3M: Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Industrial giant 3M's (NYSE: MMM) 6.4% dividend yield is eye-catching and will likely have tempted some income-seeking investors into the shares lately. That's fair enough, but is 3M a stock that most investors might want to buy considering all of its current challenges? Here's the lowdown.
The company's high-profile legal issues have been well-documented, but they shouldn't keep investors from identifying the underlying issues around the company. I'm talking about management's efforts to try to turn around its long-term profit margin decline.
I'm highlighting gross profit margin and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margins to demonstrate two issues with the company. First, gross margins (a helpful indicator of how much pricing power a company has) have declined, indicating the company's competitive position has declined overall. Second, EBITDA margin has fallen too, suggesting the company's productivity isn't what it once was.
Source Fool.com
