Healthcare stocks to Buy After The Pre-Halloween Sell-Off

• There were decent earnings with guidance, but geopolitics are uncertain.
• There was a broad sell-off across all sectors after a nasty week.
• A macro-driven market means we must look ahead past election chaos to 2021.

This text discusses healthcare stocks to buy for future good news and seasonality factors. If you look below at our healthcare tracking portfolio, you can see that the sell-off offered few clues as to what is next. The IBB lowered 3.43% for the week, yet outperformed many market indices, including the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ.

Going forward, we expect healthcare stocks to fare better than tech stocks in a volatile market. Our best performing portfolio YTD has been speculative smaller caps, so look to the Russell 2000 (IWM) and (IWO) for direction. If you are underweight in the healthcare sector, here are a few individual large cap dividend stocks to consider.

Keep in mind that these healthcare stocks are positioned for 2021 and may be volatile through the next few weeks, but all earnings involve risk. Valuations are on the high side and debt is high.

Abbott (ABT) Abbot Labs was up 0.11% on Friday to $105.11. There was a nice play on the coronavirus front, with $900 million present in COVID-19 testing. There is renewed upside potential (October 22 earnings beta with Q3 revenues of $8.83 billion) in medical technology cardiology. Abbott features a full year 2021 EPS guidance of $3.55.DIV 1.44%.

Abbvie (ABBV) was up 5.49% on Friday to the $85 level on a raised profit forecast, which was based on Q3 revenues of $12.3 billion. Look for cosmetic botox to increase up 8% with bets on a longer-term recovery. There is late stage pipeline opportunity for Skyrizi and Rinvoq. DIV 5.55%.

Merck (MRK) was down 0.90% on Friday to $75.10, with a higher outlook on oncology demand and a COVID-19 vaccine in the pipeline. Earnings beat expectations on October 27, KEYTRUDA sales grew 22% to $3.75 billion, and animal health rose 12% to $1.2 billion. DIV 3.24%.

Mini-Healthcare and Biotech Portfolio