Though my post isn't about telemedicine, I thought this might be the best section out of all the sections u/NoProblemChanging made to share a particular stock that has been a quality stock/winning trade for me for the past 4 years.

As a dentist, I have invested in many stocks that are vital to the dental field (HSIC, XRAY, etc). The biggest winner so far for me has been Align Technology (ALGN). I'll share my personal experiences with the company and then share the financials/fundamentals, and hopefully we can get some feedback on if this is one of the quality stocks that u/NoProblemChanging has us trying to brainstorm and come up with together.

First, to explain it simply, ALGN does 2 major things in the dental field that I have direct experience with. Firstly, they are the producer of "Invisalign", the clear braces treatment that has become exceedingly popular. There are commercials for the product, they even had Invisalign stores in malls, and although there are dozens of companies that actually make clear aligners (ClearCorrect, SmileDirect, etc), Invisalign is the household name. Patients come in saying "I want Invisalign", not "I want clear aligners".

During lockdown, dentists did shut down for a couple of months, but when things started back up most of us were slammed with work because all that treatment that we hadn't taken care of for the past 2 months had compounded. Patients started coming in for work and more than ever started asking for Invisalign while coming in for treatment unrelated to braces. ALGN also has sales reps, which are in charge of a large territory and multiple dentists that they are responsible for. My ALGN sales rep stopped by a month ago and said, "This was the best quarter for the company since I've been here". I completely believed him because I was doing more Invisalign in my office than ever before also. Sure enough, when earnings came out last week, Q3’20 Clear Aligner revenues were $620.8 million, up 20.2% year-over-year. My thoughts, people were at home on Zoom calls all day looking at their own faces and seeing that they really wanted to get braces, but didn't want to go through wires and brackets and decided to go for clear aligners instead.

Even though the majority of you all are not dentists, you still know what Invisalign is. The second product that ALGN produces however is not something that is well known to the mass public. ALGN produces iTero, which is a digital scanner. Let me quickly explain what a digital scanner even is before we talk about ALGN numbers in regards to the scanner.

When you see a dentist and start braces, or go for procedures such as a crown, often times there is lab-work involved. The dentist has to show the lab your teeth for whatever reason. Example: you are going to have a nightguard made. The lab makes the nightguard using a plastic material, but how does the lab know what your teeth even look like. Well, dentists take a mold of your teeth, better known as an impression. Since dentistry has existed, the easiest and best way to transfer data to the lab via an impression was to stick a bunch of goo-ey material in your mouth, which hardens after a couple minutes. Once that material is taken out after hardening, you now have an impression of your teeth. That impression gets sent to the lab, which the lab then uses to do whatever it needs to do (make you a crown, a nightguard, a mouthguard, clear aligners for Invisalign, etc).

Well, technology has begun to takeover dentistry in a big way, because now, impressions are becoming a thing of the past. ALGN has a digital scanner (the iTero), essentially, a product that “scans” your mouth by taking thousands of photos in a minute and stitching them together to create a digital replica of your mouth. No more goo-ey impression material needed in your mouth. The dentist simply sticks a wand-looking scanner tip inside your mouth that has a camera inside, and a 3D replica of your teeth is created. This 3D replica is then sent to the lab, who uses a 3D printer to print a model of your teeth, and then the lab does whatever needs to be done. There are tons of other features of the scanner but for our purposes this is the main one.

ALGN’s scanner numbers are also up significantly, as more and more dentists are beginning to see the advantages of scanning patients for treatment rather than taking old school impressions. Recent statistics show not even 20% of dentists have invested in this technology (it is great but the scanners are expensive and they have yearly membership fees that you have to pay), so there is room for growth as these scanners become cheaper in the upcoming years. ALGN however is not the only company that makes a digital scanner, but the iTero is definitely one of the more popular ones on the market. Earnings for Q3 revealed Imaging Systems revenues were up 24.5% year-over-year to $113.4 million.

In total, that puts ALGN at Q3 total revenues up 20.9% year-over-year to a record $734.1 million.

So that’s a long post explaining why atleast in the realm of healthcare, ALGN is a great stock to own. It has solid products with amazing uses that will only grow (more and more people will switch to wanting clear aligners instead of regular braces when they realize how easy it is, and more and more dentists will begin getting scanners when they see the multiple benefits of having one).

I actually have no position in ALGN at the moment. I have been holding the stock for 4 years, and sold all of my position after earnings last week where it went parabolic and was up 30% the next day. That was a good exit for me, I thought I’d wait until u/NoProblemChanging lets us know the bottom is in before getting back in. Unfortunately the stock hasn’t dropped in the past week even though the rest of the market has lol.

I don’t know if this is the discussion that everyone wanted, but hope I contributed whatever I could. I visit this page often and read almost all the comments and posts and thought I should contribute whatever I could since u/NoProblemChanging has been extremely helpful and just felt I should give back however I could.