Subject: Re: Mungofitch: Healthcare Ideas
Jim’s initial post on the subject I believe was:
Mungofitch A simple industry screen 9/1/2020
“””As has been noted here from time to time, some industries are just plain better long run performers than others.
They have better economic characteristics. Retail will probably forever be a dud on average, and beer will probably stick around.

A random post from 2012, for example, mentions medical devices, among others, as a good long run bet.
https://boards.fool.com/jeremy......

Medical devices have remained a long term good bet.
I still use the Value Line database, so I`ll use their 100-industry classification.

In mid 2011, Value Line split their medical supplies industry ("MEDSUPPL" or 8060) in two, invasive ("MEDICINV" or 8060) and non-invasive ("MEDICNON", not sure the number).

From 2011 to August this year, an equally weighted portfolio of those two industries has beat the S&P 500 by a quite remarkable 4.7%/year before friction.
It beat the S&P in all of the individual calendar years 2012-2019, and year to date.
That`s an average of just under 60 stocks, close to half in each industry.

If you stick to the 20 stocks with the highest sales growth, it gets better.
The rate of sales growth changes quite slowly, and industry changes almost not at all, so the turnover is negligible.
I used the sum of the 1-year and 5-year annualized rates of growth of sales per share, though using just the 5-year rate gives essentially identical results.
This beat the S&P 500 by 10.0%/year, after 0.4% friction, 1997 to July 2020.
Returns are almost indistinguishable trading every 1, 2, 3, or 4 months, though 2 looks nicest by a hair.
It beat the S&P in all but two calendar years since 2000, including year to date: 2006 and 2008.
It gave a positive return in all but two years since 1997: 1999 and 2008, so only 2008 was both negative and underperforming this century, about 6% worse than the S&P.

Even though it`s possible for something to change the economic characteristics of an industry, there`s something to be said for "simple".

Jim”””