3M Profile

3M Corp. (MMM) is next for the profiles.

Price/Book: 4.35
PE: 14.17
Price/Sales: 1.77
Price/Cash Flow: 10.01
Free Cash Flow Yield: 6.64%

Quick Ratio: 1.05
Current Ratio: 1.83
Financial Leverage: 2.50
LT Debt to Equity: 52.25%
Total Debt to Equity: 61.97

Return on Assets: 12.29%
Return on Equity: 30.71%
ROIC: 22.11%

Gross Margin: 51.79%
Operating Margin: 20.32%
Net Margin: 12.51%

Profitability: C+. I sort of set the range for the letter grades on this with the first 2 profiles. 3M is right in between.

Financial Status: B-. There's a good bit of debt on the books, though not overwhelming. There's also a good bit of cash here.

Value: C-. It's a bit expensive, particularly the P/B.

Well, basically 3M falls right in between our first 2 profiles, GOOG and WMT in each category. However, it seems to be the best buy of the 3, though only marginally so. I still don't think we've found a qualifier for the index, but we're getting closer.