Becton Dickinson & Co.'s (BDX) fiscal third-quarter income rose 15%, but the quarterly performance was overshadowed on Thursday by an early view for the coming fiscal year that implied softer-than-expected earnings.

The medical-products maker raised its earnings target for the current fiscal year after topping Wall Street's forecast for the recent quarter. Earnings this year are being helped by currency-hedging gains that won't recur, however, and the company announced on a conference call a preliminary fiscal 2010 forecast for about 7% earnings growth from a 2009 base that doesn't include that hedging benefit.

Viewed another way, JPMorgan analyst Michael Weinstein calculated that the midpoint of this year's guidance implies earnings next year will be about 8% below the current Wall Street consensus.

"BD turned a good quarter into a lousy call this morning," Weinstein said.

Credit Suisse analyst Kristen Stewart downgraded Becton to neutral from outperform following the conference call, saying the stock should trade more in line, if not at a discount, to other medical suppliers and device companies.

Shares of the Franklin Lakes, N.J., company tumbled following discussions about the outlook and hedging gains during the earnings call Thursday, and despite the third-quarter results. Becton recently traded down 7.3% to $68.27 after slipping 10.7% earlier.

Becton President Vincent A. Forlenza said on the call that the company strongly believes it's well positioned for long-term sales growth in a 7% to 9% range and earnings growth in a 10% to 12% range as the global economy recovers. The company's Biosciences business, which makes systems used in laboratories and for drug discovery, has been pinched by the economic slowdown.

For the recent quarter ended June 30, Becton posted income of $341 million, or $1.39 a share, up from $297.1 million, or $1.18 a share, a year earlier. The latest results included a net gain of 9 cents a share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.24.

Revenue decreased 1.6% to $1.82 billion, but was ahead of analyst expectations and would have risen about 5% excluding the negative impact of currency rates. Gross margin rose to 52.8% from 51%.

Among Becton's business units, Biosences sales slipped 4%, or 1% excluding currency. Constraints on funding continued to dampen demand for instruments in the U.S., and some weakening in Japan and Europe started to emerge in the quarter, officials said.

But the company's Medical and Diagnostics businesses fared well in the quarter, according to Forlenza. Medical sales slipped 3% but were up 5% excluding currency, due in part to sales for insulin-delivery products. Diagnostics sales rose 2%, or 8% excluding currency, behind sales of several products including infectious-disease testing systems.

The company boosted full-year earnings guidance to a range of $4.92 to $4.96 a share, with that outlook including the approximate 28-cent gain from a program that involved purchasing forward contracts to hedge foreign currency risks.

The company based its preliminary fiscal 2010 earnings-growth view on a forecast of $4.64 to $4.68 per share for the current year because they don't expect the hedging gain to repeat next year.

-By Jon Kamp, Dow Jones Newswires; 617-654-6728; jon.kamp@dowjones.com

(Kerry Grace Benn contributed to this report.)