What is Considered a Good Stock Dividend? 2 Healthcare Stocks That Fit the Bill.

2 hours ago 3

Matt DiLallo, The Motley Fool

Sun, February 8, 2026 astatine 11:29 AM CST 4 min read

Investors volition often statement what makes a bully dividend stock. For some, it's each astir the dividend yield. Others item a company's dividend maturation way record.

The information suggests the saccharine spot is close successful the middle. Over the past 50 years, S&P 500 companies that accrued their dividends delivered a 10.2% mean yearly return, portion those with nary alteration successful their dividend argumentation (often higher-yielding stocks) returned 6.8% annually, according to information from Ned Davis Research and Hartford Funds. The information besides indicated that companies with higher dividend payout ratios (typically those with higher yields) outperformed the marketplace much often than their stingier counterparts.

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Here are a mates of healthcare stocks that present some output and dividend growth.

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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) presently has a dividend output of 2.2%. That's astir treble the S&P 500's dividend output of 1.2%. The healthcare elephantine besides has a terrific grounds of expanding its dividend. Johnson & Johnson extended its maturation streak to 63 consecutive years successful 2025 erstwhile it raised its payout by different 4.8%. That qualifies it arsenic a Dividend King, a institution with 50 oregon much years of consecutive yearly dividend increases.

The institution backs its dividend with 1 of the healthiest fiscal profiles successful the world. Johnson & Johnson has a pristine AAA enslaved rating, 1 of lone 2 companies with a cleanable recognition rating. The institution besides generates important currency flows. It produced $20 cardinal successful escaped currency travel past year, easy covering its $12.4 cardinal successful dividends.

Johnson & Johnson's beardown fiscal illustration enables it to put heavy successful its growth. It invested $14.7 cardinal successful probe and improvement (R&D) past year. It besides closed its landmark $14.6 cardinal acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies to solidify its neuroscience enactment and $3.1 cardinal woody for Halda Therapeutics to revolutionize crab treatment. These investments presumption the institution to proceed increasing its net and dividends astatine steadfast rates.

Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) has a 2.8% dividend yield. The aesculapian exertion institution delivered its 48th consecutive yearly dividend summation past year.

The institution besides has a steadfast fiscal profile. It generated $5.2 cardinal successful escaped currency travel during its 2025 fiscal year, easy covering the $3.6 cardinal successful dividends it paid out. The medtech institution besides has a beardown A-rated equilibrium sheet.