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Topic: Growth Stocks

AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $40

AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $40 (New York symbol A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 327.8 million; Market cap: $13.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.2; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.agilent.com) makes testing equipment for medical research labs.

In November 2015, the company paid $242 million for Seahorse Bioscience. This firm makes equipment that lab researchers use to measure cellular response to new drugs. That helps pharmaceutical firms develop new treatments for cancer and infectious diseases.

The company also enhanced its product line by purchasing Cartagenia, a Belgian firm that makes software for Agilent’s medical-testing equipment. It paid $60 million euros for this business.

Excluding integration costs and other unusual items, Agilent earned $153 million, or $0.46 a share, in its fiscal 2016 first quarter, which ended January 31, 2016. That’s up 10.1% from $139 million, or $0.41 a share, a year earlier.

Revenue was flat at $1.03 billion. Agilent gets 65% of its revenue from outside the U.S. If you exclude the negative impact of the high U.S. dollar, as well as businesses it recently bought and sold, its overall sales rose 6%.

Agilent also fuels its growth with new products; it continues to earmark around 8% of its revenue to research.

Agilent’s sound balance sheet will continue to support its growth plans: its long-term debt of $1.65 billion is a moderate 13% of its market cap. It also holds cash of $1.9 billion, or $5.80 a share.

The company recently increased its dividend by 15.0%. The new annual rate of $0.46 yields 1.2%. It also plans to buy back up to $1.04 billion of its shares by November 2018.

Agilent will probably earn $1.86 a share for all of fiscal 2016, and the stock trades at a still reasonable 22.0 times that estimate.

Agilent is a buy.

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