Chemed trades at $473.22 per share and has stayed right on track with the overall market, gaining 6.4% over the last six months. At the same time, the S&P 500 has returned 6%.
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Why Is Chemed Not Exciting?
We don't have much confidence in Chemed. Here are three reasons there are better opportunities than CHE and a stock we'd rather own.
1. Long-Term Revenue Growth Disappoints
A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Unfortunately, Chemed’s 4.1% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was mediocre. This fell short of our benchmark for the healthcare sector.
2. Shrinking Adjusted Operating Margin
Adjusted operating margin is one of the best measures of profitability because it tells us how much money a company takes home after subtracting all core expenses, like marketing and R&D. It also removes various one-time costs to paint a better picture of normalized profits.
Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Chemed’s adjusted operating margin decreased by 4.3 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. Its adjusted operating margin for the trailing 12 months was 13.9%.
3. New Investments Fail to Bear Fruit as ROIC Declines
ROIC, or return on invested capital, is a metric showing how much operating profit a company generates relative to the money it has raised (debt and equity).
We like to invest in businesses with high returns, but the trend in a company’s ROIC is what often surprises the market and moves the stock price. Unfortunately, Chemed’s ROIC has decreased over the last few years. We like what management has done in the past, but its declining returns are perhaps a symptom of fewer profitable growth opportunities.
Final Judgment
Chemed isn’t a terrible business, but it doesn’t pass our quality test. That said, the stock currently trades at 18.9× forward P/E (or $473.22 per share). While this valuation is fair, the upside isn’t great compared to the potential downside. We're fairly confident there are better stocks to buy right now. We’d suggest looking at the most entrenched endpoint security platform on the market.
Stocks We Would Buy Instead of Chemed
The market’s up big this year - but there’s a catch. Just 4 stocks account for half the S&P 500’s entire gain. That kind of concentration makes investors nervous, and for good reason. While everyone piles into the same crowded names, smart investors are hunting quality where no one’s looking - and paying a fraction of the price. Check out the high-quality names we’ve flagged in our Top 5 Strong Momentum Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 244% over the last five years (as of June 30, 2025).
Stocks that have made our list include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.