5 Companies and Industries That Make Money During A Recession

2. Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT)

Industry: Healthcare Equipment

S&P 500 Outperformance in 2008: 33.6%

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) is a company that discovers, develops, and sells healthcare products globally. It operates through its Established Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Medical Devices segments.

An Overweight rating was reiterated on Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) shares on January 27. The analyst also placed a $125 price target on the stock.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) has a highly diversified business that helped it outperform the S&P 500 by 33.6% in 2008. The company also fared better than the benchmark in 2020, with its 9.8% beat.

Stewart Asset Management, an investment management firm, mentioned Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) in its third-quarter 2022 investor letter. Here’s what the firm said:

“We also need to point out one global consequence of the rapid rise in interest rates: an irrepressibly strong dollar. This hurts the reported earnings of U.S. companies who sell their goods and services overseas. Foreign currency earnings translate into fewer dollars and thus lower earnings. Most of the companies in your portfolios gain a notable amount of earnings from their international operations. While the strength or weakness of a currency doesn’t change the quality of a business or its longer-term earnings power, it can change the reported earnings of a company over short periods of time. It is difficult to forecast this effect accurately because many of our companies manufacture where they sell, which to some extent dulls the sharp negative effect of a surging dollar. Abbott (NYSE:ABT), among others, is a good example.”