Dividend.com added a medical diagnostics company to its Best Dividend Stocks list and removed a regional electric utility firm.
Once part of a major glass and ceramic materials manufacturer, our newly chosen company is one of the world’s leading providers of medical testing to doctor’s offices, hospitals, the insurance industry and employers. By being one of the go-to names for blood work and other routine tests, our pick has built an empire of steady cash flows and profits over the twenty years since its spin-off.
However, our chosen medical diagnostics company isn’t doing just tedious work. It’s also on the cutting edge. New advances in bioinformatics, genomic sequencing and oncology testing have the firm maintaining its leadership position in the sector. With personalized medicine becoming the biggest breakthrough in medicine since penicillin, our pick is at the forefront of the revolution.
With its focus on new high-tech solutions and the continued demand for more medical care – thanks in part to the graying of the world’s population – our new addition to the Best Dividend Stocks list should pursue its pace of dividend growth as revenues and cash flows rise. While it only initiated a dividend a short time ago, it has managed to increase its payout by 295% in just five years.
One of our best dividend stocks is up by more than 40% in 12 months. Read our analysis of the stock from when we added it last spring.
To summarize, here are five reasons why you should own this stock:
- Increased its dividend by over 295% since 2011.
- Serves about half of the physicians and hospitals in the U.S., and touches the lives of 30% of all American adults each year.
- Mega-winner from the trend in personalized medicine.
- Becoming increasingly global in its operations.
- Low payout ratio of 32.4% and good yield of 1.69%.
