Is Boston Scientific (BSX) The Best Medical Devices Stock?

Artisan Mid Cap Fund recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. The fund posted a return of -11.55% for the quarter (investor class), outperforming their benchmark, the Russell Midcap Index which returned -27.07% in the same quarter. You should check out Artisan Mid Cap Fund’s top 5 stock picks which helped them beat the market by nearly 16 percentage points. There weren’t a lot of funds who could deliver these kinds of returns without shorting the market or using aggressive put options.

In the said letter, Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted a few stocks and Boston Scientific Corp (NYSE:BSX) is one of them. Boston Scientific is a manufacturer of medical devices that are used in interventional medical specialties. Year-to-date, BSX stock lost 17.1% and on May 11th it had a closing price of $37.78. Its market cap is of $52.62 billion. Here is what Artisan Mid Cap Fund said:

“Boston Scientific is a leading global developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices used in minimally invasive procedures across three segments—cardiovascular, cardiac rhythm and neuromodulation, and medsurg. Boston Scientific struggled for many years as stents and pacemakers—its legacy markets—matured. A new leadership team took the helm in 2011 and re-energized the organization with a performance-oriented culture. Since this leadership transition and throughout our investment campaign, which began in mid-2015, the company has made significant R&D investments and complementary acquisitions focused on highergrowth categories—structural heart, urology and gynecology, minimally invasive surgery, peripheral intervention—and diversifying its business. Furthermore, the company has expanded its geographic footprint into Europe and China. These efforts have driven impressive margin expansion progress and accelerated the top line toward highsingle digit growth. However, with the postponement of elective surgeries in many hospitals both in the US and around the globe, and with its market cap exceeding our mid-cap mandate, we began harvesting our position early in the quarter.”

In Q4 2019, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on BSX stock increased by about 4% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don’t seem to agree with BSX’s potential concerns.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.