Motley Fool: Healthy profits for Guardant Health

Guardant Health (Nasdaq: GH) gained 108% last year, enough to land a spot among the top health care stocks of 2019. Its success stemmed from rapidly growing sales of Guardant360 and GuardantOMNI – liquid biopsies that can detect cancer by identifying DNA fragments from tumor cells in the blood. In many cases, a diagnosis of cancer requires a tissue biopsy, which usually involves a surgical procedure. Liquid biopsies are easier, safer and cheaper.

Guardant Health’s addressable market for Guardant360 alone is about $6 billion in the U.S. – but its Lunar liquid biopsies, which currently are available for research use only, could open the door to an addressable market topping $45 billion annually. One focuses on cancer recurrence monitoring, the other on early detection.

As of this writing, the company is awaiting a decision that will allow expanded nationwide Medicare coverage for Guardant360 for the majority of solid tumors. That could set the stage for private insurers to approve coverage for the liquid biopsy as a pan-cancer test.

Meanwhile, Guardant also awaits approval by the Food and Drug Administration of Guardant360, which could lead to standardized reimbursement for the liquid biopsy for all Medicare beneficiaries.

Long-term investors should consider Guardant Health for their portfolios. (The Motley Fool owns shares of and has recommended Guardant Health.)

Ask the Fool

Q: Can you explain stocks’ ticker symbols? – P.D., Santa Rosa, California

A: A ticker symbol is a unique identifier for a company’s stock. On the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), tickers generally used to have three or fewer letters, while stocks trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market usually had four or five letters. That made it easy to see where companies such as Nike (NYSE: NKE), Visa (NYSE: V), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) were traded.

Today, though, NYSE stocks frequently sport four letters, while Nasdaq stocks might have three or fewer. Examples include Levi Strauss (NYSE: LEVI), Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW), Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), Hasbro (Nasdaq: HAS) and PepsiCo (Nasdaq: PEP).

Companies with several classes of shares often have multiple ticker symbols, and some tickers have meaningful suffixes attached. An F or a Y following a Nasdaq ticker, for example, indicates a foreign company. Other exchanges may use a Q to indicate that a company is in bankruptcy. Mutual fund tickers are four letters plus an X.

To find a company’s ticker symbol online, visit a website such as Fool.com and type the company name in the search box. Newspaper stock listings also usually include ticker symbols.

Q: What’s a “closing tick”? – M.B., Kansas City, Missouri

A: It reflects the overall market sentiment at the end of the trading day. An “uptick” means a stock’s last trade occurred at a price higher than the previous one, and a “downtick” is the opposite.

The closing tick is the difference between the number of stocks that closed on an uptick and the number that closed on a downtick. It’s not very useful for us long-term investors, and you needn’t pay it much attention.

My dumbest investment

My dumbest investment over the past decade is not having invested at all. I just let time go by without learning or gaining anything. – Eric, online

The Fool responds: That’s definitely regrettable, but you’re not alone. A Gallup poll last year found that only about 55% of Americans are invested in stocks.

Each year that you put off investing will cost you: Imagine, for example, that you are 40 and hope to retire in 25 years, at age 65. If you invest, say, $6,000 annually and earn an average annual return of 8%, you’ll end up with about $473,726. If you start a year later, investing $6,000 less, in total, and only having your money grow for 24 years, you’ll end up with $432,636 – about $41,000 less! That money would make a big difference in retirement; along with Social Security, it might help support you for two whole years.

Fortunately, all is not lost. You can start saving and investing right away. A simple, low-fee, broad-market index fund, such as one that tracks the S&P 500, is a great way to start. Over time, increase the amounts you invest by as much as you can afford. Be sure to only invest money you won’t need for at least five to 10 years in stocks, as the stock market is volatile. An introductory book on investing can help, too – try one by John Bogle or Peter Lynch.