FW: IBD Market Prep: August 18, 2008 issue

Dutch biotech Qiagen (QGEN) has notched some heavy-volume price gains in recent days. It as noted in the Market Pulse graphic, which accompanies Monday's Big Picture column, as a leader up in heavy volume. The company makes DNA testing kits.

• It's from the Medical-Biomed/Biotech group, which is ranked No. 6 among IBD's 197 industry groups. Medical is the best performing sector among the 33 sectors that IBD tracks.
• Qiagen is a mid-cap, with a market capitalization of about $4 billion. It trades just about 1 million shares a day.
• Its Composite Rating is 98. That indicates an excellent combination of fundamental strength, like earnings and sales growth, and price performance better than the general market.
• Sales growth the past four quarters has been outstanding, consistently above 50%.
• Earnings growth appears to be catching up. You want to see both sales AND earnings growth at a level of 25% or higher, and the biggest winners have growth that's much higher. But Qiagen's earnings are beginning to reach that 25% level.
• Return on equity, at 11% is a bit lower than ideal. You'd like to see ROE of at least 17%.
• The stock's Accumulation/Distribution Rating is A. That indicates more buying than selling over the past 13 weeks.

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