Medtronic is a medical technology, services and solutions company. Co.'s operating and reportable segments are as follows: Cardiovascular Portfolio, which is made up of the cardiac rhythm and heart failure, structural heart and aortic, and coronary and peripheral vascular divisions; Medical Surgical Portfolio, which is made up of the surgical innovations and respiratory, gastrointestinal, and renal divisions; Neuroscience Portfolio is made up of the cranial and spinal technologies, specialty therapies, and neuromodulation divisions; and Diabetes Operating Unit, which develops, manufactures, and markets products and services for the management of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
When researching a stock like Medtronic, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from MDT Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for MDT stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of these ways is called the Relative Strength Index, or RSI. This popular indicator, originally developed in the 1970's by J. Welles Wilder, looks at a 14-day moving average of a stock's gains on its up days, versus its losses on its down days. The resulting MDT RSI is a value that measures momentum, oscillating between "oversold" and "overbought" on a scale of zero to 100. A reading below 30 is viewed to be oversold, which a bullish investor could look to as a sign that the selling is in the process of exhausting itself, and look for entry point opportunities. A reading above 70 is viewed to be overbought, which could indicate that a rally in progress is starting to get crowded with buyers. If the rally has been a long one, that could be a sign that a pullback is overdue. |