West Pharmaceutical Services is a manufacturer in the design and production of integrated containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products. Co.'s business operations are organized into two reportable segments: Proprietary Products, which provides proprietary packaging, containment and drug delivery products, along with analytical lab services and other integrated services and solutions, mainly to biologic, generic and pharmaceutical drug customers; and Contract-Manufactured Products, which serves as an integrated business, focused on the design, manufacture, and automated assembly of devices, mainly for pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device customers.
When researching a stock like West Pharmaceutical Services, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from WST Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for WST stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of those ways is to calculate a Simpe Moving Average ("SMA") by looking back a certain number of days. One of the most popular "longer look-backs" is the WST 200 day moving average ("WST 200 DMA"), while one of the most popular "shorter look-backs" is the WST 50 day moving average ("WST 50 DMA"). A chart showing both of these popular moving averages is shown on this page for West Pharmaceutical Services. Comparing two moving averages against each other can be a useful visualization tool: by calculating the difference between the WST 200 DMA and the WST 50 DMA, we get a moving average convergence divergence indicator ("WST MACD"). The WST MACD chart, in conjunction with the chart of the moving averages, basically helps in visualizing how the moving averages are showing convergence (moving closer together), or divergence (moving farther apart). |