Stryker Grew Like Integer. Why Did Its Stock Lag?
Two health care equipment companies expanded their sales at roughly the same rate over the last three years. Yet their stock charts diverged sharply over the five years to October 2026. One stock rose 41.9%, while the other climbed 16.6%. The laggard in this pairing is Stryker (SYK), and the outperformer is Integer (ITGR). So where did the gap come from: faster sales, bigger profits, or investors paying more for each dollar of profit?
Who Has Beaten Stryker Over Five Years?
Stryker has hardly disappointed its shareholders. Over the five years to October 2026, its stock beat 79.6% of the 49 companies in its industry. That reflects solid performance alongside a 12.4% drop for the median stock in that same industry. However, another business managed to pull ahead despite a comparable growth trajectory: Integer.
| Company | Sales growth, 3-year average | P/E | 1-year | 3-year | 5-year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stryker (SYK) | 9.9% | 30.3x | -19.3% | 12.9% | 16.6% |
| Integer (ITGR) | 8.4% | 33.6x | 22.9% | 64.8% | 41.9% |
Stock price change to 2026-10-16, excluding dividends. Companies in Health Care Equipment whose sales grew within 4 points of SYK’s. P/E: latest close over the last four quarters’ earnings per share.
Integer finished the period a full 25.3 points ahead of Stryker. Outperforming most of the industry is generally a win, but Stryker shareholders still ended those five years trailing far behind a peer expanding at their own company’s pace.
Did Integer Grow Faster Than Stryker?
The answer is no over the last three years, and only slightly over five. Stryker expanded its sales by an average of 9.9% a year over the last three years, compared to 8.4% for Integer. Both maintained about the same pace, though Stryker stayed slightly ahead. Over a longer timeline between 2021 and 2026, revenue at Integer—a medical device outsource manufacturer that builds components like pacemakers and batteries for OEMs—rose 66.5%, while Stryker recorded a 59.0% increase. That small discrepancy in revenue does not explain the wide divergence between the two stocks
Where Did The Gap Come From?
The underlying business metrics do not explain the divergence. Between 2021 and 2026, Stryker saw its earnings per share rise 76.7%, compared to a 24.9% increase for Integer. Profitability metrics show a similar dynamic. Stryker widened its operating margin by 3.9 points, while Integer narrowed its own margin by 2.0 points.
The real difference lies in valuation multiples. Since mid-2021, Stryker’s earnings multiple compressed from 47.0 times down to 30.3 times today, even as Integer’s multiple held steady (rising slightly from 32.1 times to 33.6 times). Although Stryker grew its earnings per share much faster than Integer over this multi-year period, significant multiple contraction prevented those operational gains from translating into equivalent stock performance.
Operational growth continued steadily at Stryker. Its larger segment, MedSurg and Neurotechnology, grew 15.7% in fiscal 2025, compared to a 4.3% expansion for Orthopaedics. The company also has costs to absorb. Management noted on the fiscal Q2 2026 call that a cybersecurity incident temporarily shut manufacturing down. That disruption left Stryker with idle costs to recover, and the company will continue spending money on remediation through the year.
What To Watch In Stryker’s Next Report
Management directly addressed this shifting multiple during the July 30, 2026 call. Highlighting Stryker’s cash flow alongside “recent valuation compression across the medtech sector,” executives announced plans to resume share repurchases that quarter. This decision ends a buyback pause that lasted about six years.
Following the company’s next quarterly report, the essential figure to watch is what investors are willing to pay for each dollar of Stryker’s profit, expressed through its price-to-earnings multiple.
How To Act On SYK?
Not necessarily on Stryker alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here is one company from Stryker’s own industry that has beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, Integer stock rose 41.9%, while Stryker stock rose 16.6%.
Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.