Amgen Back To Doldrums (AMGN)

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) has posted some very highly anticipated and uninteresting earnings.  The biotech giant reported $0.98 EPS net and $1.08 non-GAAP EPS on $3.31 billion in revenue, while Thomson Reuters had estimates of $1.15 in non-GAAP EPS and $3.63 billion in revenue.

Amgen is also trimming its forecast for 2009 to $4.55 to $4.75 non-GAAP EPS and $14.4 billion to $14.8 billion in revenues.  Thomson Reuters estimates were $4.62 EPS and $14.9 billion in revenue for 2009.  Unfortunately, this represents a drop from $15.003 billion in revenue from 2008.

The good news is that the net income was more than $1 billion for the quarter. Amgen also ended the quarter with $10.4 billion in cash and short-term instruments.  The bad news is that there is no top-line growth.  We have argued that Amgen is really just a drug stock stock that masquerades as a biotech stock.  That is looking more and more the case today.

Shares of the biotech compnay traded up almost 4% at $46.82 today, but they are trading at $45.50 or so in the after-hours reaction.

With a 52-week trading range of $41.55 to $66.51, we aren’t ready to damn the company here because of its value proposition with $10 billion in cash and a forward earnings multiple of right around 10-times earnings.  But with no growth, we can’t get excited either.  We’d treat this as a coin toss now.

JON C. OGG