Stryker Corporation's (NYSE:SYK) periodic dividend will be increasing on the 30th of January to $0.88, with investors receiving 4.8% more than last year's $0.84. Even though the dividend went up, the yield is still quite low at only 0.9%.
It would be nice for the yield to be higher, but we should also check if higher levels of dividend payment would be sustainable. The last dividend was quite easily covered by Stryker's earnings. This indicates that a lot of the earnings are being reinvested into the business, with the aim of fueling growth.
The next year is set to see EPS grow by 96.3%. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we think the payout ratio could be 25% by next year, which is in a pretty sustainable range.
View our latest analysis for Stryker
The company has been paying a dividend for a long time, and it has been quite stable which gives us confidence in the future dividend potential. Since 2015, the dividend has gone from $1.38 total annually to $3.36. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 9.3% a year over that time. The growth of the dividend has been pretty reliable, so we think this can offer investors some nice additional income in their portfolio.
The company's investors will be pleased to have been receiving dividend income for some time. We are encouraged to see that Stryker has grown earnings per share at 10% per year over the past five years. The company is paying a reasonable amount of earnings to shareholders, and is growing earnings at a decent rate so we think it could be a decent dividend stock.
Overall, we think this could be an attractive income stock, and it is only getting better by paying a higher dividend this year. Earnings are easily covering distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock.
Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For instance, we've picked out 3 warning signs for Stryker that investors should take into consideration. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers.
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