Topic: Growth Stocks

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, December 18, 2015

Article Excerpt

PLEASE NOTE: This is our last Hotline for 2015. Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, January 8, 2016. 3M COMPANY, $146.92, New York symbol MMM, makes over 55,000 consumer and industrial goods, including Post-It notes, Scotch tape, Scotch-Brite cleaning products, Scotchguard fabric protection and Thinsulate insulation. Slowing sales of TV sets, smartphones and tablet computers are hurting demand for 3M’s films, adhesives and coatings. At the same time, weak demand for industrial machinery is cutting sales of its other products, like abrasives. As a result, the company now expects to earn $7.55 a share for all of 2015, down from its earlier forecast of $7.60 to $7.65. For next year, 3M expects its sales to rise 1% to 3% (excluding acquisitions and currency rates), to around $32.5 billion. Earnings should also improve, to $8.10 to $8.45 a share. Share repurchases—and the resulting cut to the number of shares outstanding—will account for $0.25 to $0.35 of that increase. The stock trades at 17.8…