Ardevora's Lang: Why healthcare is not necessarily a 'safe' sector

Growth becoming harder to achieve

The UK stockmarket is an oblique window on the world. It contains many of the world's largest mining companies and a few of the largest oil producers.

There are companies selling booze and cigarettes, cough medicine and treatments for asthma. And in the undergrowth, only marginally influencing the path of the FTSE 100, are businesses buffeted by the domestic UK economy. In the current environment, most companies are finding it harder to grow, making normal management behaviour risky. In our view, a fast growing company can miss growth targets and allow costs to run ahead of new sales.  Unpicking the risk/reward in healthcare stocks A slow growth company can be too slow to recognise disappointing sales or pricing is not fleetin...