5 Best Dividend Champions to Buy Now

3. Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65
Dividend Yield: 1.33%
Consecutive Years of Dividend Growth: 49

Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX) is a healthcare company manufacturing and selling medical supplies, devices, lab equipment, and diagnostic products across the globe. The company ranks 3rd on our list of the best dividend champions to buy now.

This May, Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX) was initiated with an Equal Weight rating and a $270 price target at Barclays. Analyst Travis Steed seemed optimistic on the medical devices sector, saying that we could be seeing more outperformance when it came to medical technology stocks in the coming few years. Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX) is also benefitting from higher demand for its products in light of vaccination campaigns, as witnessed by its receipt of an order for 2 billion injection devices this June.

In the fiscal second quarter of 2021, Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX) had an EPS of $3.19, beating estimates by $0.15. The company’s revenue was $4.91 billion, up 15.58% year over year and beating estimates by $27.48 million. Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX) has a gross profit margin of 47.32% as well.

By the end of the first quarter of 2021, 65 hedge funds out of the 866 tracked by Insider Monkey held stakes in Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE: BDX). The total value of their stakes was roughly $3.73 billion. This is compared to 65 hedge funds in the previous quarter with a total stake value of approximately $3.96 billion.