< The 2015 All-America Research Team
Michael Weinstein
J.P. Morgan
First-Place Appearances: 12
Total Appearances: 18
Analyst Debut: 1998
With his ninth consecutive top finish, J.P. Morgan’s Michael Weinstein raises his total number of first-place appearances to 12. The All-America Research Team Hall of Famer, 45, “is simply the best, year in and year out,” affirms one advocate. A second money manager concurs, proclaiming that “no medical supplies and devices analyst has a better pulse on the fundamentals of his companies under coverage and how these fundamentals will drive the future stock performance.” Weinstein notes that the sector has performed will compared with the broad market, though it has not kept pace with the wider health care group. Indeed, as of the middle of September, the group had advanced 8.7 percent over the preceding 12 months, compared with the 2.6 percent decline by the S&P 500 and a 10.5 percent gain for U.S. health care shares overall. He is advising clients to overweight Becton, Dickinson and Co., a Franklin, New Jersey–based manufacturer of small medical devices, including pumps, syringes and tubes. In March the analyst reported that he and his J.P. Morgan team traveled with Becton management and “came away with increased conviction in our bullish outlook as well as upside potential for the shares.” That month the company purchased San Diego’s CareFusion Corp., for $12.2 billion in cash and stock, picking up a leading provider of technologies to prevent infections and reduce medical errors — and he anticipates a significant boost to near- and long-term value for shareholders. “We see multiple upside drivers to the company’s top- and bottom-line performance, Street expectations and Becton shares,” Weinstein says. The stock traded at $138.33 in mid-September, up 22.3 percent for the trailing 12-month period, and he forecasts a further rise to $167.