Danaher's Solid Growth Continues

Eddy Elfenbein submits: I'm surprised more people don't know about Danaher (DHR), especially considering how many people pay 2/20 to hedge fund managers who don't have a prayer of beating DHR.

Earnings will come out next week. The company has already given us a range of 75 to 77 cents a share, which probably means 77 or 78 cents a share.

For last year's first quarter, Danaher made 66 cents a share, so were talking about pretty good earnings growth. S&P just reported that earnings growth for the S&P 500 officially came in below 10% for fourth quarter, the first time that's happened in 18 quarters.

Here's a chart of Danaher (blue line is price, black is EPS and red is the forecast):

The right and left axes are scaled at 20-to-1, so when the lines cross, the stock has a P/E ratio of 20.