Easy Money Investing

Combine health care and waste disposal, and you’ve got two indispensable services that are attractive to long-term investors.

You can put Stericycle () in that category.

Hospitals and other health care providers contract the company to handle medical waste and make sure they comply with complex public-safety rules.

Stericycle also has a growth side: It’s made more than 100 acquisitions since 1993. Today, it’s about 15 times the size of its nearest rival.

Last week, the company beat earnings expectations, reporting an 18% increase in quarterly profit. That’s on track with its 18% five-year EPS growth rate. Analyst estimates for the next few quarters are also in line with that long-term growth.

Stericycle has an EPS Stability Rating of 3, on a scale of 1 to 99.

Sales grew 21% for the latest period. In the prior four quarters, sales growth ranged from 17% to 21%.

William Blair & Co. analyst Ryan Daniels lauded Stericycle’s steady performance.

“The consistency of the company’s business model creates an impressive and durable business franchise, and we believe these results again highlight the consistency of the Stericycle model,” he wrote in a note to clients quoted by the Associated Press.

Slower spending in areas more sensitive to consumer sentiment, like tattoo parlors, isn’t likely to pressure Stericycle’s growth, the analyst added. That’s because many of these contracts aren’t affected by client volumes.

Stericycle’s share price is slightly below where it closed last Wednesday, the day of its earnings release.

to view an Excel spreadsheet of the screen below with expanded data.

Long-Term Investor Screen

Symbol Company Name EPS
Stability
Rating EPS
Rating Additional
Research
Ansys Inc 2 97
Covance Inc 2 89
Becton Dickinson & Co 2 79
Ametek Inc 3 92
Idexx Laboratories Inc 3 87
Northern Trust Corp 3 86
Amphenol Corp Cl A 4 94
Emerson Electric Co 4 88
Danaher Corp 4 86
Bard C R Inc 4 80
Harsco Corp 5 92
Varian Medical Systems 5 82
Hewlett-Packard Co 6 93
Questar Corp 6 90
C H Robinson Worldwide 6 90
Fastenal Co 7 92
Smith International 7 91
Blackrock Inc 8 94
Schlumberger Ltd 8 91
Google Inc 11 98
C S X Corp 11 96
Halliburton Company 11 89
General Cable Corp 12 99
Parker-Hannifin Corp 12 92
Gamestop Corp Cl A 13 95
Monsanto Co 14 97
Atwood Oceanics Inc 19 99
National Oilwell Varco 20 98

This screen excludes stocks under $25 and average daily volume less than 350,000 shares. Sorted by EPS Stability Rating and then EPS Rating. to view an Excel spreadsheet of this screen with expanded data. Your computer should have Excel 5.0 or a later version to view the spreadsheet. Data as of Monday, April 28, 2008 1:50 p.m. Pacific time.