Company name Medtronic, Inc.
Stock ticker MDT
Live stock price [stckqut]MDT[/stckqut]
P/E compared to competitors Good
MANAGEMENT EXECUTION
Employee productivity Good
Sales growth Poor
EPS growth Good
P/E growth Poor
EBIT growth Poor
ANALYSIS
Confident Investor Rating Fair
Target stock price (TWCA growth scenario) $42.43
Target stock price (averages with growth) $54.48
Target stock price (averages with no growth) $52.06
Target stock price (manual assumptions) $41.21

The following company description is from Google Finance: http://www.google.com/finance?q=mdt

Medtronic, Inc. (Medtronic) is a medical technology company. The Company is engaged in research, design, manufacture and sale of products to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life. It manufactures and sells device-based medical therapies. It operates in two segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group which includes, Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management, CardioVascular, Physio-Control, and Restorative Therapies Group which include Spinal, Neuromodulation, Diabetes, Surgical Technologies. Its primary customers include hospitals, clinics, third party healthcare providers, distributors and other institutions, including governmental healthcare programs and group purchasing organizations. On February 25, 2011, the Company acquired Jolife, a privately-held company. On January 13, 2011, the Company acquired Ardian, Inc. In August 2011, the Company acquired PEAK Surgical, Inc. and Salient Surgical Technologies, Inc.

Confident Investor comments: At this time, I think that a Confident Investor can cautiously invest in this stock as long as the price is correct. Most of the fundamentals of this company are good but there are some concerns.

Motley Fool is a great website with very useful advice for investors. They recently ran an article that discussed the one investment you should make if you are a new investor and can only afford one stock. Their choice was The Procter & Gamble Company [stckqut]pg[/stckqut]. I haven’t review P&G in a long time (almost 2 years) and the EPS growth has improved slightly so it is now probably a Fair company as opposed to a Poor company back then. The article made me think – what one company would I recommend for a new investor?

Obviously, my choice would not be P&G since it didn’t make my Watch List. In fact, the stock has been fairly flat since I reviewed it 2 years ago (it is trading within 2 or 3 dollars today of what it was doing in February 2010). I have nothing against P&G as the company makes fine products. I brush my teeth and wash my body and clothes with P&G products on a regular basis. But making good products is not good enough. Motley Fool describes how P&G doesn’t surprise its investors very often and has a stable dividend. My problem with that logic is that if you are a new investor then you are likely a young investor (and by young I am saying under 60 years old) and you need your investment to accumulate for several decades.

As I pondered this question, I remembered my favorite advice to investors of all ages: don’t buy and hold rather buy and evaluate! Buying one stock and assuming you are going to keep it for decades is almost a guaranteed losing proposition compared to riding the fastest moving stock at the time.  The new investor needs to be agile with money. Buy a stock that is growing nicely and then when it starts to go flat or decrease in value, dump it and buy a different company that is hot.

Today, that one stock could be Apple [stckqut]aapl[/stckqut] or Coach [stckqut]COH[/stckqut] or Ebix [stckqut]ebix[/stckqut] since these three are all doing nice runs as I write this article (and there are others on the Watch List that are having nice runs as well.) Tomorrow is another question. I have no idea who will be having a solid run tomorrow or next week or next month. I do know that eventually all companies go flat and have a pull-back so I want to jump off the train when that happens and catch the next fast moving express.

So nothing against the good folks at Motley Fool, but I think the advice of one stock is just not good advice. I want to beat the market, not just match it with a “safe” investment.