Free COVID Tests: What Stocks Will Benefit?

by Fred Fuld III

By now, you have probably heard the news. President Biden has announced that the U.S. Government will be buying 500 million take-at-home COVID test kits to distribute to Americans.

You will be able to order your free COVID test kit from a website in January.

So who is making the test kits? The government hasn’t announced yet what company or companies it will be buying from, but there are several business involved in producing these kits.

For example, Abbott Labs (ABT) is one of the largest manufacturers of COVID test kits. The company produces five different antigen tests (including theBinaxNow COVID-19 Ag Card2 Home Test), three different PCR tests, three different serological tests, and one isothermal amplification test.

Becton, Dickinson (BDX), which makes several COVID tests, has a BD Veritor At-Home COVID-19 Test.

Quidel Corporation (QDEL), produces many COVID tests, has two at-home COVID tests.

Even Amazon (AMZN) is getting in on the act in partnership with SDS Lab Holdco.

The following is a list of the publicly traded stocks that produce COVID tests. Not all of these companies make an at-home test.

Abbott Labs (ABT)
Amazon (AMZN)
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX)
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (BIO)
Bruker Corporation (BRKR)
Co-Diagnostics, Inc. (CODX)
Eli Lilly and Company (LLY)
PerkinElmer, Inc. (PKI)
Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LH)
LumiraDx Limited (LMDX)
Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Holdings plc (OCDX)
QIAGEN N.V. (QGEN)
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (DGX)
Quidel Corporation (QDEL)
Roche Holding AG (RHHBY)
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (TMO)

Hoping that you and your portfolio stay healthy.

 

Disclosure: Author is long AMZN.

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Third Week of January

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called ‘Buying Dividends,’ also commonly referred to as ‘Dividend Capture.’ This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets, and can work in flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the technique during bear markets.

In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can’t sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks.

WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, the quarterly dividend amount, and annual yield.

Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT) 1/18/2017 0.77 3.3%
General Dynamics (GD) 1/18/2017 0.76 1.7%
PerkinElmer, Inc. (PKI) 1/18/2017 0.07 0.5%
Seaspan Corporation (SSW) 1/18/2017 0.375 13.8%
WD-40 Company (WDFC) 1/18/2017 0.49 1.6%
Zoetis Inc. (ZTS) 1/18/2017 0.105 0.7%
CVS Health (CVS) 1/20/2017 0.5 2.1%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found here at wstnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn’t show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WStNN.com. Most of the lists are free.

Dividend definitions:

Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List

Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Book now available: Buying Dividends Revised and Expanded

Book now available: Stock Market Trivia Makes a Great Gift!
Don’t forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.