Stryker hikes dividend by 9.6%

Stryker Corp (SYK) will raise its quarterly dividend by 9.6 percent to 63 cents per share in 2020. This comes after a 10.6 percent to $0.575 per share in 2019. The medical technology company has now increased its dividend for 25 straight years.

The next dividend is payable January 29, 2021 to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 31, 2020. A new annualized dividend rate of  $2.52 per share yields 1.1% at a stock price of $234.78.

From the company's press release dated December 2, announcing this new dividend hike: “We continue to drive solid financial results in a challenging environment, and consistent with our stated capital allocation philosophy, are raising our dividend 9.6%," said Kevin Lobo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. 

Stryker Corporation has raised its dividend 25 consecutive years and is a candidate to be added to the S&P500 Dividend Aristocrats. This year new Dividend Aristocrat Ross Stores was deleted from the index following a dividend suspension. Ross had also raised the dividend 25 years before being added to the Aristocrats Index in 2020.

Stryker Corporation is a medical technology company. The company offers products and services in Orthopaedics, Medical and Surgical, and Neurotechnology and Spine. Stryker's products include  implants used in hip and knee joint replacements and trauma and extremities surgeries,  surgical equipment and navigation systems, endoscopic and communications systems, patient handling, emergency medical equipment and intensive care disposable products and neurosurgical, neurovascular, and spinal implant devices. Stryker was incorporated in Michigan in 1946 as the successor company to a business founded in 1941 by Dr. Homer H. Stryker, a prominent orthopaedic surgeon and the inventor of several medical products.