JNJ
The boring stock that won’t stay boring
Johnson & Johnson is doing that annoying thing old-school blue chips sometimes do: acting like the market’s on mute while the S&P 500 keeps tripping over its own shoelaces. The stock is up 11% year-to-date, and the company just logged a quarter that looked more like a victory lap than a soft patch.
The big headline for investors is pretty simple: Leerink Partners upgraded JNJ to Outperform on May 13th and slapped a $265 price target on it. That’s not exactly a moonshot call, but it does say Wall Street still sees room for the stock to grind higher even after the run it’s already had.
Why the bulls are sticking around
JNJ’s appeal is basically the corporate equivalent of a well-built treadmill: not flashy, but hard to break. The company posted $24.1 billion in Q1 sales, beat expectations, and said full-year revenue should land around $100.8 billion — the first time it’s crossed the $100 billion mark.
The bullish case is built on a few familiar pillars:
- Innovative Medicine keeps growing like a drug-powered freight train
- MedTech is still doing its reliable, less-sexy thing
- The dividend has been around so long it has its own retirement account
- Analysts keep treating JNJ like a “sleep well at night” name, even with patent pressure and a mountain of lawsuits hanging around
The catch, because there’s always a catch
JNJ isn’t exactly a drama-free yoga brand. It’s still dealing with thousands of pending lawsuits, and the article also points to the company’s plan to spin off Ortho in 2027. So yes, the stock has momentum — but it’s also carrying some very non-blue-chip baggage.
Big picture: JNJ is looking like one of those rare mega-caps that can be both sleepy and interesting at the same time. That’s a handy combo if you like your portfolio with a side of dividends and a lot less chaos.