20 High Yield, Healthcare Growth Stocks For The Coming Years

 | Feb 04, 2013 02:12AM ET

The healthcare sector is one of my favorite sectors. I love stocks from the medical equipment and appliances industry. Though they offer a lower dividend, most of the stocks are highly diversified in terms of international sales plus they have wonderful growth opportunities.

Stocks in this sector have a total market capitalization of USD 66.298 billion. The average stock from the sector has a P/E of 26.63 and yield of 3.32 percent. These are very attractive figures from an earnings perspective. Debt, however, is also high in this sector with a long-term debt to equity ratio of 88.63. As a result, the return on equity amounts to 17.61 percent.

I screened all healthcare stocks with a positive dividend payment and double-digit earnings per share growth for the next five years. Nearly 40 companies fulfilled these criteria but some of them pay very low dividends. Below is a list of the 20 stocks with the highest yields. Eleven have a buy or better rating.

St. Jude Medical (STJ) has a market capitalization of $12.69 billion. The company employs 16,000 people, generates revenue of $5.503 billion and has a net income of $752.00 million. The firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) amounts to $1.100 billion. The EBITDA margin is 19.99 percent (the operating margin is 19.99 percent and the net profit margin 13.67 percent).

Financial Analysis: The total debt represents 33.66 percent of the company’s assets and the total debt in relation to the equity amounts to 75.23 percent. Due to the financial situation, a return on equity of 17.55 percent was realized. Twelve trailing months earnings per share reached a value of $2.38. Last fiscal year, the company paid $0.92 in the form of dividends to shareholders.

Market Valuation: Here are the price ratios of the company: The P/E ratio is 17.26, the P/S ratio is 2.31 and the P/B ratio is finally 3.10. The dividend yield amounts to 2.23 percent and the beta ratio has a value of 0.84.