Stryker Gives 2012 Guidance

It’s a fairly quiet morning on Wall Street. The major indexes are down but only slightly.

I’m happy to see DirecTV ($DTV) up about 3% thanks to an upgrade from Bernstein. The firm now rates DTV as “outperform” and they raised their target price from $48 to $52. The stock is currently at $44.

Hudson City ($HCBK) is pulling back some today but that’s after its big day yesterday.

Stryker ($SYK) won’t report its Q4 earnings until January 24th, but yesterday the company released some early details. The company said that quarterly sales rose by 11% to $2.2 billion.

Stryker also narrowed its full-year forecast from $3.70 – $3.74 per share to $3.72 – $3.74 per share. Remember that for much of last year, Stryker said that they would earn between $3.65 and $3.73 per share, so they were certainly on track.

The company isn’t hiding much here since we already know that they earned $2.70 per share for the first three quarters. That means they expect to report between $1.02 and $1.04 for Q4.

For 2012, the company said that it expects “double digit” earnings growth over 2011. If we assume that means 10% on the nose and we take the midpoint of their range, $3.73 per share, as our guide, that gives us 2012 earnings of $4.10 per share. Wall Street had been expecting $4.11 per share but this can hardly be called lower guidance.

Also, last month Stryker raised their dividend by 18%.

Posted by on January 11th, 2012 at 11:40 am


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

Tickers: