q, (ii) faster ramp at new hospitals where one additional TAVR per center is worth $15mn (~65% of the US upside we saw this quarter), and (iii) less acute competitive pressure from Medtronic (MDT) on larger valve sizes. SURTAVI likely played a limited role but management did not rule it out. Guidance implies a more conservative q/q US growth of ~3% for the rest of the year vs the ~12% this quarter, but underlying strength in the quarter is a material shift in US growth and intermediate penetration. As we stated in our preview, we favored the risk reward into the quarter given achievable expectations and the >20 point lag vs Intuitive YTD and would expect significant recovery tomorrow. Momentum likely continues into 2Q17 as signs of improving intermediate risk penetration provide important offsets to increased competition from Boston in early-2018 before mitral takes hold.
Edwards Lifesciences’ market capitalization rose to $23.1 billion today from $20.9 billion yesterday.
